Product Bugle 16/9: So much good stuff!
How Figma ships product, does PRDs and quarterly roadmap reviews. Resources for better decision making and problems solving. And Clippy: the origin story.
Tools and tips from a $20bn start up
Adobe just paid an eye-watering $20bn to buy the business that is currently disrupting it: Figma. (read one take on how Figma built its business here; and just how well its investors have done here)
If you’re planning on building a $20bn business yourself - well, fortunately Figma’s VP of Product Yukhi Yamashita has been pretty open about how they work. All these are worth a read..
An inside look into how Figma Ships Product : Goes through their full process and ways of working.
Figma’s approach to Product Requirement Docs: This gives a full template (in Coda) - and guidance on how to complete it.
Figma’s approach to quarterly planning (accompanied by this very brief video) which uses their FigJam software (like a Miro board - although I’m sure they wouldn’t see it that way) to do a roadmap review.
Finally if you’re wondering what it takes to be a VP of product at a place like Figma - this ‘fireside chat’ with Yuhki Yamashita will give you some guidance. His two main skills for success/stepping up: ‘Storytelling’ and ‘Framework thinking’ - but best if you watch it yourself.
3 resources for making better decisions and solving problems
I’ve been building up my mega list of The Best Product Stuff, and uncovering all sorts of goodies. Some of the best have been around decision making..
The DACI framework: It’s all about who’s the Driver, who’s the Approver, who are the Contributors; and who’s Informed. (which I personally find a whole lot clearer than RACI).
Gokul’s S.P.A.D.E framework This is from Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash, who has also done stints at Facebook and Google and Square - and this framework apparently is widely used at Square - and gives a structured way to drive out hard decisions.
It stands for Setting, People, Alternatives, Decide, and Explain - and all builds on a single doc (also on Coda - as it happens, but you can do it in whatever way you like).
Eigen Questions: The Art of Framing Problems: From the CEO and Founder of Coda, Shishir Mehrotra. This goes back to his time at YouTube - and is a way of making sure you get to the right solution by framing a problem in a way that also lets you solve other problems in the future.
Those ProductCon videos
I mentioned these last week - but they’re now live - these three are worth your time..
TheBestProductStuff.com - going into beta next week.
Next week’s newsletter will be a great big long explanation of what I’ve built and why and letting you take a look at it. If you want to join the elite crew taking a sneak preview at the alpha version (hopefully this weekend) sign up here.
And finally..
Some 90s nostalgia: The Twisted Life of Clippy - the origin story of the Microsoft assistant!
That’s it for this week..
Like I said - back next week to bang on about TheBestProductStuff.com! Have a great weekend.