Learning product management by managing Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys

August 21, 2020 Michael Coté

Learning product management by managing Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys

This week Coté talks with Jen Handler about two of the sessions she’ll be in at the SpringOne conference. They’re both on product management walking through some of the key functions product managers do with a few real world examples. They also discuss Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and the Murder She Wrote/Magnum PI cross-over.

First, they discuss what product management for a service is like. While it uses the usual product management tools (which we get to later in the episode), there's a different landscape to it, people involved and things (the services!) being managed.

Jen gives a very brief overview of the two sessions she's involved in, and then they jump into a discussion of a product manager's key role: ensuring that the software, the product, is delivering business value. Then, in an unexpected and delightful turn, Jen discusses how product managing the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series was some early training in product managing for her.

They next discuss the practice of validating assumptions, often in the form of feature requests or whole projects. Even though you may think you need an iPad app, the users may not even be able to hold it in the work environment. Or, there might be a problem more valuable to solve first.

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About the Author

Michael Coté

Michael Coté works on the advocates team for VMware Tanzu. See @cote for more.

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