Crazy Busy Product People – Rian van der Merwe on The Product Experience [Rebroadcast]

We’re taking a short break from releasing new episodes over the holidays. We’ll be back with new interviews in early January. But don’t despair! In the meantime, we’re re-running two episodes that fit the theme of the season: reflection and planning for 2020.
Randy’s Pick
‘Tis the season to make a list of resolutions for how we’re going to be better in the new year – start new habits, stop old ones, be more productive, etc.  Before you commit to anything, I recommend taking another listen to our chat with Wildbit Head of Product Rian van der Merwe, who has some great advice on how to speed up by slowing down, and achieving your goals by working smarter rather than harder.  It’s something that we all know, in theory – but Rian’s take on how to put it into practice is refreshing and useful.
Happy listening!
Quote of the Episode
We’re crazy busy, taking on too much responsibility and not trusting our teams enough.
Listen if you’d like to learn more about

* Remote working and four-day weeks
* Structuring your day – and your team’s workload
* Diagnosing the problem as well as strategies to fix it

Links mentioned in this episode

* Follow Rian on Twitter and keep up with his writing at Elezea.com
* Parkinson’s Law
* Natalie Nagale on Indie Hackers
* Teresa Torres on the Product Science podcast
* Ryan Singer of Basecamp’s articles, etc.
* Javier Grillo-Marxuach, The 11 Laws of Showrunning

Hosts
The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.
Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching ProductCamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of The Product Experience podcast.
A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg and Manchester), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford, and Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music
Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass.