Michael Budwig

🔥Hot Take for PMs: Please don't hand me a solution to a problem. Instead, focus on detailing the problem and help me understand the why. We will ideate and find a solution together. Next week, in our first episode of ⚫️Bounce, Claire and I continue to unpack the PD + PM working relationship. Buckle up. Subscribe today - links in comments 👇

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I wrote Hiring Product Managers to show that hiring can be an agent of change. We need to stop thinking of hiring as simply 'ticking a box' - approaching hiring in a meaningful way can have a great impact on our personal growth, team dynamics & the shaping of our organisational culture. Get your copy!

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Product Rockstars in tech....It's not about strategy. It's not about frameworks. To play big...it's about the soft skills. Yep....your EQ is critical to level up and lead. You need to master the human side of work.  Treating people with respect Understanding how to communicate Executive presence Managing politics (yep...,I said it) Treating people as human beings To level up in the world of tech....it's about the human game. #productmanagement #techleaders #womenintech Are you ready to level up into leadership? Are you ready to learn how to play the human game? Respond with 'yes' and I'll send you my E-Book on The Next Generation of Leadership in Product

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🎙️ 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!) 🚀

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I found this article to be a great summary of what a product manager does- understanding all stakeholders and acting as the glue across the organization. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/g39gC_4G

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How do design system teams prove their value? Finding hard metrics around the impact of design system teams has historically been a challenge. A year ago, I met the design system team at Eventbrite who could confidently say that they saved 534 days of engineering effort with their design system. Here's their calculation: Time spent to develop a component pre-design system - time spent to install the design system component = Time saved In order to extrapolate this number, though, you need to know how many times a component has been used. And, that used to require a savvy dev on the team to build something custom. That's no longer the case. We built something at zeroheight that will allow you to track component use in a single repo or across all of your repos. This should help teams show how valuable they are, plus do things like: see which components to prioritize based on use see which product teams are adopting As an added bonus, anyone using the new feature set can also monitor design system packages, allowing them to quickly see which teams are using outdated packages. On a personal note, I'm hoping with data like this, more teams can confidently quantify their impact. And along the way, we'll get better as design system practitioners at identifying the right things to work on. This new feature set is in beta and totally free. Even if you aren't using zeroheight to document your design system, you can use it. Takes like 15 minutes and you've got rich data. Here's the sign up:

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Reflecting on some recent advising sessions, something I don't see talked about as much is how critical it is to have an incredibly strong, unified* Design leadership team in order to build an even stronger design team and product. Why this is so critical 👇 What I’ve seen happen when you DON’T have that unified Design leadership team: 1. Massive gaps in the user experience – Let’s start with the obvious one. When Design leaders are staying neatly in their corners and not communicating, the experience degrades pretty quickly. Especially where the "seams" of their teams/org are. We've all seen (and let's be real…probably have been guilty of at times) the navigation structure that clearly shows the org chart vs. what users actually need. This can happen way too quickly without that unified team. 2. A lack of Design’s ability to influence product direction — The best Design leadership teams work together, pushing each other, to have a unified perspective of what the big things are to tackle in the user experience that leverages the unique expertise of the Design functions, all the way from it being grounded in research, to it having a compelling narrative. When they have that unified perspective and are all consistently sharing that perspective, it is so much easier for cross-functional partners to understand and buy-in on it. 3. Design works against Design — When Design leaders don't have a shared perspective on what is important (both in the user experience and the culture), don't have the right level of visibility into each other's work, or even worse, when they don't have mutual respect for each other, it leads to the leaders (mostly) inadvertently working against the progress of the other leaders/teams vs. together toward a unified vision. 4. A limit to the flexibility and scalability of the Design team – To build great experiences at scale, having the flexibility of shifting people to focus on different parts of the product is critical. When the culture and processes are dramatically, instead of it being exciting for that person to focus on a new space, it is incredibly disorienting, slows everything down, and can quickly lead to burnout. *A note on when I say "unified". I don't mean at all that they agree on everything. In fact, the opposite. They push each other the most, early and often. However, they have shared respect, cultivated by their leader, and shared responsibility around aligning within a timely manner. THEN they support each other in any way they can with hurdles they may each face (e.g. cross-functional buy-in or team-wide communication). ——— Is this interesting? Let me know if you want me to share more on how exactly you can cultivate this strong design leadership team –OR– if you want more personalized advice around this, set up some time with me here: https://lnkd.in/g-vyymtW

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It's refreshing to come across a talk that challenges the status quo in Product Management. Recently, I heard the head of product at Linear discuss better Org Design, offering a unique perspective that I plan to incorporate into my own Product Org. Watch the talk here: https://lnkd.in/ds2zsWka

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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.

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Check out our second AI feature we've added to the platform below!

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“If there is no clear owner, then it’s the PM that owns it.” I sat down with Esteban Contreras from #ProductState to discuss Product leadership, or Prioritization process at Productboard. We also dug into the concept of Extreme Ownership, which is a principle I firmly believe in. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eVN47mWn #productmanagement #productexcellence #ownership

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Normally I'm a huge, huge fan of John Cutler and his newsletter, which you *should* subscribe to if you want to learn how to be an effective dev or PM. However, his missive yesterday is off the mark. What he's observing is 100% a failure of leadership. People can blame the tools all they want, but if you're not creating a culture that supports these principles they go nowhere. https://lnkd.in/gdCg3-VR #PMI #softwaredevelopment #productmanagement #agile

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The reactions vary wildly when stakeholders hear the acronym, "PRD." Some folks dread them in companies with rigid ways of working. Those are our traumatized Product Managers in the crowd. The phrase, "That's not in the PRD!" rings loud on loop for them. (Poor one out for the jaded PMs out there). Other folks hate them because they represent planning work. Planning? Ugh. Defining scope? Eww. Timelines? Not very sexy. Especially when UX has "the Figmas" ...and Engineering has live demos. Some folks ask, "PR-what?" Product. Requirement. Docs. The thing that maintains alignment. It keeps your 4itB, 3itB, or maybe (but not hopefully) your 40itB on the same page. For the Fortune 1? PRDs are great for CYA. For the Fortune None? They're for tracking of your ever-changing scope (and maturing your fledgling org via forcing tough decisions). Oh yeah. And it rolls up into your roadmap. They are as flexible and adaptable as your Product leader needs them to be. And your company's SDLC maturity needs them to be. Ideally, the former drives the latter (but that's for another day). DM any questions you have on PRDs and how they could drive value for your org.

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Four key PM nuances were identified in social impact by Joni Cooper in Product School's blogpost. 1. Product metrics alone aren’t sufficient in demonstrating societal impact. 2. Competitive analysis is driven by need as opposed to revenue. 3. Your target user isn���t necessarily a “superuser,” but rather an overlooked one. 4. Designing products with as opposed to for users is critical. I'd add that your competitors in the social impact space are actually your allies, even though you are competing for customers and funding. The world is too big for 1 organization or company to solve every single problem in the world. It takes a collective effort to make change. Working in good partnership with other businesses, the government, and not-for-profits is the recipe to success in driving and growing your impact. The more collaboration to solve the problem, the better!

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This is great advice especially as you grow your business many want results asap and sometimes putting blinders to your own culture doesn’t help. Look within first, and give people a chance to make real changes and contribute. Setting clear goals and sharing financial KPI’s are key to foster an open and sharing environment where people want to move that needle. #productstrategy

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Product management is often misunderstood. Rich does a great job of laying out examples in this article. https://bit.ly/3mszyOZ #leadership #productmanagement

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Wow, spot on… Also consider the complexity of a “design system factory” product intended to offer design system stability to the diverse clientele of a consultancy with vastly unique clients, all with critically important needs. I often describe(d) the design tokens and design system as the CENTER of the tech ecosystem, or at minimum on par with the most critical data APIs. Few were ready for what that would cost. Financially, technically and emotionally. #outofwork

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