The Product Mind Community provides a safe space to increase wellbeing, effectiveness and fulfilment in role & in life for product professionals globally.
It is a vibrant community enabling product managers, owners, designers, marketers and other roles, to come together and discuss, specifically, mental health and wellbeing topics, concerns or whatever is on their mind, with like-minded peers. Those who are familiar with the work, the scenarios, and the challenges, are also the best to support and offer advice, alongside resources and expertise from across the world.
The community is led by a collective of passionate product veterans who have deep insight into the challenges, both professional and psychological, of the role.
Product Management is a fantastic role. It just is. The possibilities, the opportunity to make a real difference, the variety in who you work with day to day. Product Management is also a unique role, with its unique challenges, pressures and pitfalls. Many of the technical challenges are well documented and ideas on how to overcome them
The personal, psychological, and wellbeing challenges of the role, however, are far less documented, far less publicised and far less supported in most teams. Managing conflicts in requirements and priorities, or complaints, from departments or customers; dealing with issues or disappointment; pressures from all angles, teams and senior leaders; upskilling in new platforms, challenging others or established norms, overcoming imposter syndrome. These are just some of the challenges that Product Managers can come up against.
This is combined with whatever the professional also has going on in their own life outside of work. Anything from existing worries or wellbeing concerns to more serious, established or diagnosed mental health issues. While much of this is common in most roles and for most people across the working world, the role of Product Management specifically is a unique area that is under-supported currently.
Welcome to the Product Mind Community
The Community Manifesto
The Community is a safe space to communicate and share - with other similar product professionals, in a group or individually, as you need on any topic you want advice with or just a space to talk.
The Community is a forum to discuss key topics on wellbeing in product -, as part of chat conversation, live sessions or other initiatives.
The Community is a knowledge base - providing access to topical articles, specialists and conversations specifically to support the wellbeing of product professionals.
The Community is free and voluntary for all - to support all and allow members to give as much to the community as they receive. This includes the community leaders who provide what time they have to support members.
The Community is a collective where hierarchy does not exist - Whether you've been a product professional for ten days or ten years, all opinions and areas of experience are valued equally. Everyone has a voice and everyone's voice will be heard.
The Community is a non-judgmental environment - where members understand no one has the right to judge or criticise anyone else's thoughts, feelings or actions - even if we've been in similar situations ourselves we understand our situations might still be different.
The Community embraces and welcomes individual uniqueness and differences - Our beauty comes in our diversity, and we celebrate, and protect, everyone's rights to speak up and be themselves.
This community belongs to everyone. Its power and the benefit we all stand to gain from it is all of our responsibility. We hope that this, and our ability to have such a positive impact on the community and the wellbeing of others, is an empowering fact and makes this a rewarding community to be a part of.
Our Values
Strength and Power in Sharing
The Community only works if members share, either to ask for advice and support or to respond to share experiences and sourced expert advice. Sharing such personal topics can be a real challenge, and so the Community thrives with a mix of individuals all with diverse lives, lived experiences, attitudes, and cultures from which each of us can draw strength. The Community’s crowd-sourced support mechanism gives members confidence and courage to share, and to want to help others too.
Embracing the Niche
The Community is focused specifically on supporting product professionals with their mental health & wellbeing challenges, and so the conversations, advice, guidance and materials are all focused on our niche disciplinary area within the working world. By embracing the uniqueness of our line of work, those who might need advice or support can get it from others who understand the role, the challenges and possible outcomes.
Enabling You to Help You
Ultimately, the only person that can help you, is you. The Community is focused on supporting you and building your self-confidence and resilience to face the challenges you have and the changes you might need to make to overcome them. The advice and support is there to use as you see fit, whether as practical, pragmatic guidance to follow or, as a minimum, providing a safe space to seek catharsis and know that you are not alone.
Building upon Wellbeing
The Community is focused specifically on supporting product professionals with their mental health & wellbeing challenges, and so the conversations, advice, guidance and materials are all focused on our niche disciplinary area within the working world. By embracing the uniqueness of our line of work, those who might need advice or support can get it from others who understand the role, the challenges and possible outcomes.
Community Outcomes
We are clear that, through our Values and the support of the leadership, ambassadors and fellow contributors, members will supported to 4 outcomes:
Improved Wellbeing
Community Leadership will ensure that the environment is a safe stabilising experience for all, creating content that directly meets the needs of members and armouring their wellbeing. They will embody, celebrate and promote the community values.
Ambassadors will encourage and lead by example in sharing what’s on their mind, directing members to appropriate channels to continually support and promote a feeling of ease through facilitating shared experiences.
Members will benefit from being able to rely upon the community for having multiple helping hands, shoulders to cry on and a stabilising constant in their lives. Members can grow and develop in the safe space the community provides, to be at ease and find their strength again.
This leads to…
Improved Effectiveness
Community Leadership will ensure there are adequate pathways for members to grow from managing their wellbeing to improving their personal and professional effectiveness, by supporting individuals on their journeys leveraging experiences and insights from their careers.
Ambassadors will encourage conversation and sharing of lived experiences and skills gained to being effective individuals and product professionals, sharing useful resources, anecdotes, tools, frameworks and more.
Members will benefit from understanding how to better apply themselves with improved wellbeing, allowing them to focus on improving their product skills, their careers and their overall abilities and effectiveness.
This leads to…
Improved Fulfilment
Community Leadership will provide safety in the community, promoting values that are positive, supportive yet honest - noting that the best advice might not always be what people want to hear, but need to hear, focusing on the long-term contentment of product professionals.
Ambassadors will facilitate those honest yet positive conversations and contributions, ensuring a well-rounded experience that can cover both members’ personal and professional lives.
Members will benefit from healthier wellbeing, and improved effectiveness which in turn will lead to a greater degree of happiness holistically across their lives, through a community that supports them with what they need when they need it.
This leads to…
Improved Psychological Safety
Community Leadership will provide thought leadership on what good looks like when setting teams up for success in an environment of psychological safety. Seeking to bring guidance and examples into the community with other leaders driving improvements in this regard
Ambassadors will encourage members to nurture their support system by leading by example, initiating and continuing conversations, and providing emotional and tactical support.
Members will benefit from a stronger sense of being comfortable with being their authentic selves in life and at work through having a safe space to openly share about their thoughts and emotions without fear of retaliation. In turn, this will boost their self-confidence and self-esteem.
Meet the team
Graham Reed - Founder
Graham has over a decade of experience as a Product Leader and now focuses on the emerging role of Product Operations, as a practitioner, author & speaker. Graham is a strong mental health advocate too.
Jacs Guderley - Founder
Jacs is an experienced senior product manager, mental health advocate, author, illustrator & speaker.
Beks Yelland - Chief Community Officer
Beks is a Product Director and experienced product professional and coach. Beks is passionate about mental health, and psychological safety and has founded The Female Product Lead. Beks joined the Product Mind Community leadership team in 2023.
Tiffany Chang - Lead Ambassador
Tiff is a Senior Program Manager and experienced product professional and coach.
Tiff joined the Product Mind Community in 2021, quickly establishing herself as a trusted, empathetic professional within the group, and joined the community team as its first Ambassador in 2022, and then as Lead Ambassador in 2023.
Events
The community leadership actively run personalised sessions for other product communities around the world (free), as well as businesses and professional teams (paid), discussing our personal histories combining mental health journeys and being product professionals, and how to support teams as leaders.
We have inspired communities from New Zealand with Product Aotearoa to Canada with Product Tank Toronto & the Product Led Alliance in the UK
Connect the team to discuss how we can help you.
The community leadership each often participate as guests on podcasts and live events - check LinkedIn the the latest events.
Resource Access
This site contains all materials produced by the Product Mind Community or approved links to external resources. Access to the library of resources is limited to members only (but of course, membership is free forever!)
Why subscribe?
Members who subscribe HERE will get notified immediately of any and all new resources the Community provides. Remember this is not the same as joining the Community.