1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
🛠️ My 2024 Mid-Year Review
My 2024 Mid-Year ReviewDear Reader, I first encountered the concept of a mid-year review via Tiago Forte a few years back. After I published 7 Things I Learned from Writing a Weekly Product Management Newsletter for 7 Years, many of you asked for more behind-the-scenes stories and insights. So, here we go. What I focused on in the first half of 2024Piloting my series of in-person Workshops in Berlin. It’s been a while since I hosted in-person workshops outside of conferences, but this experiment worked amazingly (even though it was exhausting). So much that I will repeat it (read on for more details). Bringing the Structure of my Book to Life and Making Real Progress (hint hint). I embarked on the book-writing journey last October and finally saw the pieces coming together in the year's first half. I got fantastic feedback from beta readers on one chapter and am excited to “ship” another one to readers before my summer break. For those who wonder, the working title is Real Progress—How to Connect the Dots of Product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery. I’ll have more to share as I near committing to a reliable release date sometime next year. Making my First Angel Investment. When Malte approached me about joining Airfocus as an Angel investor, I didn’t need to think too hard about it, especially since some of my most valued German product colleagues were also in. Establishing more “Treat Practices like Products” Thinking with Clients. Besides my ongoing client coaching and workshop engagements, the concept of treating your ways of working as a product clicked for a lot of teams. It helped them clarify their WHY and focus on the value of a practice rather than the cadence or format. One of my connection highlights was when a workshop participant recognized my passion for coffee from the Japanese mug I was drinking from–because he had the same. Prioritizing Efficiency over Novelty in BAU Activities. Contrary to my usual way of working, I didn’t play around with too many new tools or concepts regarding LinkedIn and this newsletter. Instead, I focused on pragmatic content delivered in a “good enough” way—all with the goal of preserving as much creative thinking capacity as possible for the book. On a personal note, the definitive highlights of this year so far were getting married in March and a beautiful city trip to Vienna with my best friend. What I will focus on in the second half of 2024Bringing my book into a theoretically pre-orderable state. That means finishing the other two drafts for the major parts, "handing them in” to beta readers and iterating based on the feedback I have received. From there, it will be all about putting things together coherently and thinking about the release. Preparing and delivering my Keynote at Product at Heart 2024. I’m honored and excited to deliver one of the Keynotes at this year’s Product at Heart in Hamburg. The lineup is fantastic, so you should make sure to get one of the remaining tickets. Will I see you in September? Spreading the Word about my next series of in-person Workshops in Berlin. As mentioned, I was thrilled with how my in-person workshops played out. I’m excited to share that tickets for January 2025 are now available (including Early Bird and Group Discounts). Delivering value in my ongoing and new client relationships. Like the first half of the year, I look forward to continuing to work with existing and newly formed client relationships, emphasizing the ‘why’ behind the pragmatic application of proven tactics rather than promoting a single "golden" method. A particular highlight I'm looking forward to is my first client engagement in the US in October. I’m excited for what’s to come and sharing the journey with you. Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here. Thank you for Practicing Product, Tim June - The Customer Analytics for B2B SaaS 💜Launch your product, understand users, and reduce churn - but in good. With June, you can:
Oh, and you can use it for free for up to 1,000 active users per month. No idea how.
Thanks to June for sponsoring this issue of Product Practice 🙏 What did you think of this week's newsletter? As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I identify and share the patterns among better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
Product Practice Newsletter
1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Product Practice #353 How Duolingo Approaches Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Mar 7, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 24 sec Dear Reader, Many Product Managers were in awe of the ways of working shared in The Duolingo Handbook a few weeks ago. While it’s an inspiring read, I used this as a reason to revisit some of my all-time favorite reads about how this company operates (or at least used to operate) and extract my takeaways with you. Duolingo focuses on “Movable” Metrics...
Product Practice #352 My Digitale Leute Summit 2024 Keynote Recording and Slides READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Feb 28, 2025 READING TIME 1 min & 40 sec Dear Reader, I'm excited to share the full recording of my talk on How Product Teams Can Connect the Dots of Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery from last year's Digitale Leute Summit. You can think of it as the naturally progressing chapter (hint hint) that would follow my talk from Product at Heart 2024. As always, I won't require you, as an...
Product Practice #351 The Post-it trap: Why Strategy needs more than Workshops READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Feb 21, 2025 READING TIME 5 min & 19 sec Dear Reader, 'Product Strategy by Post-it' occurs when teams prioritize filling out frameworks over making real strategic choices. It's a common symptom of treating strategy as a checkbox exercise rather than a tool for decision-making. John Cutler even suggests that most frameworks should feature a warning label like this: "This framework is...