This Week in Product – Feb. 1, 2019

Put a Framework on It



We love a good framework but are also wary of them; sometimes, they can really help you organize your ideas, but other times they can mislead. This new Product Management Framework from framework giant Gartner is comprehensive enough to be both helpful and dizzying. It’s not anything we haven’t seen before, but once it’s a Gartner framework, you know that the heat is on. More than anything, it’s another testament to how hot the product role is turning.

Good News Story

That’s some wholesome #UX by @lyftdesignteam pic.twitter.com/LJhvctZE0H

— Himanshu (@himvais) January 31, 2019

The Internet is so full of terrible stories about screen addiction, poor ethics in product development, and the dystopia we’re fast approaching, that it’s easy to overlook the ways in which tech actually makes things better. Occasionally. We loved seeing this example of how user centricity is not just about the end user, but also about the service provider.

Write It All Down

Lyft is really starring in this week’s edition because the other thing we saw and loved is this Medium post from Lyft PM Hadar Dor. Hadar muses on why he chose to join Lyft, but what this post is really about is cross-functional collaboration. His biggest piece of advice? Document, document, document. The more you capture, the easier it becomes for those in your team, and in other departments, to be clued-in.

For the Souls of PMs

In the 9th circle of hell, everyone is wearing AirPods hustling, adding value, and circling back.

— Danny Trinh (@dtrinh) January 31, 2019

Personally, I’m an AirPods fan. The thrill of that first time you take out the earbud and the podcast pauses, and you think: “Apple, you know me!” is one of the greatest tech joys of our times. But PMs, beware — we worry about the eternal health of your souls. Circle back, but don’t circle back, you know?

So Fresh and So Clean

We love the design aesthetic of recruiting platform Lever. That’s why this job is our pick this week. Also because Lever refers to itself as a product-first company, which really should be every company, but you know how it goes.