A leading voice in the product management community, Brandon Chu, VP of Product at Shopify, has shared a wealth of knowledge through his insightful essays and talks. His writings, particularly on his blog "The Black Box of Product Management," offer a treasure trove of practical advice and mental models for product managers at all levels.

On the First Principles of Product Management

The foundational truths that guide the craft of product management.

  1. "The first principles of Product Management can be reduced to: A. Maximize impact to the mission... B. Accomplish everything through others." - The First Principles of Product Management.[1]
  2. "A first principle is a 'basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.'" - The First Principles of Product Management.[1]
  3. "Great product managers fuse these two principles [logic and empathy] into all their decisions and everything they do should derive from them." - The First Principles of Product Management.[2]
  4. "A PM doesn’t build, market, or support anything. We are hired to support a team in achieving our company’s goals." - The First Principles of Product Management.[2]
  5. "Generally, if the team doesn’t build something great, the product manager should be fired, not the team." - The First Principles of Product Management.[1][2]
  6. "One of the biggest issues I see with PMs is that they don’t take the time to really understand the goal." - The First Principles of Product Management.[1]

On Making Good Decisions

Product managers are decision-making machines. Here's how to be a great one.

  1. "While product managers may not build the actual product, they do produce something very tangible for a team: decisions." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  2. "Being a good decision maker means doing two things: Making good decisions using the right amount of information [and] Making decisions as quickly as possible." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  3. "Deciding how important a decision is, is the most important decision you can make." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  4. "Your goal shouldn’t be to always make the right decision, it should be to invest the right amount of time in a making a decision relative to its importance." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  5. "Product managers are the hedge against indecision, and it’s uniquely our job because we tend to have the most context in a company." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  6. "Gathering information follows a Pareto principle, meaning you can get 80% of the information quite easily, but getting the final 20% requires a lot of effort." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]
  7. "The less important a decision, the less information you should try to seek to make it." - Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager.[3]

On Ruthless Prioritization

The art and science of focusing on what truly matters.

  1. "All high functioning teams must prioritize. Not once a month, not once a week — but rigorously, and ruthlessly." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]
  2. "Prioritization means doing the things that are most important first. If you build products, it means doing the things that create the most customer value first." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]
  3. "Your team’s time is the most precious resource a company has at it’s disposal, and if part of your job is to direct that time, you need to become great at it." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]
  4. "There is always a way to accomplish your goal faster than you currently plan to. Always. You just have to find it." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]
  5. "Ask, 'How can we do this in half the time?' at the end of that planning meeting, and miraculously — the team will find a way." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]
  6. "Prioritization in product management can be broken down into two scopes: Prioritization between projects...and Prioritizing work within a project." - Ruthless Prioritization.[4]

On Mental Models for Product Management

Frameworks for thinking to make faster, better decisions.

  1. "Mental models are simple expressions of complex processes or relationships. These models are accumulated over time by an individual and used to make faster and better decisions." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[5]
  2. "You shouldn’t rely on one or even a few mental models, you should instead be continuously building a latticework of mental models that you can draw from to make better decisions." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[5]
  3. "Return on Investment: when comparing different projects, you should always choose the one that maximizes impact to customers for every unit of resources you have." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[6]
  4. "Time value of shipping: ...place more value on features that will ship faster." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[6]
  5. "Working backwards: instead of starting at a problem and then exploring towards a solution, start with a perfect solution and work backwards to explore it and know where to start." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[6]
  6. "Speed vs. Quality: The level of confidence you have in 1) the importance of the problem you’re solving 2) the relevance of the solution you’re building helps you to solve the speed versus quality dilemma." - Product Management Mental Models for Everyone.[6]

On Leadership and Managing PMs

Guiding teams and developing product talent.

  1. "With strategy, be a broken record." - 7 Heuristics for being a Product Director.[7]
  2. "The way you think builds the creative boundaries for the team, so think big." - 7 Heuristics for being a Product Director.[7]
  3. "You should always have the goal of making yourself redundant. That is the clearest sign of effective leadership..." - 7 Heuristics for being a Product Director.
  4. "Throw bigger and bigger responsibilities at people, and 9/10 times they will stretch and meet the challenge."- 7 Heuristics for being a Product Director.
  5. "It makes no sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do." - Managing and Developing Product Managers.[2]
  6. "You must must must let your PMs struggle and solve their own problems." - Managing and Developing Product Managers.[2]
  7. "When you have a superstar PM, your responsibility is to accelerate their career, even if that means it surpasses yours, and do it quickly." - Managing and Developing Product Managers.[2]
  8. "A bad PM is absolutely toxic to a team and creates turnover risk." - Managing and Developing Product Managers.[2]

On Platform Strategy

Building ecosystems and enabling others to create value.

  1. "A product is building something to ship to customers, a platform is building a place where other builders or creators can build things to ship to customers." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[8]
  2. "You can fill the gap between your customer problems and the capacity you have with a product extension platform." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[8]
  3. "Accelerating the flywheel is your job." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[8]
  4. "Earn trust with developers. While tight restrictions and policies may help earn trust with consumers, it can have the opposite effect on developers." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[8]
  5. "Your purpose, policy, and business model must be in harmony." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.
  6. "Treat developers as business partners, not just like some user on your platform." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[9]
  7. "Platforms take a long time to come to fruition...Your company must be willing to invest the time and energy to see it through long-term." - Platform management by Brandon Chu.[8]

On Career and Growth

Navigating the path of a product manager.

  1. "Judgment is what really matters to product managers, but it’s often a difficult thing for PMs to get because they’re hyper-analytical and rational." - Brandon Chu, Shopify | Product Love Podcast for Product Managers.[5]
  2. "You can’t build a good product strategy without understanding the company and business strategy. Product managers need to know what matters to the org." - Brandon Chu, Shopify | Product Love Podcast for Product Managers.[5]
  3. "Hire people who have a vision and entrepreneurial grit." - Brandon Chu of Shopify | Product Love Podcast for Product Managers.[10]
  4. "The skill sets that are hardest to find in PMs...are people who can keep up leadership authenticity and energy." - Brandon Chu of Shopify | Product Love Podcast for Product Managers.[10]
  5. "Heuristics...aren’t always optimal, but the efficiency gains you harness over time from quick decision making more than make up it." - 7 Heuristics for being a Product Director.[7]
  6. "Good product development is hard...a linear product development process...is a fairy tale." - The Black Box of Product Management.[11]
  7. "The core competency of a product manager is truly understanding product development. That is, how to identify which problem to solve and how to work with a team to solve it." - The Black Box of Product Management.[11]
  8. "As a PM, why is writing one of the highest-ROI uses of your time?" - Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify... - Lenny's Newsletter.
  9. "I re-read Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager — my bible of product management — weekly, for the first few months." - The Black Box of Product Management.[11]
  10. "Whereas the work of engineers and designers are easier quantified...it’s difficult to observe a PMs impact over the short run." - The Black Box of Product Management.[11]

Sources 

  1. blackboxofpm.com
  2. blackboxofpm.com
  3. openviewpartners.com
  4. herzel.net
  5. pendo.io
  6. substack.com
  7. mindtheproduct.com
  8. youtube.com
  9. pendo.io
  10. blackboxofpm.com
  11. lennysnewsletter.com