Articles by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

Here you can find all my articles about Product Management, Product Leadership and technology in general.

A Reading List for Aspiring Product Managers

Looking to break into product management? Here are some pointers

Over the years, I've given advice to quite a few people who were interested in breaking into product management. Amongst other things, I've always left them with a list of books and articles to read—there is a lot of great content…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

18 Apr 2021

Do Product Managers Need to Be Technical?

“It depends”, of course, but here's what it depends on

Many product management job descriptions list an engineering or computer science degree as a prerequisite. While technical skills and experience can certainly be an asset for product managers, it is an interesting question how much of it is needed…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

14 Mar 2021

How Do You Prioritize What To Build?

You don't need a product prioritization framework, but a pyramid

Prioritization is one of the top challenges product managers are facing. Every product team has vastly more ideas than time to build them, necessitating prioritization. What makes this challenge even harder than the scarcity of resources is the uncertainty…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

14 Feb 2021

Seven Product Management Principles

How to improve your product management and leadership practices

Product management is a relatively new discipline that keeps evolving rapidly. Every week, there are new articles about product development best practices that industry leaders are following. This deluge of information can make it difficult…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

17 Jan 2021

25 Product Management Lessons

Some things I've learned along the way

I've been in product management and product leadership roles for half a decade now, and I've picked up a thing or two along the way. In this post, I am sharing 25 bite-sized lessons that I have learned over time—I hope they can help…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

27 Dec 2020

One exercise to improve at product job interviews

Building your product muscle, one hour at a time

I usually don't write much about breaking into product management—I believe that there are others who have more valuable insights to share than I do, and focus my writing on what I have learned while working as a product manager and product…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

13 Dec 2020

Looking for Best Practices? Try Best Principles.

Why implementing hyped frameworks won't get you far

The product development world is enamored with best practices and frameworks. Hardly a week goes by in which there isn't another set of processes and practices being discussed and at times even hyped: from the Spotify model to Basecamp's Shape Up…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

29 Nov 2020

The Case for Empowered Product Teams

Why you should let your teams figure out what to build

One of the central best practices of modern product development is the empowered product team. An empowered team is a cross-functional team, composed of product, design, and engineering, that is tasked with solving specific customer problems in ways…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

15 Nov 2020

You are not Focusing Enough

Delivering as many good ideas as possible doesn't create great products

In many product organizations, quarterly goal setting exercises and roadmaps discussions amount to a negotiation between product leadership and/or product management and the rest of the team, how many features can get built in a given time frame…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

1 Nov 2020

The Discomfort of a Great Product Team

Why teams without conflicts don't tend to produce great products

One of the most counterintuitive aspects about great product teams is that being a part of them isn't always comfortable. It's not all smooth sailing: there are frictions and disagreements between team members, differences in working styles, and…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

18 Oct 2020

Why “Outcomes Over Outputs” is Flawed Advice

Outputs? Outcomes? Even considering both is insufficient.

“Outcomes over Outputs” is a mantra that has swept the product management and product development community over the last couple of years, even leading to a major book outlining the concept. At the core of the paradigm is the insight that just pushing…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

4 Oct 2020

Build It, And They Won't Come

Why your product needs a growth loop to succeed

“Build it, and they will come” is an old product development adage. It basically says that if you build a great product addressing a need that people have which currently goes unmet, then you will have no problems finding customers. They will simply…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

20 Sep 2020

The Uncertainty Axiom of Product Management

Most of your ideas won't work—and that's okay

Developing digital products is inherently risky. Big software projects face delays, explode in cost, or get canceled all the time. Not just the effort involved in building the product is uncertain, though. More fundamentally, even the value itself is questionable…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

6 Sep 2020

Lead & Learn: Two Skills of Successful PMs

Own the team direction but be willing to course-correct

Product management requires a broad set of skills. A lot of people, including myself, have written extensively about how these skills can be categorized. However, none of these categorizations can ever be complete or fully accurate, simply because…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

16 Aug 2020

Kill Your Product Backlog

Why you should stop hoarding product improvement ideas

Familiar product management scenes: a salesperson raises a feature request, gets the response: “good idea, we'll put that on our backlog”. A hackathon happens, lots of good ideas duct-taped together in a couple of days; the product team dutifully collects…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

2 Aug 2020

Bring Me Problems, Not Solutions

Counterintuitive advice for product development

It is an often-repeated piece of management advice to demand that team members “bring solutions, not problems”. The reason for this advice is to empower employees to solve problems they encounter, reduce management bottlenecks, and thereby to improve the…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

19 Jul 2020

Setting up Product Development Processes

How product leaders can help their organization effectively execute

One of the essential areas of responsibility for product leaders is setting up the processes of the product development department. For an overview, read my high-level article on product leadership responsibilities, or continue reading for a deep dive…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

5 Jul 2020

The Iteration Imperative

Why digital products should be created iteratively

Back when people first started building complex software, the natural approach was to do this in a planned methodical way that resembles physical engineering. You make a detailed plan, validate the plan in theory, build it, test it in practice, and…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

21 Jun 2020

‪The Startup Mindset: Stubbornness and Flexibility

What it takes to create a product from scratch

Holding two opposing thoughts in your head at the same time is generally a valuable skill. It allows evaluating trade-offs, empathisizing with the other side in a negotiation, and brokering compromises and agreements. To build a new product…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

7 Jun 2020

Establishing a Product Organization Structure

Product teams and functional leadership

One of the essential areas of responsibility for product leaders is setting up the organizational structure of the product development department. For an overview, read my high-level article on product leadership responsibilities, or continue reading…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

24 May 2020

You Can't A/B Test Your Way to Greatness

A/B testing is an awesome tool, but has severe limitations

First things first: I love A/B testing. For those unfamiliar with the method, A/B testing involves changing a product (or packaging, messaging, pricing...) and then measuring how that changed version performs (in terms of some measurable KPIs) in comparison…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

10 May 2020

Developing the Team as a Product Leader

Growing your people to build the highest performing team

One of the crucial areas of responsibility for product leaders is building the team, and one crucial part of that is developing your team members. For an overview, read my high-level article on product leadership responsibilities, or continue reading…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

1 May 2020

How B2B and B2C Product Management Differ

Some observations from the front lines

Product management roles vary across companies as a function of many different aspects, for example company size, culture, or historical context. One important factor driving differences in the role of product managers is…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

12 Apr 2020

The Challenge With Thinking From First Principles

True first principle or erroneous assumption?

Silicon Valley is enamored with First Principles Thinking. First Principles Thinking means disregarding all assumptions that are not foundational in nature and then reasoning bottom up from basic propositions or assumptions that cannot be deduced…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

29 Mar 2020

Hiring the Team as a Product Leader

Achieve leverage through hiring the right people

One of the crucial areas of responsibility for product leaders is hiring to build up the team. For an overview, read my high-level article on product leadership responsibilities, or continue reading for a deep dive on recruiting and onboarding.…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

15 Mar 2020

PM 101: Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

It's a product! It's viable! It's minimum! Or is it?

In the “PM 101” series I am sharing some PM basics that I wish I had known when I first started as a product manager. In this article, I talk about what the overused term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) means…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

1 Mar 2020

Owning the Product Direction as a Product Leader

From vision to roadmap, from 1:1 feedback to evangelism

One of the crucial areas of responsibility for product leaders is owning the product direction. For an overview, read my high-level article on product leadership responsibilities, or continue reading for a deep dive on product direction.…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

16 Feb 2020

The Three Responsibilities of Product Leadership

What the heck does a product leader do, anyway?

In the past years, a lot has been written about product management: about the role definition and how it varies between industries and companies, the skills required, best practices and so on. Product leadership is much less well covered…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

26 Jan 2020

Rich Link Previews in Eleventy

Generating attractive link previews with Eleventy and Nunjucks

A few months ago, I re-built this website using the static site generator Eleventy. While migrating over all of my blog posts, I realized that for some posts, I wanted to be able include rich link previews…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

29 Dec 2019

Helpful Communication Frameworks for PMs

Improving the most important skill for product managers

Good communication is perhaps the most critical skill for product managers. I sometimes jokingly say that us product managers don't really “do” anything, we just talk. After all, designers create flows, visual designs and assets, and engineers write code…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

22 Dec 2019

Writing Your CV to Get Hired in a Product Role

Reflections of a hiring manager

Over the past few months, I've been either hiring manager or the one executing the hiring process for a number of product roles—product managers, product designers, product analysts. In this process, I've reviewed a ton of CVs…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

30 Nov 2019

Seven Non-Negotiable PM Skills

These skills may be soft, but they're indispensable for product managers

The most frequently used visualization of product management is this Venn diagram by Mind the Product founder Martin Eriksson which shows the product manager sitting at the intersection between business, technology, and user experience (UX)…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

20 Oct 2019

Product Management from First Principles

Basic propositions to base your product thinking on

First principles are a philosophical / logical concept originally stemming from Aristotle. A first principle is “a basic, foundational, self-evident proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption”…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

22 Sep 2019

The Problem with Prioritization Frameworks

Why prioritization frameworks have little value for empowered product teams

Product managers often complain that prioritization is one of the most challenging aspects of the job: there is always so much to do and so little time. It is therefore not a surprise that there are a ton of frameworks out there…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

1 Sep 2019

PM 101: Working With Product Designers

Double diamond vs. design squiggle

In the “PM 101” series I am sharing some PM basics that I wish I had known when I first started as a product manager. In this article, I talk about a few best practices to better collaborate with product / UX / UI designers…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

4 Aug 2019

PM 101: Pitfalls of A/B Testing

A/B testing is a powerful tool—if used correctly

In the “PM 101” series I am sharing some PM basics that I wish I had known when I first started as a product manager. In this article, I am discussing some of the challenges of correctly running A/B tests…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

9 Jun 2019

The A/B Testing Trap

“We A/B test everything”? You shouldn't.

“We A/B test everything” is a trap that product teams fall into—it means you have stopped innovating and are only optimizing. Innovation is hard to A/B test: You often need to start with foundational research of the problem instead of validating…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

26 May 2019

PM 101: Define the Problem Before the Solution

The key to improving team alignment and building the right features

In the “PM 101” series I am sharing some PM basics that I wish I had known when I first started as a product manager. In this article, I will explain why it is crucial to separate the problem definition from the solution design…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

12 May 2019

Google & Apple—A Tale of Two Product Cultures

Data-driven engineering approach vs. intuition-driven liberal arts approach

Google and Apple are two of the most successful and admired technology companies, yet their approach to product development differs in some fundamental aspects. Google's is based heavily on data and experimentation…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

5 May 2019

Should Your Product Have a North Star Metric?

One metric to rule them all?

Product “north star” metrics provide benefits in team alignment and product improvement. However, boiling down all stages of the user lifecycle to a single number also has the risks of lack of ownership, disempowerment, and metric “hacking”…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

28 Apr 2019

How Do You Create a Product Roadmap?

Moving away from a GANTT chart of features and dates

I was recently asked, “How do you create a product roadmap?” In a world where we want to prioritize outcomes over outputs, run a continuous discovery process, and iteratively deliver while constantly learning, the answer to the question is…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

20 Apr 2019

Outcomes Over Outputs: The Long-Term Challenge

When you can't immediately measure everything you'd like to improve

Focusing on outcomes over outputs is a product management mantra that has been getting a lot of attention recently. At its core, the idea is extremely powerful. Instead of focusing on product development “velocity”, we should focus…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

14 Apr 2019

Most Product Improvement Attempts Fail

What should product organizations do about that?

One of the most fascinating and least discussed facts about product development is that most attempts to improve the product fail to deliver value. Notably, depending on the source, between 2/3 and 3/4 of A/B tests do not lead to an improvement…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

2 Mar 2019

Product Vision, Strategy, Roadmap

We keep using these words, but what do they mean?

Product organizations often discuss needing a (new) product vision or strategy, or will talk about what is on their roadmap. However, what is sometimes lost in these discussions is the unfortunate fact that none of these terms have clear definitions…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

13 Feb 2019

Why PMs Need Qualitative Research

What A/B testing won’t be able to tell you, but talking to your customers will

I was recently at a panel discussion with a large group of very data-informed product managers. One of the participants asked the following question (I am somewhat exaggerating): If we can A/B test, why do we need qualitative research?…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

26 May 2017

Can a Consultant Learn to Execute as a PM?

From Consulting Into Product Management, Part 2

In the first part of this series, I talked about the classical PM domain trifecta of business, technology, and UX. I encourage you to read that article before this one. In this second and last article, I want to focus on the PM skill model of communication/organization/execution…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

13 Feb 2017

Can a Consultant Learn to Become a PM?

From Consulting Into Product Management, Part 1

I was a consultant at BCG for five years before I moved into product management at Yammer just over a year ago. In this two-part series, I will share what useful knowledge and skills from my time in consulting I was able to reuse, and how I closed gaps…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

9 Feb 2017

5½ Lessons From One Year as a Yammer PM

What I learned about product management and more

It is hard to believe, but it has been more than a year since I joined Yammer as a Product Manager. Looking back over this year, I realize that I have learned a ton. I knew when I joined that the Yammer way of doing product management is very thoughtful…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

5 Jan 2017

25 Great Product Management Articles From 2016

A year of PM reading, digested

2016 was the first full year I spent working as a Product Manager at Yammer. I try to take in and read as much as I can about product management (I share an article I read every day on my Twitter, @MrJefago). Product management is still a new and evolving…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

27 Dec 2016

To Spec or not to Spec

Should you write a product spec for your product?

In the past couple of weeks, I found two diametrically opposed pieces of advice on writing product specs: this podcast with Samuel Clemens, who states that he has a “kill on sight” rule for specs, and this article by Gaurav Oberoi…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

26 Oct 2016

Datensparsamkeit—Being Stingy With Data

The German approach to privacy in technology

German is known for having a lot of long, unique words that describe things that simply have no description in other languages. In this article I want to talk about a word that I heard recently and its broader context in the different approach that Germans…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

6 Oct 2016

Two Frameworks to Improve Your Product

Growth-Stickiness-Monetization and HEART

As a product manager, you constantly have to find, prioritize, design and measure product improvements. Often, the first instinct when doing this is to think about features: “Users should be able to do X or Y”. A more sophisticated version is to think about user objectives…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

25 Sep 2016

Apple is Removing the Headphone Jack

I don't like the decision, here is why I still admire it

If the rumors that have been spreading for a few months are correct, Apple will remove the 3.5mm headphone jack on the next iPhone. Over the past few days, an intense debate has unfolded in the tech community about whether this is the right decision…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

23 Jun 2016

Product Teardowns at Yammer

Why we talk about a different product for an hour every Friday

At Yammer, we believe that product curiosity and product sense are two of the most important traits of a good PM, and that these skills must be continuously exercised. That’s why every Friday afternoon, the product management team and other interested folks…

by Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

31 Mar 2016