Myths can powerfully guide or misguide.Myths, in the sense of fables or epics, historically captured and conveyed important life lessons to members of a particular culture. The adventures, misadventures, trials and triumphs of the protagonist served as examples of what...

So, you've got global team. People based in several different countries are working on your product.   How are they all going to work together?   They've spent all kinds of effort and money on training and cultural sensitivity to...

As companies utilize distributed teams more extensively, the landscape of the work environment is changing. These distributed teams can be excellent venues for a diverse mix of perspectives, ideas and insight however there is huge potential for misunderstanding or blocks...

Editor's note: We invited Laurie Jane, Product Management Director at Yesmail, to wrap up our exploration of martial arts insights for product managers with her personal Muay Thai perspective. The three of us co-facilitated a session at ProductCamp Seattle last...

There is a legend of a great karate master that I'm sure circulates in many dojos (karate studios).  The story is that of a young karate student who begins his practice and shows a natural talent.  He is aware of...

Prologue I'm unfashionably late with this posting. ProductCamp Seattle 2010 preparations, not to mention my day job, have been keeping me busy. Preparing for ProductCamp as part of the volunteer team necessarily also means preparing a session for the event,...

An excerpt from the white paper entitled "Business Anthropology and the Culture of Product Managers."Brand or product management was born from intense, sustained and rigorous trial and error in the market research department at the giant consumer packaged goods company,...

In previous posts (as well as in ProductCamp and conference sessions) I've mentioned the various professional tribes within organizations and the challenging dynamic they present to an observant, socially-curious product manager. I've also suggested ways in which a product manager...

Yes, we walk bipedally, we think in abstract terms and we can do integral calculus, but just maybe we might have something to learn from our primate cousins, the Bonobo.  Bonobos (Pan paniscus), also called pygmy or gracile chimpanzees share...

As a product manager, have words ever gotten you down? Or, more precisely, has the lack of shared meaning of words used by the team - even ostensibly shared words - appeared unexpectedly and disastrously like an iceberg in the...

Cover via AmazonHuman beings are social animals. Our lives depend on other humans. Human infants are born unable to transport or care for themselves. Their survival depends on another human's efforts. We develop and learn about the world around us...

Mole?A mole is solitary. A mole is hard-working. A mole gets the digging done.A mole also spends most of its time in the dark. A mole receives little to no assistance from other moles. A mole rarely sees the light...

So, you think you work with a team of morons.  You are certain that your life is being hindered by the sheer incompetence of your cross-functional team mates and you have no choice but to grind through the endless days...

Paula's post on groupthink got me thinking about agreement. Not only about the potentially dangerous effect of unexamined agreement within a group, e.g. the groupthink that Paula discussed, but also the equally dangerous effect of presumed agreement. A team composed...

Groupthink is a concept within social psychology (okay so I'm stepping off my anthropology soapbox and borrowing one from my friends at soc-psych) that defines a style of group decision making where individuals are more motivated to agree rather than...