Which TV shows should I show my toddler? | Daniel Thomason
Daniel's opinionated list of children's shows: what I'm going to let my daughter watch, and why. Possibly helpful for other parents!
Daniel Thomason essays
My essays on various topics: product management, how to live well, productivity, games, plus whatever else I find interesting.
Latest posts
You can’t buy layoff insurance (but you can build it) | Daniel Thomason
We insure our cars against crashes, our homes against fires, and our bodies against illness. But we can't insure against one of the biggest risks we face as employees: suddenly getting laid off!
Do many happy communities add up to a better world? | Daniel Thomason
The question I’m pondering is: can we truly get to a better world by all of us tending to our tiny corner of it? Or would a truly better world require all those micro actions to be complemented by some grand-scale work?
The Core Questions of Product Management | Daniel Thomason
Product management is a complex discipline, with a lot of moving parts and no shortage of things to think about. Luckily, breaking out of this is actually fairly easy. There is a set of core questions at the heart of product management, and if you simply return to those regularly you can't go wrong, and you'll be able to cut through the noise.
Thoughts on education | Daniel Thomason
My thoughts on educating children and teenagers; an evolving document as I think more.
Don't play 3D chess, play fractal chess | Daniel Thomason
3D chess is a tired metaphor that will lead you in the wrong direction. Instead, you want to play fractal chess: increase the layers of game that you're playing, not simply the complexity.
Product managers should straddle utopia and reality | Daniel Thomason
Product management is a hard job. Some of the reasons for this are mundane: long hours, lots of responsibility, isolation. But one big reason for why the job is difficult is not related to the execution factors (i.e. what you might call work/life balance), but rather the fundamental nature of the job itself: the need to live in two worlds simultaneously.
How should a Product Manager spend their time? | Daniel Thomason
For Product Managers, the core dilemma – one I see many fresh PMs struggle with – is how to allocate your time. You only have 40 (ha!) hours in a working week, so what should you do with them?
How fintech companies should think about financial crime risk | Daniel Thomason
Sometimes when we talk about risk within fintech companies, we lose track of the core concept. Since risk is such a central aspect of what we do, this can harm our ability to make good decisions. ‘Risk’ does not stand alone as a concept – it requires additional information to be meaningful.
Fables and Fortune Hunters, the lost second half | Daniel Thomason
In The Four-Hour Work Week Tim Ferriss tells a story about a Mexican fisherman and an American businessman. Not many people know that there is actually a second half to this fable. I was lucky enough to hear it from a wandering shaman in a Berlin nightclub, and with his permission I have reproduced it here.
Hiring is a matching problem | Daniel Thomason
Hiring is a matching problem: finding the right fit (the right employee + the right company) is hard but vital. Investing more effort into this search will pay big dividends.
How to prioritise Fincrime features | Daniel Thomason
Prioritisation frameworks run into some difficulties when thinking about features targeting Fincrime. Defining Reach and Impact is challenging in the area of fincrime product areas, since there are components that don't convert easily to a common denominator. Here's my suggestion for how to deal with that.
A better vocational curriculum for university | Daniel Thomason
There have been a few good posts on Twitter and the blog sphere recently on the question: how would you redesign a university curriculum to optimise for success in the job market? Here’s mine – or at least a first draft.
Scales for Product Managers | Daniel Thomason
Like most knowledge work jobs, product management isn’t a profession that has success metrics nearly as clear as sports. This makes it more challenging to find a smart practice regimen, but far from impossible. Before we can figure that out, though, we need to zoom out a little: what does success look like for a product manager?
When should a company hire a product manager? | Daniel Thomason
How does a company know that it’s the right time to hire a product manager? This is not such an easy question to answer, as it turns out. There’s no precise formula (although there are still some helpful rules of thumb), because different companies have different focuses.
Aim to learn skills, rather than ticking off titles | Daniel Thomason
Don’t choose something (a class, a book, a job, a partner) based on its headline – choose it based on what you want to get out of it, then engage in a way that makes this happen.
Georgian card game | Daniel Thomason
This card game was taught to me by an excellent designer from my former country, who is a proud Georgian citizen and game aficionado.
Lessons from games: dynamic difficulty | Daniel Thomason
Games are products too. In fact, I’d argue that some video games rank among the best products in the world – look no further than Breath of the Wild for a recent example. There’s a lot that Product Managers can learn from games and how they have been developed.One example is the idea of dynamic difficulty.
It rains because you're sad, baby | Daniel Thomason
The sad/rain fallacy: situations in which you’ve have the causal relationship backwards, in a way that denies your own agency. (I believe I am the first to identify it, although I would be happy to be corrected!)
Thoughts on the way we measure time | Daniel Thomason
It just struck me the other day: our main units of time are a hodgepodge of those determined by an external reality and those that are completely arbitrary. And since time is such a central concept to how we organise our lives in the modern world, it makes me wonder how life would be different if we changed the units…
The 'Car Product Development Stages' analogy sucks | Daniel Thomason
If you’ve worked as a product manager in the last few years, I bet you’ve seen the diagram above. But the second row – the super happy wonderful example we should try to emulate – annoys me a lot.
Despise, Denounce, but Exploit | Daniel Thomason
The most compelling proponents of reform are those who are successful members of the system. Complaints from those who have been burned by the fire too often seem like the sour grapes accusations of a sore loser. Plus, winners have resources and power to use as a megaphone, whereas losers are marginalised by definition. Despise, denounce, but exploit.
How many washing machines should a family have? | Daniel Thomason
Lots of household objects don’t get constant use. For many, in fact, for most of the year their main function is to form part of the junk mountain preventing the closet from closing properly.
Gym incentive problems | Daniel Thomason
Traditional gyms are never going to provide an amazing customer experience. The incentives just don’t line up.