Brett Ede

👋 Hey product hiring managers! You may have noticed dozens of people now with a new certificate from the Alberta Product Leadership Program. If you manage or are prospectively seeking a new PM to join your team, you should know that: 1) The program is selective. You can't just sign-up. Since it's inception, the program has sought to upskill professionals that have shown their motivation for growth and desire to hone their product management craft. 2) The graduates get broader exposure to practices and industries beyond their resume. Our sessions are interactive and facilitate sharing of perspectives and ways of working across multiple organizations - from grassroots startups to FAANG giants. 3) There's more to it than training. During the course of the program, many participants gain mentorship, build a supportive peer group, and get out of their comfort zone. The program is refreshed every year by hiring managers just like you to optimize for the skills we need to hire and promote for. So if you see the APL certificate with a candidate profile, know that candidate choose to do more than your average course. #abtech #yyctech #yegtech #productmanagement

51

1 Comment

Product roadmaps shouldn't be treated like a to-do list. They're living documents that tell the story of your product's evolution and adapt with customer needs. 🌱 I learned this lesson the hard way. Early in my career, like many founders and product folks, I viewed roadmaps as rigid plans to execute against - plugging items into project management tools and checking off boxes each quarter. While this felt satisfying, this output-based approach missed the point entirely. 😬 Here’s the roadmap philosophy I live by today: The art of roadmapping isn't about the output - it's about the process. 🏗️ Or, as Winston Churchill offers, "Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential." When viewed through this lens, startup roadmaps are a tool that helps you: 🗣️ Articulate your vision clearly to different stakeholders 🎯 Prioritize work that moves you toward that vision 🛞 Adjust quickly based on customer feedback 🤝 Unite teams around shared goals For early-stage companies, I’ve found the best way to do this is to create and maintain three versions of the roadmap, each for a distinct audience: 1️⃣ Annual roadmaps for investors: Focus on major milestones and market opportunities 6-12 months out. This shows your strategic thinking and excites investors about long-term potential. 2️⃣ Quarterly roadmaps for customers: Share concrete value coming in the next 3-4 months. This builds excitement while maintaining flexibility to pivot based on feedback. 3️⃣ Internal roadmaps for teams - Break down the work into specific problems and experiments to tackle this quarter. This connects daily tasks to bigger goals (which we manage in Linear). For each version, the key is focusing on the problems you're solving rather than features you're building. This shift in mindset leads to better products, more engaged customers, and teams that understand the "why" behind their work. ❤️ The best roadmaps aren't about checking off feature boxes - they're about delivering value by aligning your team, customers, and investors around a shared vision for the future. If you’d like to dive deeper into my thoughts around this topic, I’ve written up a post on creating your first roadmaps as a startup founder on the Clarify blog. I’ll drop the link in the comments 👇

67

12 Comments

Can a Product Manager own the P&L for a product if the teams building and supporting the product don’t report to the #ProductManager? You must set people up for success if you want them to succeed. Giving a product manager the responsibility of profit and loss over a product without authority over how it is built and maintained is the opposite of setting them up for success. I had a conversation with Ruby Raley about this yesterday. I shared a story about a company I know where the CTO was charged with building a new product. He outsourced it to an IT vendor. They got it built in about 9 months. It was sold to a handful of clients. The clients started using it. The bill arrived from the cloud hosting service and it was $1.2M for the month‼️ The company was going to lose over $1M a month just to run the product. 👆🏻This is what happens when goals and incentives are misaligned and constraints are not communicated. The CTO was not involved in pricing; nor had he considered the cost of the architectural decisions made by the outsource team. I rarely see the engineering organization report into the Head of Product. And even more rarely are product managers setting pricing for the products they manage, or determining the size and quality of their design and development teams. Honestly, I am on the fence about this topic. I see so many product managers struggling with the demands of doing all the things they need to do to manage their products. Many PMs only have 3-5 years of business experience. Do they have the time, skills, training, and aptitude for managing a P&L too? Does the reporting structure support it? Will the executive team support it? I would love to hear from product managers. Do you manage your product’s #ProfitAndLoss? Do you want to?

7

8 Comments

How does a Senior Product Manager go from layoff to landing a Staff Product Manager role with a significant compensation increase? Join us as we chat with Nora Hughes, a seasoned product manager with a decade of experience in the tech industry. Nora shares her journey from being laid off in October to navigating the challenging job market. She talks about her initial struggles, including the overwhelm of job searching during the holidays, dealing with COVID-19, and the loneliness that came with it. Nora discusses how she discovered the Intentional Job Search (IJS) program and her thought process before joining. She highlights the program's structure and quality and how it helped her regain focus, prioritize effectively, and build confidence in her job search strategy. In this candid conversation, Nora also reveals her aha moments, including the value of peer interviews and the comprehensive support from the IJS community. She explains how the program's personalized coaching and strategic guidance were pivotal in helping her land a dream role as a Staff Product Manager in AI and ML at a large public company, achieving a significant pay raise and working alongside best-in-class professionals. If you're curious about how the IJS program can transform your job search and career trajectory, this video is a must-watch. Nora's story is a testament to the power of structured support and intentional effort in achieving career success. Key Moments in this Episode ======================== 00:00 - About Nora 01:00 - Challenges before IJS 02:45 - How Nora decided to join the program 07:30 - Nora's experience in IJS 17:30 - Negotiations 20:00 - Her message for you https://lnkd.in/eHEBAxpQ

33

5 Comments

I just came across this awesome example of how Shopify Inc's CEO Tobias Lütke ran a company-wide remote work experiment in 2017 that helped the company's anti-fragility when Covid-19 hit three years later. Background - Shopify is always trying to help employees stay curious, for example getting employees to use the mouse with their left hand for a day. In line with this, in 2017 Shopify closed the company’s offices for a month, requiring their then 800 employees to work from home. This was a strategic move to enhance the company’s adaptability. During that month, the company and its leaders encountered unexpected hurdles, such as interns struggling to find food without the office kitchens. This challenged the employees to get creative, for example - the kitchen staff bought and ran a food truck! Lütke explained their philosophy on building adaptability in an interview with The Motley Fool "One of the things that we've been trying to do is ... inoculate the insides of the company from the crazy changes that exist on the outside. All of us are on boats in very stormy waters in the industry today, because there's a million different micro trends that are all hitting us in the form of tidal waves at the same time." (1) Imagine how much this experiment readied Shopify's leaders for Covid - a time when they simultaneously needed to go remote and respond to a massive increase in the number of entrepreneurs needing their help? This builds on Lütke's views on the importance of "Antifragility," where a system responds to disruption not just with stability, but by getting stronger. This concept was introduced in Nassim Taleb's book of the same title, one Lütke loves and tells everyone to read (as he said in an interview with Andreessen Horowitz General Partner, Sriram Krishnan (2)). Antifragility is such an important idea for building adaptable companies that MIT teaches the concept to its entrepreneurs. Bill Aulet explains how and why the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship does this in an article by MindFrame Connect https://lnkd.in/e_vyxzg5 Enjoy! Sources 1: https://lnkd.in/ewmUkshD 2: https://lnkd.in/e6SkrH5N

10

4 Comments

Coaching. Get One. Enough said. The gap between a bright idea and successful execution can be daunting. Staying centered and on track is tough, especially when navigating the complexities of real-world challenges. At Shopify, I was fortunate to experience the power of coaching early on. Even the most skilled technical developers need support when tackling the human side of their work. This is where coaching steps in, helping bridge the gap to successful execution by revealing underlying problems, identifying ways to overcome them, and developing strategies to stay on course. While I hadn’t planned on it, I ended up pursuing my professional coaching certification with Integral Coaching Canada. Although I never aimed to make coaching a source of income, it paid off in countless ways. Leading teams, supporting coworkers, and my own personal growth have benefited tremendously from coaching’s ability to help break through challenges faster. If you don’t have a coach, find one! I highly recommend Theresa Nguyen from Clifden Consulting. Some areas I’ve personally worked on with others include: • Entrepreneurship: maintaining focus in chaos. • Learning to Say No: Respectfully setting boundaries to make space for creative thinking • Advocating in the Boardroom: Gaining confidence to effectively advocate for oneself • Managing FOMO and Burnout: Understanding the deeper reasons for pushing oneself past the limit, and finding ways to create balance. If you’re feeling stretched or stuck, a coach could be the support you need.

15

Are You Trapped in the "Get Sh*t Done" Cycle as a PM? If you're a "get-sh*t-done" product manager, I know your reality all too well. You're drowning in a relentless deluge of tactical tasks and endless fires. Meetings and minutiae are your constant companions. Meanwhile, the game-changing strategic initiatives that could propel your company and career get shelved. An afterthought amidst the mayhem. Here's the bitter truth: "Get-sh*t-done" PMs like you aren't promoted or properly rewarded. You stay underpaid, overworked, and easily replaceable. An expendable cog allowing others to rise. If that harsh reality sounds far too familiar, it's time to make a change. It's time to strategically position yourself as a product leader - both inside your company and to the external world. When you embody leadership from the inside-out, you forge an unforgettable personal brand. One that commands attention and amplifies your influence. You become the beacon others naturally gravitate towards when new teams need building, ambiguous issues need solving, or conflicts need resolving. No more saying "yes" to everything only to get buried. No more fruitlessly swinging away at people problems and organizational politics. You operate from a place of calm confidence, deftly navigating any challenge with poise. This mindset shift unlocks unshakable self-assuredness. You create the headspace for contentment, fulfillment, and joy. There's finally room to live life again - treasured family time, hobbies, new experiences (maybe even that Tesla?). And of course, respected leadership commands the financial rewards you deserve. Funding your kids' college and retirement becomes straightforward, not pipe dreams. But transformations like this don't happen through sheer grit alone. You need coaching from a world-class team armed with comprehensive frameworks. That's why I'm urging you to book a call with my team if you're ready to escape the "get sh*t done" trap for good. We'll equip you with the tools to shatter your glass ceiling and become the revered product leader you were born to become. No more getting things done. No more going underappreciated and underpaid. Just a clear path to sustainable career fulfillment as an elite product leader. If you are interested, please DM me "GSD" You already have everything you need to be an inspiring product leader - you just need the right guides to unlock your potential. If you're ready to level up, book your call now.

21

3 Comments

PMM & PM: "Look! Our active users are growing by 20%!! Wow!" Executive: "Ummmm, is that good? Or bad? How do we know?" PMM & PM: 😰 I've heard a version of this story play out in so many exec review meetings. Data is key to success in Product, but data without context - benchmarks. Is pretty useless. Even if you're excited about it good execs will challenge you on if it's truly good or may actually be concerning.  Pendo is obsessed with this problem. We want Product teams to walk into that same meeting and confidently tell the CEO that "Yes, our growth rate is 5% higher than our industry average. It's in the 90% of growth for companies like ours." To help we have two new resources both here https://bit.ly/4gb2W8h 1. An interactive tool to help you measure your performance vs industry standards. 2. Our 2024 Benchmarks report that shares the overall data across regions and industries. How do you add context to performance data like this? PS: Both are free and both are great!

47

Whether the PM serves as the CEO of the product or not—a topic ever since Ben Horowitz's "Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager"—they must fulfill their primary responsibility: ensuring the viability of their product domain. I see this unfolding in three main areas (to any PMs who disagree, tell me why I'm a dolt in the comments): 1. With internal stakeholders. From sales to customer success to marketing to the CTO, stakeholders face problems that PM collaboration, prioritization, even a quickly turned around execution can help solve for. This might sound like "feature factory, stakeholder-driven work" to some, but how Product engages internally—from aligning on and delivering on the brand promise to impacting the product experience with new value to strategizing on how to reduce friction across the greater org—affects business viability. Inexperienced PMs can struggle with supporting internal customers, as if it conflicts with their perceived job of building a great product in and of itself, yet these discussions operate within a realm of abundance that lead to alternative paths of human-centered value propositions of all shapes and sizes 2. With external human-centered needs. PMs must ensure their products serve their customers, yet this gets tricky as "customers" vary. > There are internal customers as mentioned above > External customers present as buyers controlling budgets, and their end users; in the consumer space they're one and the same > Some business models have paying customers that are separate from end users > And then there are the intangible, yet ever so real customers, such as investors Depending on the capabilities and adaptability of design and research, and how a PM might engage with them and other stakeholders, identifying and delivering high-value human needs is a high wire act of iterative investments of both discovery and execution. And while delivering a desirable user experience is important, it isn't the sole variable for reaching product-market fit and revenue streams. 3. With system needs. Our industry moves quickly towards delivering realized value, and systems accrue debt regardless. > Design systems need constant nurturing and intermittent updates. > Platform architectures need iterative shifts and code needs refactoring. > Product features often need to sunset, and certain elements reconsidered into other areas of the experience (UX). And rarely are these investments considered to be new value opportunities by the business. If the Heads of Design and Engineering can't get alignment with the Head of Product as to why their respective functions need to allot resources to such system debt, the viability of the product will begin to wane over time. This same struggle trickles down to PMs and their IC counterparts. For many reasons, the PM ≠ CEO, but good ones claim similar degrees of responsibility, and may very well lose the same amount of sleep for a fraction of the compensation.

5

4 Comments

🎙️Tonight is the night! Join Bosky and me for a deep dive into the importance of soft skills in product management. We’ll discuss how EQ can help you grow your career, enhance your products, and build better relationships. See you at 8:30 PM CET at this link 👉🏻 https://lnkd.in/e3RiyHjE

12

1 Comment

Cool-tech Callout (tm) Wanted to share a bit about Bold Metrics Inc., a company I've been fortunate to advise for the last little while (and which I was lucky to partner with for a few years before that). They're a bada** data science and product team that leverages actual data about you, they don't just ask where else you shop ... Brands love them b/c they drive $$$$$$$ (new sales and retention) - like an average 18% decrease in returns and a 232% increase in conversion. They’ve already partnered with major players like Vuori (my fave), Mizzen Main, and Columbia Sportswear to name a few. #Apparel Tech #AIRevolution They have developed transformative digital twin AI technology that revolutionizes the way we shop for clothes, making it easier and more personalized than ever before. I asked Daina Burnes, ceo of Bold Metrics for an overview and she shared a blurb if anyone interested ... Bold Metrics’ AI body data platform is a digital twin solution that assists apparel shoppers in finding their optimal size and fit, while concurrently aiding retailers and brands in boosting Average Order Value (AOV) and Conversion Rate (CVR), while decreasing returns. From just 4-6 simple shopper inputs, the Bold Metrics generative AI technology accurately determines critical points of measure to create unique digital twins of shoppers with over 50 body data measurements. The technology combines shopper body data with brand-specific garment data, providing tailor-level accurate size recommendations that show how an item will fit across critical points of measure — allowing shoppers to choose their best size based on their personal fit preference #ApparelTech #AIRevolution

29

10 Comments

Are you ready to unlock the full potential of Product Operations? 🔍 Only 2 weeks left until Product Ops: 101 - Getting Started with Product Operations on October 30, 2024, led by Denise Tilles! With only 2 spots left, this hands-on workshop will give you practical tools to implement and scale Product Ops strategies. By the end, you'll have a clear roadmap to drive better outcomes within your organization. Secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/exBcs2V5 🎟️ #productops101 #productoperations #productmanagement #workshop

15

3 Comments

Those who know me well know that I'm a big proponent of projects / ideas / choices that are the right answer to multiple questions. In my chat with Kathryn Coulter and Karl Yeh of Benevity's "The Social Impact Show", I talk about how this approach informs various choices I've made in work and life. The choice to be vegan or bike everywhere are the right answers to multiple questions. The decision to become #BCorp certified, embrace #employeeownership, and prioritize #sustainability are all also the right answers to multiple questions. When I come across opportunities like these in my work life, I pursue them because they allow me to multiply the positive effects of my limited work time. Why spend time doing something that's the best possible answer to one question when I can be doing something that's the right answer to multiple questions? This approach is also baked into Unwrapit's unique approach to corporate & event gifting... our team has created a solution for corporate and event gifting that we truly believe is the right answer to multiple questions. Questions like.. - How do we build strong #relationships in a digital-first world when the people we're trying to reach are all over the place? - How do we free up precious time and brain space while still sending a thoughtful gift to a large group of recipients on a special occasion? - How do we gather data and insights from a large group of recipients without losing the human touch? - How do we reduce our company or event's CO2 #emissions to ensure we're not saying one thing about the environment and then reverting to the old ways of doing things? Check out the full episode of The Social Impact Show for more thoughts on what how we're revolutionizing social impact with corporate gifting. Enjoy! 😀 🍿

16

It’s just easier to deflect and let “sh*t roll down hill”. John Cutler is right. More engaged IT team members aren’t enough to overcome systemic #culture and leadership issues. “Someone hired those PMs. Someone funded those companies. Someone set expectations for those PMs. A leader benefitted (or didn't from their work). Someone had the job to mentor those PMs, and share business context and the strategy (assuming one even existed).” #itleadership #projectleadership #projectmanagement #productleadership #productmanagement.

1

Who better to talk about Shopify's trajectory and future than Benjamin Lang • OLY.? In our 50th podcast episode, I had an extremely interesting conversation with Benjamin about a lot of awesome topics that are close to my heart, and I can't be more excited about what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem. For example: • B2B features • From only online commerce to commerce in the more broad sense of the word • The focus on TCO • Customer centricity I'm very grateful I had the chance to talk to Benjamin, and I hope we can do it again some time in the near future as things are moving so fast. Thanks a lot for your time and effort Benjamin! #deardigital #shopify #podcast

21

1 Comment

🎙️ Have Burning Product Management Questions? Ask away! Ever found yourself grappling with product strategy, navigating user research, or juggling stakeholder demands? Maybe you're just curious about the ins and outs of product leadership? Well, you're in luck! Join me on the Dear Melissa segment of my podcast, where I'm diving deep into YOUR burning questions about Product Management. Here's the scoop: ✅ You can keep your questions broad or specific, but give me enough context so I can answer as accurately as a I can. ✅ Your privacy matters—rest assured, your name will stay anonymous. ✅ Don't hold back! Feel free to submit as many questions as you like! From revamping company strategies to mastering the art of product leadership and even picking the perfect tools and frameworks, we're covering it all! Head over to DearMelissa.com and share your questions. Yours could be featured on an upcoming episode! (P.S. Need a quick response? Drop me a voicemail—I'll give your questions top priority!) 🚀

18

🗺 Post-Product Market Fit you have a product roadmap. 🧭 Pre-PMF you only have a product compass. Its only North? Your user. Stop trying to plan for every feature in advance and start discovering nuances of the problem along the way.

10

3 Comments