Success is directly proportional to the square of the effort invested — From my Manipal diaries: I heard this beautiful story from Mahabharata narrated by the then main pontiff of the Udupi Krishna temple. — - Yudhistira desires to perform Ashwamedha Yagna. He assembles his brothers and invites Sri Krishna for a meeting. He proposes his desire in the meeting. All the…

A real world (fictional) example for Product Discovery — The Case Jay is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon responsible for Amazon Music That is a Friday. Jay is at his desk. Alone. Engrossed. Jay’s calendar notification pops up. It reminds him that it is time to sequester himself to some solo, heads-down thinking on ideas to make Amazon Music better. …

Gamify prioritisation. Put an end to all your frustration. — A while ago, I’d written a story on a Product Manager’s frustrations with prioritisation. If you have not read that story, here it is 👇🏻 “Everything is a priority. That is why NOTHING is!” Priority is not about creating a relaxed schedule. More than the stakeholders, the BAs and PMs need to get that.bootcamp.uxdesign.cc In this story, I wish to narrate a technique that is most likely to work for you, the Product Manager, especially if you’re collaborating with…

A Product Manager’s relationship with her product — A lotus leaf has a very unique relationship with water. It is ultrahydrophobic. On one hand, to survive, a lotus leaf must remain on the water. If you take it out of the water, it withers away quite quickly. But on the other hand, the leaf does not get attached…

The design of a productive meeting — Raise your hands if you agree with any or all of the following 🙋🏼‍♂️: Your work day is so chockablock with meetings, that you facepalm with frustration You think that most meetings are a waste of time You feel that meetings are obstacles in your way of getting real work…

The kick-ass framework for every Product Manager — In my previous post, I had shared my story of how my manager taught me the greatest ‘a-ha’ lesson of my professional life. 👇🏻 My first ‘aha’ learning of my career “How can stakeholders be so clueless!”productfundas.medium.com TL;DR — The stakeholders are mostly clueless about their own needs, and they are totally allowed to be so. As a Product Manager, it is completely…

“How can stakeholders be so clueless!” — “Have you prepped for the meeting tomorrow?”, my manager asked me referring to the upcoming elicitation session the following day. The year is 2004. I’m a couple of years into my career, and my first time onsite at the customer location. This conversation with my manager gave me my first…

Chapter Three: Step up the critical thinking — Hey Welcome back! This is the final chapter of the series on Conceptual Data Modelling, a technique that wrings out the last ounce of critical thinking in you, and delivers to you insights about a business domain that you wouldn’t otherwise have acquired. This is the final chapter in the…

Chapter Two — Rigour in Thinking — The Background Story In Chapter One we looked at a (common) scenario where you, a Product Manager, are assigned to attack a problem space in which you do not have deep enough domain expertise. If you have not reviewed Chapter One yet, please do so now before you proceed with Chapter Two: P for Parts — one of the 4Ps Chapter One: The Background Storyproductfundas.medium.com