⚡ Quality and speed, build it right! / PM Snacks 66
Obsess over quality but spoiler, it's hard! Invest beforehand by thinking through features (like Lago), address complexity and differentiate them enough. And remember, nothing beats fast execution
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1️⃣ Craft
Nov 2022 • 16 min read • #productsense
This ode to high quality software is quite long but easy to skim through, so go for it and thank me later. The author defines what quality feels like and what factor affects it, from organisational aspects to abusive use of the “MVP”/“experiment” concepts. That's where the challenge of building quality products start to creep in. The constant tension of shipping faster versus shipping better. Falling into a cycle of "Ship, then iterate" is a trap. It ends up being more shiterate (his words, not mine).
2️⃣ How we ship fast: our framework
Nov 2022 • 6 min read • #execution
In order to improve impact, Lago optimised their process to move fast. How do they manage to do it? They focus on a select set of topics and more importantly, they invest time beforehand to improve the quality:
1/ Spend time on the framing: define the usuals (problem, use cases, success measure, etc.) then go deep on the tech part (backend behaviors, graphQL features, design for each screen, etc.)
2/ Ask the engineers to dive-in and scope down accordingly
3/ Review everything: framing, scope, code and test a lot
3️⃣ Five Ways to Address Complexity In Your Product
Oct 2022 • 9 min read • #product #design
Through specific examples from Pinterest, Facebook or Eventbrite, the author gives actionable strategies to make complex products better suited for a growing diversity of users.
1/ Validate and unbundle
2/ Progressively disclose
3/ Train the users
4/ Segment user experiences
5/ Make advanced features discoverable
4️⃣ Why Everything Looks the Same
Oct 2022 • 10 min read • #design #branding
It rarely makes sense to reinvent the wheel. But now more than ever, identifying your points of differentiation is critical. Like the author argues, with the advent of no-code, AI generative algorithms, cloud computing or even drop-shipping, we are entering an unprecedented entrepreneurial era. You can be sure that your product would have a growing list of competitors from which a user could pick.
⏳ Confessions of a former Feature Factory PM
Sept 2019 • 10 min read • #execution #discovery
Most clicked link, shared one year ago in PM Snacks 50.
Any article starting with "Forgive me Marty Cagan, for I have sinned." deserves to be featured in this newsletter 😅. On top of finding good titles, the author does a great job explaining how to reconcile OKRs that measure business outcomes, with opportunity trees and a matching operational framework to experiment. Cool read!
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Thank you for reading this far.
Have a great week!
Olivier Courtois
10y+ in product, co-founder of 🥕 uku.wtf, coach & advisor
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