Product Management for Nonprofits
Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MvZqZlr7CgfYLdI-4JJOY5lS-RAYEJMHDQXFgUEt6jw/edit?usp=sharing
Nonprofit product management is unique space within product management (pm) overall. Trying to push back on underlying values and translate some of the language that corps use to do pm work.
What is a product?
- something your organization delivers to meets the needs of supporters
- CMS, CRM, Donation pages, Email marketing tools, SMS tools, Membership management, etc
- the language of product can be adapted to the nonprofit context you are working with
Difference between ownership and stewardship
- Stewardship is about having the vision for where you want the product to go.
- Ownership is more about the ongoing maintenance of the product. For example, lack of ownership can lead to plug-in bloat on a Wordpress site because no one is trackign it closely.
Why do products need managers?
- If there isn't ownership of maintenance needs over time, it isn't taken care of
- Allows us to move beyond the how to the why
desirability (user needs) do users want this?, feasibility (technical constraints) can we do this?, viability (Business goals) should we do this?
- book: Inspired by Marty Cagan
We usually get stuck in the intersection of business (/mission) goals and tech constraints, and the users needs are left out.
Go against the "RTFM" (read the fucking manual) mindset, where everything that users/participants don't understand about your product is the users fault
Other reads:
- Dan Olsen’s book, The Lean Product Playbook, https://leanproductplaybook.com/
- Product teams: The next wave of digital for NGOs? https://mobilisationlab.org/stories/product-teams-the-next-wave-of-digital-for-ngos/
- Detangling digital https://mobilisationlab.org/resources/detangling-digital/
- Product Roadmaps Relaunched
Other courses:
- Product School ($$$), similar to General Assembly https://www.productschool.com/product-management/
- to learn Agile and Scrum: The Job Hackers Agile MBA, a FREE online 6-week course from a fantastic nonprofit. Prepares you for CSPM scrummaster certification ($1-2k value) http://thejobhackers.org/