Product Fundamentals
Jordan Phillips
The Product Fundamentals podcast is dedicated to giving software professionals of all levels the core knowledge they need to thrive in their jobs. Join us for season 1, in which we unpack the deeper history of why we build software in the way we do, from the Industrial Revolution through the Space Race and on to today. Whether your role is in product management, design, engineering, or another nearby field, there should be something interesting to learn about how we work in every episode.
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Top 10 Product Fundamentals Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Product Fundamentals episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Product Fundamentals for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Product Fundamentals episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
1.10: Where We Work
Product Fundamentals
08/17/23 • 31 min
In the penultimate episode of season 1, we're finally addressing the silent partner in all our work: the place we do it.
We'll track how we got from the first large office buildings in early modern London, through the rigorously optimized work spaces of the early 20th century, on to the cubicle, the open-plan office, and finally, the the modern tech campus.
We'll also cover the history of modern work-from-home, which has a lot more to it than the recent pandemic.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.0: Preamble
Product Fundamentals
05/24/23 • 5 min
The way we make software is weird, especially compared to how the rest of the economy works. In the first season of Product Fundamentals, we'll unpack that history, and figure out how forces dating from the Industrial Revolution through the Space Race and on to the present collided to form the way we make software today.
For a show transcript, check out the podcast website at https://www.prodfund.com.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.9: Agile at Scale
Product Fundamentals
07/26/23 • 34 min
As the Internet grew in the 2000s, it drove the creation of far more large and complicated software organizations than the industry had ever seen before. This posed hard new questions, leading to both a crisis of confidence -- "Agile is Dead!" -- as well as to some fresh green shoots in the form of DevOps.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.8: Quantified Leap
Product Fundamentals
07/12/23 • 43 min
The 2010s were characterized by a huge shift toward rigorous experimentation and quantification in many aspects of software development. Big data and data science, A/B testing, data science, quantified OKRs -- it was the decade that we all needed to brush up on our statistics.
This episode, we cover the history behind this shift and the technologies that made it possible. Plus, we take a little detour into the contentious issue of how to make a proper cup of English tea.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.6: Agile & Lean
Product Fundamentals
06/25/23 • 38 min
As the dot-com bubble came crashing down, a group of "organizational anarchists" got together at a ski resort and created the Agile Manifesto, finally providing a common banner for incremental software people. One of the most successful offshoots of Agile would be Lean Software, which took its foundations from Toyota's lean manufacturing system and brought it to software, setting the stage for the startup wave that was to soon follow.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.4: Waterfall Ascendant
Product Fundamentals
06/08/23 • 36 min
This episode, we cover the rise of Waterfall to its dominant position over the software industry, find out what it was like in day-to-day practice, learn how it became the official way to make software on both sides of the Atlantic, and discover that old-timers have been complaining that kids these days don't how how to code since at least the 1970s.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.3: Management and Measurement
Product Fundamentals
06/01/23 • 28 min
This episode, we take a pause from the Waterfall vs. IID rivalry to catch up on the management and measurement parts of software development.
We'll track how statistics got its start in the early modern era, through the quotas of the American Industrial Revolution and the analytical surge during the Second World War, and finally on to the rise of Management by Objective at HP and Intel.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.2: Intro to Iteration
Product Fundamentals
05/25/23 • 24 min
While we may think of the Waterfall as the original way to make software, the philosophy of moving fast and making small changes -- called iterative and incremental development -- dates back just as far. Today we're tracking how IID got its start in classic early 20th century manufacturing and evolved through pioneering NASA projects into an important precursor of how we work today. Plus, we'll cover the first rise and fall of the "cross-functional team" at the US Navy and at a long-gone giant of the early computer industry.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.1: Chasing Waterfalls
Product Fundamentals
05/24/23 • 33 min
To understand why we make software the way that we do, we start from the beginning, with the earliest programmable computers, exponential growth, NATO's first "software engineers," and Winston Royce's articulation of the Waterfall.
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
1.11: So what?
Product Fundamentals
08/28/23 • 24 min
This episode, we'll revisit the question that we started with: why do we make software in the way that we do? I'll draw some principles from the story we've covered, and suggest what that history indicates about what could come next.
I hope you'll stay subscribed to this feed -- while the first season is over, there are a few bonus bits that should follow, plus (hopefully!) a second season to follow.
Thanks for listening!
For full show transcripts, links to sources, and ways to contact me, please see the show site at https://www.prodfund.com.
Intro and outro music by Jesse Spillane.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Product Fundamentals have?
Product Fundamentals currently has 12 episodes available.
What topics does Product Fundamentals cover?
The podcast is about Product Management, Product, History, Design, Software, Software Development, Agile, Podcasts, Technology, Business and Strategy.
What is the most popular episode on Product Fundamentals?
The episode title '1.11: So what?' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Product Fundamentals?
The average episode length on Product Fundamentals is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of Product Fundamentals released?
Episodes of Product Fundamentals are typically released every 7 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of Product Fundamentals?
The first episode of Product Fundamentals was released on May 24, 2023.
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