My map is the largest

I'm a little bit surprised by the ongoing conversation that you Ubisoft have sparked with their announcement about Star Wars outlaws where the planets size seemed to increase and increase and that they should be larger than anything that we've seen before. While this seems to be an attempt to position the game especially well … Continue reading My map is the largest →

Product elevator pitch

When you're developing a product strategy, or a new set of features for an existing product, you need to find a way to capture, and also communicate that strategy to the world. That's very important, because as you create your vision, you'll need allies, supporters and sponsors - and being able to convey the idea … Continue reading Product elevator pitch →

Character and player on a journey

When you are designing a piece of software, service or functionality, sometimes, you need to take the user on a journey with you. Especially in a new experience that users haven't engaged in before, or you need the user to complete certain steps as a means to an end, you need to keep them motivated … Continue reading Character and player on a journey →

Telemetry and insights into your product

Something that's quite incredible in this modern, ever-connected world, if you're working on a product team, is that you could be getting a wealth of insights from the thing you're building. It must have been hard in the days where you had your product run on isolated machines and never heard back from it after … Continue reading Telemetry and insights into your product →

Learnings from Maniac Mansion

Ron Gilbert talked about Maniac Mansion in a classic game postmortem at GDC. I've watched the recording for a second time now. Aside from the obvious fact that Ron is an excellent story teller, there's a few learnings and notes that I took away again. Some of the things he learned and mentioned were processed … Continue reading Learnings from Maniac Mansion →

Product Management gone missing

I follow the unfolding Twitter story with great curiosity. I am shocked there's this many layoffs, and many people that helped grow the company and the social platform were let go. I won't go into detail, but I am not buying the narrative that all those that were let go were "bloat" or "unessential" or … Continue reading Product Management gone missing →

Bucketizing backlog

I am trying to bucketize things. Structure helps me reduce chaos and tackle things and get things done efficiently. Buckets help with clarity. At least for me. When I look over the backlog, and what to focus on next - and this is for product work as well as for structuring my day, I am … Continue reading Bucketizing backlog →

The crawling, walking, running thermostat

One of the classic tricks of Product Management and design thinking is the "crawl-walk-run" approach of breaking down a larger project in to smaller, digestible and easier-to-tackle work packages. Like a small human child, a new product isn't born immediately running, but will take time to crawl on all fours. After, the child will learn … Continue reading The crawling, walking, running thermostat →

What sucking adventure games tell product managers

I am reading a lot of blogs and papers that people write about their thought processes for the craft their good at. Not all are strictly product management, some are from similar fields. I consume a lot of adventure game content these days, and if you look at game design for adventure games, there's a … Continue reading What sucking adventure games tell product managers →

Achievements and customer engagement

One of the things that I find intriguing about modern games, coming from a 80s/90s gaming past, is that there's a few new concepts that can elevate the experience you have with a game, giving you a few more benefits for the money you put in. A concept I quite liked playing Return to Monkey … Continue reading Achievements and customer engagement →