Writing by Peter Hilton

Articles tagged ‘product’

all articles

Superblocks review

an app builder that works for information pages • 2024-12-17

Appsmith review

a builder for dashboards, but not information pages • 2024-12-10

Feature name jargon

finding out what products call their capabilities • 2024-12-03

The 3 phases of public API development

unpacking the API product lifecycle • 2024-11-12

Indigestible restaurant concepts

consumer food-service enshittification • 2024-08-13

The fridge door test for web accessibility

minimum-effort signals in complex systems • 2024-08-06

Stop talking about requirements

Zombies, and the requirements analysis delusion • 2024-07-23

Book review: Who Does What By How Much?

A broadly-applicable guide to adopting OKRs • 2024-07-16

Refactoring checklist

Ten practical tips for reducing technical debt • 2024-07-02

Extreme product development (script)

The extended script for my Joy of Coding lightning talk • 2024-06-25

Stop talking about ‘technical debt’

Prioritise and work towards specific goals instead • 2024-06-18

Development schedule cost

I don’t ask for developer estimates and nor should you • 2024-06-04

Legacy product development (part 2)

The converse of extreme product development • 2024-05-27

Legacy product development (part 1)

The converse of extreme product development • 2024-05-21

Don’t conflate difficulty with effort

How to have better conversations with developers • 2024-05-07

Zero-bug policy scenarios

How to handle common situations • 2024-04-23

Being a product manager with a technical background

Unexpected benefits of a previous life as a developer • 2024-04-16

Book review: Radical Focus

Objectives and key results as both fiction and framework, by Christina Wodtke • 2024-04-09

ProductTank Rotterdam manifesto

Our vision for a local product management community • 2024-03-26

Use better product management jargon

Overthinking language because words matter • 2024-03-05

Linear teams and projects

Bridging project management tools and product management • 2024-02-20

Date-based information architecture

How Tana daily pages use ‘today’ as a sensible default • 2024-02-13

Integrated Q&A in product documentation

Docs, questions and answers in Delibr and Slite • 2024-02-06

Product documentation-capability alignment

Fun with product capabilities and Venn diagrams • 2024-01-30

Extreme product development

New approaches, yet to become mainstream • 2024-01-23

‘Feature’ is a construct

Why features would make product development easier, but don’t exist • 2024-01-16

Slite template placeholders

When good design looks obvious • 2024-01-09

QA collaboration for product managers

Software quality from a broader product perspective • 2023-12-26

Open product discovery

Redefining continuous discovery for product managers with NEXT • 2023-12-12

Feature roadmap transformation

How to migrate to a now/next/later product roadmap, one step at a time • 2023-12-05

Product feature analytics

Integrating a functional model with feature-level analytics • 2023-11-28

Product feature trackers

Product operations’ missing tooling • 2023-11-21

Feature rollout

Feature lifecycle steps that follow release • 2023-11-14

Feature release

Feature lifecycle steps that precede release • 2023-11-07

Feature lifecycle management

How existing product development tools neglect features • 2023-10-31

The backlog abstraction layer

A developer perspective on taming infinite backlogs • 2023-10-24

The incredible shrinking backlog

Why you don’t need such a big backlog • 2023-10-17

B2B SaaS review: Airfocus

Flexible end-to-end product management • 2023-10-10

The infinite backlog problem

Software development teams’ self-excavated pit • 2023-10-03

Product document naming

Overthinking what we call the artefacts we write • 2023-09-19

Books that introduce product management

What to read if you only read one book (first) • 2023-09-12

B2B SaaS review: Orbit

Simplified full-circle product management • 2023-08-22

B2B SaaS review: Kitemaker

Integrated product management instead of better project management • 2023-08-15

Legacy software in seven years

Why no-code automation keeps getting better • 2023-07-04

The word-processor problem

Software focus in niche markets versus mass-market complication • 2023-06-20

Team collaboration commoditisation

No-code automation platform Next Matter’s built-in feedback and tasks • 2023-05-30

No-code workflow commoditisation

Built-in custom workflow capabilities in B2B SaaS • 2023-05-16

Project-free product development

You don’t hate Jira, you hate project management • 2023-04-25

Universal product development tools

Simpler more accessible tools to manage product development • 2023-04-18

B2B SaaS review: Cycle

A first look at a tool for integrated product discovery • 2023-04-11

Product development productivity tools

Tooling for different product development units of work • 2023-04-04

Simplify development work organisation

Reducing chaos by consolidating different levels of units of work • 2023-03-28

Simplify product work organisation

Reducing chaos by consolidating different levels of units of work • 2023-03-21

B2B SaaS review: Collato

A first look at a simpler way to collaborate on documents • 2023-03-14

B2B SaaS review: Delibr

From a single unit of work to end-to-end product development • 2023-02-28

Units of work

Overthinking product development team task lists • 2023-02-21

Software development takes forever

The first fundamental software development problem • 2023-02-14

The two-minute product manager

Hyper-availability and reducing median time to respond • 2023-02-07

Product management arithmetic

Why weighted prioritisation scores don’t add up • 2023-01-31

5 ways singing early music makes you better at working in tech

Yet another inane comparison you don’t need and don’t care about • 2022-11-29

Identify workarounds in bug reports

Bug reports for knowledge-centred over achievers • 2022-11-15

Identify context and environment in bug reports

Why bug reports get rejected because ‘it works on my machine’ • 2022-11-08

List reproduction steps in bug reports

How to make bugs reproducible so they get fixed • 2022-11-01

Describe expected behaviour in bug reports

Comparing notes on software behaviour expectations • 2022-10-25

Minimum viable bug report

The most important bug report information… to start with • 2022-10-18

Calendar event rejections

Status codes for more expressive meeting request rejections • 2022-10-04

The part-time product manager

When product management gets the day off • 2022-08-16

How to talk to developers

Boring meetings and balanced conversations • 2022-03-15

Reduce scope at different scales

Why software development requires reducing scope at every step • 2022-03-01

Continuously reduce scope

Why product development requires repeated scope reduction • 2022-02-22

Book review: Succeeding with OKRs in Agile

A practical guide for agile software development practitioners, by @allankellynet • 2021-02-09

HTTP API documentation mistakes

Five common ways to get stuck writing the docs • 2021-01-19

Deconstructed HTTP API documentation

The conventional way to write hard-to-use API documentation • 2021-01-07

Implement a zero-bug policy

How to manage bugs during software product development • 2021-01-05

Development environment documentation

Essential software product documentation for the development team • 2020-12-08

Why developers write bad API documentation

Coding habits that hinder technical writing • 2020-11-24

The API documentation usability problem

Why API documentation tends towards a poor developer experience • 2020-11-10

Book review: Epic Alignment

How to write structured feature documents • 2020-10-13

Software’s process value

Why special-purpose software offers more than its functionality • 2020-08-25

B2B SaaS review: Shipright

A single source of truth for your customers’ product feedback • 2020-07-01

Time zone compromises

Winning against time zones in software by not actually fighting • 2020-06-03

B2B SaaS review: Delibr

Structured writing for feature documents • 2020-05-19

Product backlog naming tips

How to name things, for product people • 2020-05-12

Naming products isn’t the problem

Why product backlog item naming matters • 2020-05-05

The product roadmap triangle

How to make trade-offs between roadmap qualities • 2020-04-28

Roadmaps in two dimensions and three levels

How to relate your roadmap to what matters • 2020-04-21

Your product roadmap is a compromise

Finding a balance between flexibility and transparency • 2020-04-14

B2B SaaS review: productboard (roadmaps)

Sharing product roadmaps in @productboard • 2020-04-07

B2B SaaS review: productboard (insights board)

Capturing customer feedback in @productboard • 2020-03-31

B2B SaaS review: productboard (features board)

Managing a product backlog in @productboard • 2020-03-25

Book review: Choose Your First Product

How to find and validate a product idea, by Leon Bambrick (@secretGeek) • 2020-03-18

Book review: The Art of Agile Product Ownership

How to understand the best way to fulfil the PO role, by @allankellynet • 2020-03-12

Visit your customers and ask them questions

How to get them talking about your product’s value proposition • 2020-02-11

Identify your product value proposition

Why people will buy your product • 2020-01-29

Deliver a 3-5 point product-pitch

How to build initial product marketing from a product definition • 2020-01-21

Define your product using existing product categories

How categories clarify your product definition • 2020-01-15

Write a three-part product definition

How to set the context for your product story • 2020-01-08

Articulate the minimal product definition

How to set the context for your product in one sentence • 2020-01-02

Software maintenance’s terrible question

The big question that teams don’t ask about software products • 2018-07-09

User modelling with TV character personas

Better-looking software requirements analysis • 2014-07-31

What is a collaboration platform?

Collaboration is a tag - not a category • 2014-07-23