We all know the problem "Single source of truth" (SSOT) is common business parlance that inherently reflects a long history of big corporate institutions that suffer from a lack of coherent communications. Unsurprisingly, as a company scales, oftentimes there are many conversations and decisions happening on a daily basis, and it quickly becomes difficult to … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, maintain a single source of truth
As a remote work product manager, don’t be hindered by the two pizza rule
The two pizza rule from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that teams should be small enough so that they can be fed by two pizzas. Most modern software teams fit into this model, so it’s a pretty standard practice nowadays. Typically there will be one product manager (or otherwise business owner), one or two designers, … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, don’t be hindered by the two pizza rule
As a remote work product manager, avoid email
Email is antiquated Email is an antiquated form of communication. As a remote work product manager, you should avoid using email for collaboration. In fact, there really should be no reason that any organization needs to use email for any type of internal communication, especially if the company is fairly new, and there isn't any … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, avoid email
As a remote work product manager, embrace freedom and responsibility
Freedom and responsibility As a product manager, your role inherently requires you to do many different type of tasks. In co-located teams, typically this results in a PM being in many meetings, consuming much of their work day. In a remote work setting however, you should be doing much of your work and communication async, … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, embrace freedom and responsibility
As a remote work product manager, avoid synced daily standups
The daily standup as a crutch When I first started at GitLab in November 2016, I wanted a synced daily standup over a video call. Just like any other new product manager, I was eager to get to know the team quickly, and kick off a close collaborative relationship with every engineer and designer. I … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, avoid synced daily standups
As a remote work product manager, write well
As a product manger, leverage communication The longer you experience remote work, the more you realize that it's a forcing function for you to become your best self as a worker. Collaboration, and in particular, communication is no exception. The stakes are even higher for product managers. People often say a PM has all the … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, write well
As a remote work product manager, champion for more remote work in your company
Partial remote work is hard All remote companies (that is, those where the entire workforce is remote) is a relatively new phenomenon, but remote work is not. People working in information jobs (white-collar work, to put it loosely) have been working outside the office for many years, with the internet and modern technology more broadly … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, champion for more remote work in your company
As a remote work product manager, adopt an internet-scale collaboration mindset
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVsEKEmv9VU Learning from open source The internet is good for crowdsourcing ideas, turning them into projects, and in some cases, even delivering actual products and services as a result. In particular, open source software technologies and open digital standards are examples of such initiatives, and have themselves driven the development of the internet itself. If … Continue reading As a remote work product manager, adopt an internet-scale collaboration mindset
