Mathew Cropper

March 5, 2021

Say thanks. Connect the dots.

First, some context, then my point.. The context Last year, one of the Engineers on my team put in place a more structured process for talking about and prioritising both our technical/product debt and ambitions. He made sure that this was a regular activity, and gave it enough structure that it was a much more meaningful input into ou...
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March 4, 2021

Built for You: How customer feedback informs what we ship

Originally published: September 3, 2020 In this panel discussion, I join folks from Intercom's Research, Engineering, and Product Education teams to talk about how we uncover and act on feedback to improve or create new features and products. Head to the Intercom blog to listen in or read a transcript of this discussion.
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March 4, 2021

All onboard!

Originally published: January 22, 2020 At Mobilize Dublin's January 2020 meetup, I shared some of the work we were doing at Intercom to help our customers give their app users an amazing onboarding experience. I talked about how we explored the problem, decided on a solution, and shared a sneak peak at what we were building. Here's a l...
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March 4, 2021

Transitioning into a more technical Product Manager role

Originally published: February 7, 2021 This week, in a Clubhouse room for aspiring Product Managers, people were invited to ask questions and a panel of experienced Product folks would give advice. One of the questions went along the lines of: “"I'm a Product Manager in the retail industry. My role doesn't require any technical skills ...
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March 4, 2021

Overcoming imposter syndrome – tips for dealing with self-doubt

A version of this post was published on the Inside Intercom blog » Originally published: August 24, 2020 Our work lives are riddled with anxieties. Many of them are natural and fleeting, and we deal with them. One that haunts people, however, is imposter syndrome. The belief that we are a fraud, doubting our accomplishments and talents...
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March 4, 2021

Reluctant consensus

Originally published: August 3, 2020 One of the most challenging things to deal with when building products is reluctant consensus. When it happens, it's often brushed aside and ignored, treated as a minor frustration that comes with the job. It's actually an incredibly powerful signal, and one that more PMs should be actively mindful ...
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March 4, 2021

Product strategy and the time poor PM

Originally published: July 23, 2020 This week I spoke at Product School, sharing my advice for Product Managers who have problems defining their product direction and making decisions, but have struggled to find the time to invest in strategy work. I share what's worked for me, as well as the tools and principles I use to guide me. If ...
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March 4, 2021

Long hours mean success? Bullshit. Here's my experience of why.

Originally published: December 26, 2019 Over the last few days, my Twitter feed has been alight with argument (what's new?) about something Ryan Selkis said in reply to Jason Fried: “If you don’t work nights and weekends in your 20s, you’re not going to have a successful career. Sorry. https://t.co/rUdvMzauij— Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot...
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March 4, 2021

Great teams map dependencies. Amazing teams map ambiguity as well.

Originally published: August 26, 2019 Great teams know who else they're dependent on to get something done. Even with highly autonomous teams, dependencies are unavoidable. Great teams make sure dependencies are made visible somehow. I've found that this is often not quite enough. "We have a dependency on Team X for Y" is a good start,...
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March 4, 2021

From the archives: A Snapchat inspired retro format

Originally published: February 23, 2019 A previous incarnation of this blog carried a post on how we experimented with a Snapchat style retro format back in 2017. This week I spent a lot of time thinking about retrospectives, and after reminiscing about this particular one and how fun it was, I decided to bring it back to life here. Be...
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March 4, 2021

You don't suck. You just think you do.

Originally published: March 9, 2018 Whether we care to admit it or not, imposter syndrome stalks us all. Sometimes we feel it more or less acutely than others, but it's there and a fact of life. Most commonly in my discussions with other Product Managers I find that we think obsessively about three key themes; we aren't developing ours...
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March 4, 2021

Get your message across every time with relationship mapping

Originally published: December 23, 2016 Relationship mapping is one of the most powerful techniques I learned in my career. It's the most effective method I've ever come across for making sure that the right people hear my message, and react to it favourably. In this post, learn exactly what it is, why it's a useful technique for manag...
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March 4, 2021

The woman behind the Netflix culture doc

Originally published: September 3, 2016 The Netflix culture doc has an almost mythical status. When it first became popularised, it was a fresh way of thinking about corporate culture and individual responsibility. The Woman Behind the Netflix Culture Docis an interview with Patty McCord on the infamous document, how it came about, and...
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March 4, 2021

Feature fixation - Tweetbot and regex

Originally published: August 5, 2016 For some strange reason, I've thought a lot about regular expressions lately. I've even played a game (or two). As a result, my feature fixation for this post is Tweetbot 4 for iOS and its regular expression mute filters. It's reasonable to say that regex would be an advanced feature of any consumer...
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March 4, 2021

Analysis foundations for process improvement

Originally published: December 29, 2014 Process improvement is all about getting from where we are now (As Is) to something better (To Be). It’s about finding out the things we can do better, and then actually doing them better. One very easy way of making that happen is simply to have your ears to the ground and listen out for pain po...
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