The document discusses principles for product management and shipping. It notes that 99% of products go unnoticed by users, 1% may be noticed but for bad reasons like something being broken, and only 0.01% are noticed because users love them. It provides tips for product managers such as starting with the user, validating assumptions instead of wasting engineering time, solving major problems shared by many users, seeking first to understand, building the simplest thing that works, shipping what you have rather than what you want, measuring metrics that can improve the product, always shipping, being humble, and accepting that the role may change based on organizational needs.

1. Shipping
Principles Worth Pondering
Howie Chang

2. 99% of the hundreds of products you use every day –
from the desk you’re sitting at to the coffee you’re
drinking – you aren’t consciously aware of, you don’t
notice. 1% you will notice, but 99% for a bad reason – the
coffee’s cold, the desk is wobbly – which leaves just
0.01% of the total the products you notice because you
love them.
!

3. !
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The Digital Movement
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Creative Technology Ltd
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Venturing out into the unknown
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SP, RP
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buUuk
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Viki
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RedMart

5. •
You are not the mini CEO - product managers/team leads are servants and exist to serve the
tech/business/ux team.
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Start with the user and work outward. I try to start with a blog post, internal and external FAQs.
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Validate your assumptions. Do not waste engineering cycles. Examples?
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Major on the major. Solve a hard problem that lots of people share.
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Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Stephen Covey). Don’t jump in with a
concluded mindset.
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Build the simplest thing that can possibly work. For us at RedMart, part of it means going
Mobile First.
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You ship what you have, not what you want. Product management is saying no.
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If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. (Lord Kelvin) Define actionable metrics, not
vanity metrics.
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Always be shipping. That’s how I measure my performance against. What’s yours?
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Be humble. Always. Less ego goes a loooong way. :)

6. “The truth is, product management morphs
into whatever is needed by the organization.
If the powers that be want you to manage the
ERP configurations, or … used worldwide to
close orders, or to buy the developers coffee,
you will do it. All the “we need to be
strategic!” mottos go out the door when you
are tossed into the tactical morass.”
– Geoffrey Anderson

7. Suck it up. Be patient.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every
matter under heaven.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1