Episode 235: PMs Need to Spend Less Time Learning and More Time Doing
An interview with Martijn Versteeg, Founder @ Group Effort & Organiser @ Product Mastery Conference
YouTube Link | Podcast Link (all platforms)
Who is Martijn Versteeg?
Martijn Versteeg is the founder of Group Effort, an organisation that fosters connections & facilitates the growth of scale-up leaders through peer groups, offsites and workshops. He’s also organising an upcoming conference in Amsterdam on March 10th 2025: Product Mastery Conference. I’m delighted to say that I’ll be speaking at the conference!
Episode highlights:
1. Product Managers often seek the ”Golden Nugget of Truth”
There’s so much knowledge out there, and it’s incredibly tempting for product managers to try to learn all the things, perfect their craft and achieve some form of enlightenment. This is generally a mistake. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with learning stuff, but sometimes you have to use it!
2. We should consider the 80/20 rule when setting learning expectations
There are probably about 6 books that contain almost all the knowledge we need to do our jobs properly, and every additional book gives marginal gains. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read them, and you’ll always learn something, but people should stop expecting that the next book or framework is going to solve all their problems.
3. We all have a “Knowledge Kanban” board, and we can be terrible at moving stuff to “done”
As per my previous chat with John Cutler on the Instagrammification of product management, there can often be a big build-up of “in progress” knowledge that never gets applied because we just put the book down and move on to the next one. If we can’t move anything to “done” then, arguably, we have no need for the knowledge!
4. You can use “chunking” to put your learnings into action
It’s important to avoid the temptation to “go big or go home” - again, you need to put this stuff into action to make it worthwhile. One way to do this is to chunk things into smaller, more achievable actions and do them as soon as possible… maybe even before you finish reading the book! Also, consider ending learning sessions early to plan your follow-up actions.
5. Forgive yourself if you fall off the wagon
In today’s information age, with relentless gamification and streaks, it’s really easy to get going down a learning path and feel like you’re making progress. But, there are more things to do than ever, which means it’s easy to stall your progress. You should check to make sure there’s nothing systemic holding you back but don’t beat yourself up and get back on the horse when you can. Don’t give up!
Contact Martijn
Find Martijn on LinkedIn or check out Group Effort.
Related episodes you should like:
Purposeful Product Transformation & Setting Leaders Up For Success (Stephanie Leue, Product Coach)
Lifelong Learning for Product Managers (Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Founder @ Product School)
The role of education in leadership (Mac Maistrelli, Engineering Lead @ Blocket)