There’s a lot of content, guides, textbooks, courses, and certifications available on agile product management. You don’t need all of that.
At its core, agile product management is built around a simple, people-oriented philosophy. Many of the processes that agile takes form in are simple and easy to understand. Yet, the complexity arises through misunderstood expectations, roles, and process.
Through this guide, we’ll:
Explore agile product management, its philosophy, and the processes that it takes shape in.
Trust is crucial, yet often absent Trust is the foundation of any successful product team. Trust is what all good intentions and results are built upon. Yet, in a recent online survey conducted by product leaders at Crema, we found a lack of trust is surprisingly common across many organizations. Even for many of the organizations that do have it, thereās a heavy weight present with that trust: it has to be earned, and what can be earned can be taken away.
Managing any large project is complex, full of risksā-āand faced with a natural reluctance toward team-client collaboration. As a project manager, you cannot mitigate everything: you need to put the expertise of your team front-and-center to navigate each challenge.
This requires a team-focused and agile mindset where you place your focus on impromptu coaching and relationship building between your team and client. If orchestrated well, your client relationship will be rewarding, your team will be celebrated and your project will enjoy the best outcomes.
Itās no secret at Crema that we are big fans of Liz Wisemanās book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. In it, she breaks down multiple traits of what defines a āmultiplier;ā someone who is able to lead in an effective way to multiply output and business value to produce amazing results. As a product manager, the trait I value most is being āThe Liberator.ā According to Wiseman:
Iāve read my fair share of productivity books. While there are a few standouts, I feel the lessons from books in the productivity genre tend to meld together. That said, when I began to see universal praise for James Clearās Atomic Habits late last year, my initial reaction was one of avoidance. Yet, when deciding my next book to read in my list of product and business books about a month ago, I realized Atomic Habits had sustained unusually high reviews.