By Raj Kissy, Head of Division – Leeds
Product Management comes in many different shapes and sizes for different companies and even though there is a core skillset/mindset throughout, I genuinely believe it’s an area which is still under-valued at many technology/digital organisations. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself, I will touch on the debate around Product Management and its importance in any organisation in a future blog (that’s right, I’m on a roll!).
Here are some blogs, and maybe the odd book or two that I have read over the past 10 years, that have kept my passion for Product Management alive and taught me many new and interesting techniques to be successful as a Product Manager. I’ve found blogs to be such a useful tool to learn more about this topic, and they are a great way of seeing different perspectives, tools and techniques used in the industry.
So where do you start in an ocean of tech blogs and forums? It really can be a minefield to find good blogs from industry leaders, but hopefully here I can provide you with a list of blogs that could be useful to you, expand your knowledge, or just make for an interesting read.
To the blogs!
These are the ones that I personally found most useful and interested during my time of trawling the internet or researching about Product Management.
- SVPG – Silicon Valley Product Group – https://svpg.com
Whether you’re new to product management or already working within the field, SVPG’s blog is great to check in with on a regular basis. They post regular, interesting content and also invite guest bloggers who produce some really insightful articles relevant to us product folks from companies of all shapes and sizes.
Here are some good reads from the SVPG blog:
- https://svpg.com/behind-every-great-product/
- https://svpg.com/the-origin-of-product-discovery/ – Handy when you want to research a product or a common problem before jumping into development
- https://svpg.com/skateboards-vs-cars-revisited/ – The classic MVP Story
- https://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp
- https://svpg.com/the-most-important-thing/ – A really good read to empower your engineering team and create a culture for innovation
Hackernoon – https://hackernoon.com
Hacker Noon is one of the leading tech blogs to learn about coding, blockchain, and start-ups. It’s a great website for keeping up to date with a lot of the latest emerging technology or coding language that is new to the scene. It’s written in a really accessible way for people working in Digital to understand tech.
Ken Norton – https://www.kennorton.com
Ken Norton is a well-known expert in Product Management (probably more in the US), and recently partnered with Google Ventures following a successful career as a Product Manager for some of Google’s premier products (including Google Docs, Google Calendar, and more). He often blogs about advice for new Product Managers, how to work with software engineers and being your true self – a great insight for anyone who wants to learn more about Product Management.
Product Talk – https://www.producttalk.org
Product Talk is a blog by leading Product Coach Teresa Torres. She has coached at some of the leading product brands such as Tesco and Spotify, and worked as a Product Manager for many other companies. Her blog around “Empower Product Teams with Product Outcomes, Not Business Outcomes” is what first brought me to her blog and then I was hooked! They have been really valuable reads throughout my Agile Product Development journey so far.
Amplitude – https://amplitude.com/blog/category/perspectives
Amplitude is a product analytic tool similar to Google Analytics, but don’t worry I’m not going to sell the product to you. They have a great blog around Product Management and actually many articles geared towards tools and techniques for measuring your product. I would suggest reading this website and the accompanying articles before you launch a product or even get into the discovery, because it will give you some great ideas and examples on product metrics, and why measuring your product is so important.
Reviews
I’ve found some of these review websites really interesting and useful as well:
- https://www.productplan.com/blogs-for-product-managers/
- https://productcraft.com/perspectives/nine-product-management-blogs-to-read-in-2020/
- https://phrase.com/blog/posts/16-killer-blogs-every-product-manager-needs-follow/
I think this can be helpful as a starting point to share with you some of the fantastic material that’s out there, not only to share the love for these brilliant sites and point you towards some great content, but also to show you my inspiration for this and future blogs.
