The Best of The Product Compass: 2024 Edition
Start Here: Top Posts for Product Managers Based on Your Goals
Hey, Paweł here. Welcome to the special edition of The Product Compass!
Every week, I share actionable insights and resources for PMs.
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Reflection
Before we dive in, I want to take a moment to reflect — it’s been a wild year!
We're heading into 2025 with 90,705 subscribers and 1,901 premium members in our community. Those numbers doubled in 2024.
I can't thank you enough for your support. It pushes me to work even harder in 2025 ❤️🙏
Today’s Post
Many subscribers often ask about topics we've already covered. With over 110 articles in our archive and hundreds of resources, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
So, in today’s post, I’ll guide you on where to start based on your goals:
I Don’t Know Where to Start
Help Me Break Into Product Management
Help Me Become an AI Product Manager
Help Me Ace Product Discovery
Help Me Be More Strategic
Help Me Market, Measure, and Grow My Product
Help Me Become a Better Leader
Help Me Boost My Execution
Let’s dive in!
1. I Don’t Know Where to Start
Here are a few quick wins for new subscribers:
Continuous Product Discovery Masterclass: The Product Manager is responsible for addressing value and viability risk. And product discovery is the most important area for a PM. This course is the key resource of the entire newsletter.
Top 32 Product Management Videos: YouTube is a free university for PMs. Those top recommended 32 videos will quickly give you an overview of the most critical topics. They are also available as a YouTube playlist.
Product Model: Product Team and Product Strategy In Depth: Product model first principles with Marty Cagan’s comments. Part 1/2.
Product Model: Product Discovery, Product Delivery, and Product Culture In Depth: Product model first principles with Marty Cagan’s comments. Part 2/2.
PM Skills Assessments and PM Competencies Map: Those resources help you test your knowledge and quickly identify what to improve.
600+ PM Learning Resources: Books, infographics, free courses, templates, and more.
2. Help Me Break Into Product Management
I recommend you start with:
What is Product Management: After reading this post, you will understand the difference between product and project management, what a Product Manager does, and the various product roles.
Product Owner vs Product Manager: Why it’s so critical for a PM to have direct access to customers, stakeholders, engineers, and designers. Without proxies.
How to Become a Product Manager: Recommended career paths, red flags, and step-by-step instructions to succeed.
How to Ace Your Product Manager Resume: 12 principles of writing a killer PM resume.
How to Land a PM Interview: A Step-by-Step Guide: In this post, I shared the steps that will allow you to secure your PM interview together with an ATS-verified and A/B-optimized resume template.
How to Ace Your First PM Interview: 9 techniques I used to get 4 job offers and 10+ advanced processes in just 3 weeks.
Product Manager Resume Review: It’s really good and still free. Submit your resume and job description and get detailed, personalized feedback in 5 minutes.
5 Steps to Negotiate Your Product Manager Job Offer in a Tough Market: Expert negotiation strategies for PMs. Do not leave money on the table.
How to Become a Technology-Literate Product Manager: Top 6 free tech courses that will help you land a new job (or keep the existing one)
3. Help Me Become an AI Product Manager
So far, we’ve covered:
Introduction to AI Product Management: One of the most successful posts in this newsletter. We’ve discussed the key concepts, such as neural networks, transformers, and LLMs. I’ve also shared a free, interactive tool that allows you to see neural networks in action.
Step-By-Step Introduction to AI Agents: Many call 2025 the year of AI agents. I demonstrated two tools that allow you to build agentic workflows without a CS degree easily.
Top 9 High-ROI ChatGPT Use Cases for Product Managers: In this post, we’ve discussed not just use cases but, even more importantly, the proven principles of prompting.
The Ultimate ChatGPT Prompts Library for Product Managers: 55 prompts I’ve collected over the last year. This post is about maximizing your productivity.
Three Proven Strategies to Monetize AI Features in SaaS (Q4 2024): The state of AI monetization, three proven strategies used by the 500 Top Players in SaaS, and the pros and cons of detailed approaches to monetization.
4. Help Me Ace Product Discovery
Product discovery is the most crucial area for a PM, and I’ve covered it the most. I recommend you read the most critical posts:
What Is Product Discovery: A short overview of Product Discovery
Continuous Product Discovery Masterclass: This course is the key resource of the entire newsletter. I recommend you take it before going further.
How to Build the Right Product with Alberto Savoia (ex-Innovator at Google): It’s a critical post for those working on new products.
Testing Ideas: The Ultimate Validation Experiments Library: Everything you need to validate hypotheses about value, usability, viability, and feasibility.
How to Manage Risks as a Product Manager: A critical post presenting non-obvious risks beyond value, usability, viability, and feasibility.
A/B Testing 101 + Examples: Why do we need A/B testing? What is A/B testing? How to plan an A/B test? A/B testing vs. Multivariate testing.
How to Fix the Double Diamond of Design Thinking: In this post, I introduced the concepts of The Double Diamond of Product Discovery and The Triple Diamond of Product Management.
Other posts that will deepen your understanding and help you at work:
Business Outcomes vs Product Outcomes vs Customer Outcomes: Different types of outcomes and what the product team should focus on.
Product Trio: Beyond the Obvious: In this post, we discuss what Product Trio is. It is not a framework, a strictly defined set of roles, or an exclusive group that performs product discovery alone.
Jobs-to-be-Done Masterclass with Tony Ulwick and Sabeen Sattar: Introduction to JTBD and ODI and a practical step-by-step example.
User Interviews: The Ultimate Guide to Research Interviews: The interview process, best practices, common mistakes, and 60+ interview questions
The Ultimate Guide to Effective Customer Surveys: We discussed how to avoid insufficient data, poor insights, and wrong decisions in product surveys.
How to Prioritize Ideas as a Product Manager: How to assess customer and business value, Product Backlog prioritization frameworks.
Kano Model: How to Delight Your Customers Without Becoming a Feature Factory: Essential to understand, especially for those working with new products.
Assumption Prioritization Canvas: In this post, I explain how to identify hidden assumptions, which assumptions to test, and when to take calculated risks.
The Extended Opportunity Solution Tree: Product Managers are also increasingly expected to think about the business outcomes. In this post, I present how to adjust the Opportunity Solution Tree to capture value for the business.
12 Proven Sources of Insights to Fuel Your Product Discovery: Regularly talking to customers is essential for any product team. But true innovation comes from gathering insights from multiple sources.
User Journey Mapping 101: We discuss best practices, the top 7 mistakes PMs make, and an editable template
5. Help Me Be More Strategic
So far, we’ve covered:
Product Strategy Canvas: My strategy canvas based on the work of Roger Martin and Michael Porter. Currently, the #1 product strategy canvas (Google).
Product Vision vs Strategy vs Objectives vs Roadmap: Many PMs struggle to explain the difference between Product Vision, Strategy, Objectives, and Roadmap. In this post, we explain those concepts.
Your Guide to Crafting a Winning Product Strategy: How to create a winning product strategy and why strategy is discovered, not just crafted.
Product Strategy Examples: Google Maps, Netflix, OpenAI: Editable template, case studies, and alternatives.
Business Model Canvas Examples: Google Maps, Airbnb, Uber: Editable template, case studies, and alternatives.
How to Design a Value Proposition Customers Can't Resist: Together with
, we discussed what a value proposition is with best practices and shared an editable template.Product Pricing Strategies 101: 10 product pricing strategies and 9 product pricing tactics every PM should know.
From Strategy to Objectives Masterclass: In this course, we cover product vision, strategy, team objectives, and how to empower teams with OKRs.
6. Help Me Market, Measure, and Grow My Product
The most recommended posts:
5 GTM Principles You Should Know as a PM: Proven Go-to-Market principles with actionable frameworks and templates. A critical post by
.Crossing the Chasm: The Ultimate Guide For PMs: In this post, we discussed mastering the journey from early adopters to the mainstream market.
How to Achieve Product-Market Fit series: In this series, we discuss how to analyze the market, segment the market, define and test a product idea, and achieve the product-market fit.
Market Research: Advanced Techniques: This post covers market research methods, tools, and templates, as well as examples.
Product Management vs. Product Marketing vs. Product Growth 101: The basic concepts and how to collaborate with other roles.
Are You Tracking the Right Metrics: 8 types of metrics every PM needs to understand. 2 case studies. 5 actionable steps to take as a PM.
The North Star Framework 101: The North Star Framework is among the most important concepts to drive your product’s growth.
Product-Led Growth 101: In this series, we discuss how to start, acquire, and activate your first customers, as well as how to retain them and monetize your product.
The Ultimate List of Product Metrics: We discuss metrics for every step of the AARRR funnel: acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, revenue, and referral, as well as Lean and Agile metrics.
7. Help Me Become a Better Leader
I recommend you to read:
The Product Leadership Playbook: One of my favorite posts. Leader vs. manager, what motivates people, and how to balance freedom and maturity.
Team Topologies: A Handbook to Set and Scale Product Teams: Without the right team topologies, everything else falls apart. Empowerment struggles. Dependencies multiply. And people disappear in silos.
Learn From the Best: 8 Secrets of Amazon Web Services Success: The old post I still enjoy a lot. Amazon’s story and what we can learn as PMs.
Agile Leadership. How I’ve Wasted 3 Years of My PM Career: One of the first posts I published here. My mistakes and what I have learned.
I also recommend you read The Product Model First Principles series, which I mentioned in the first point.
8. Help Me Boost My Execution
Practical posts that can help you with broadly defined execution:
How to Write a Product Requirements Document: A good PRD should explain the strategic context, why the initiative matters, the objective, and how the success will be measured. My recommended PRD template.
How to Write User Stories: The Ultimate Guide: User Stories are more than tasks or requirements. They are narratives that foster collaboration, guide development, and drive meaningful outcomes. Everything you need to know.
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): In this post, we discussed not just what OKRs are with best practices and common mistakes but also how to combine them with Scrum, Product Discovery, and other techniques.
OKR vs KPI: What's the Difference: We discussed common misconceptions and the difference between OKRs and KPIs.
Continuous Product Delivery: We discussed why releasing frequently is critical with 6 misconceptions, 4 delivery principles, and 7 release tactics.
10 Sources of Waste in Product Management: Ten sources of waste that I've witnessed in my career and how to avoid them.
The Secrets of Copywriting: Proven Ways to Transform Your Writing as a PM: Effective communication is the #1 skill for PM. But many struggle with writing. In this post, I share my experience of making your messages difficult to ignore.
Your Guide to Feature Detox: Winning Through Simplifying: Why the best product companies cut and simplify features ruthlessly. Five steps, case studies, and free templates.
3 Ways to Create 10X Better Product Roadmaps: A product roadmap is a strategic tool to align everyone in the organization. But a poor one might result in confusion, broken promises, and even conflicts.
Up Next
Dec 28, 2024 (Sat): Product Management Skills Assessment
Jan 7, 2025 (Tue): Product Innovation Masterclass - I’m finishing our 3rd video course, which will be, again, free for premium subscribers. I will shift the publication due to the holidays.
Thanks for reading The Product Compass!
It's fantastic to learn and grow together.
Take time to recharge, reflect, and enjoy the people that matter most 🌲☃️🎁😊
Have a great holiday season,
Paweł
I have read two-thirds of all your articles in the past two months. You are truly a great writer/product. In the new year, I’m looking forward to new articles from you and maybe 3 course, as your OKR and Discovery courses are quite easy to follow and helpful.
If this isn't a value bomb, I don't know what is.