The key factors for successfully managing ML projects include: - Having the right mindset - Agile and iterative project management - Collaboration and tools - Roles and responsibilities - Continuously measure performance - Adaptability and feedback loops — Comprehending the role of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their impact on products is increasingly crucial for competent product managers. The high failure rate of ML projects, as widely reported, is attributed mainly to factors unrelated to the models themselves.

Identifying and framing problems is crucial to finding suitable opportunities where ML can address user/customer problems effectively. Successful ML product managers follow a process of problem screening, demand validation, and progressive development — Comprehending the role of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their impact on products is increasingly crucial for competent product managers. The high failure rate of ML projects, as widely reported, is largely attributed to factors unrelated to the models themselves.

Coaching and developing talent is a leader’s number one priority. The number of leaders, a leader, has coached and gotten promoted is a symbol of his/her performance. Coaching and developing talent is difficult. It requires patience and consistent monitoring of developmental habits between product leaders and their product managers. To succeed, leaders need to: 1. Build the right mindset in themselves and their employees 2. Identify skill gaps 3. Develop a coaching plan 4. Build a feedback loop to monitor progress

Empowered product teams do not serve or manage internal stakeholders but rather collaborate with their internal partners to best create value for users/customers. To move away from delivering features and achieve empowerment, product teams need to: 1. Show product leadership 2. Transition from stakeholder management to collaborative partnerships 3. Move away from communication silos and share insights and learning 4. Continuously evangelize the product organization 5. Remember to keep the lights on

Building empowered product teams begins with hiring the right talent and retaining them. Furthermore, staffing the product team is the end-to-end and sole responsibility of the product leader and not the HR department. For a product leader to succeed with staffing, he/she needs to: 1. Find competent characters 2. Continuously be recruiting 3. Refrain from outsourcing 4. Learn to interview effectively 5. Hire efficiently and convincingly 6. Aim for collocation, and manage remote employees 7. Onboard new employees smoothly 8. Train new hires for maximum readiness 9. Excel in providing feedback and performance reviews 10. Terminate swiftly and with constructive convictions 11. Coach staff to promotion 12. Manage retention, but don’t take it personally

Team topology empowers teams, defines the scope of work, shapes the team composition, and sets boundaries — All product teams start somewhere, but when they become more than 15 engineers, communication, empowerment, autonomy, alignment, and decision-making efficiencies drop and the need to split teams and look for more effective team structures, topologies, and ways of working is felt. It’s the joint responsibility of various leaders across product…

Once a product vision and strategy are in place, product leaders need to execute the strategy and create value. To succeed with execution, there are 10 steps and principles that product leaders should consider: 1. Build your empowerment mindset 2. Provide ample strategic context 3. Set relevant ambitions for each objective 4. Assign objectives 5. Help teams construct Key Results 6. Align teams and KTLO 7. HICs are to be addressed 8. Improve collaboration via shared objectives 9. Actively manage teams 10. Hold teams accountable, but help them grow

Product strategy requires critical thinking and careful decision-making that brings focus built on valid insights, and acute execution to deliver any meaningful impact while remaining open and humble to pivots and change — A product leader’s role is to build empowered product teams and give them the space to solve meaningfully challenging problems. If such conditions are met, we can expect ordinary people to create extraordinary products as they will have focus and the opportunity to leverage their skills and talent.

Product leaders are responsible for their product vision and principles and every strong product vision will encompass seven core elements to succeed: 1. Brings customer centricity 2. Creates alignment 3. Sets scope of work 4. Leverages megatrends 5. Enables persuasion 6. Empowers teams 7. Drives team topology — Ownership The head of product is responsible for delivering the product vision and strategy. To act on this: