Occasionally in my work with technology product teams around the world, I run into product managers that are still practicing the role as it used to be defined back in the PC era of technology. These organizations are inevitably frustrated,...
Earlier I expanded on the notion of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and I promised a series of articles that explores aspects of MVP Tests that often cause product teams confusion. In this article, I’d like to discuss the relationship between...
One of the most important concepts in all of software is the notion of minimum viable product (often referred to as “MVP”). But if you’ve been around software products for a while, you know that term is used in many...
NOTE: This is the original version of an article that has since been updated significantly. The current version can be found here: Coaching Tools – The Assessment. In my last article I discussed the role of the leader of the...
If you take a look at the list of open product positions at the end of my recent newsletter, you’ll notice a record number of VP/Director of Product positions. In part this reflects the growth we are experiencing in our...
In my last article I discussed the top reasons for slow product, and here I wanted to highlight the top reasons for weak product. I am defining weak product here as product that fails to meet its objectives and provide...
Over the last several months I have been working with some clients to revisit how they do product portfolio planning. Essentially the process they use to determine where to invest and how much. I’ve discussed the purpose and the common...
I am in the midst of a series of articles on product planning, but I’ve received several e-mails asking where this fits into the overall product organization, and the product discovery and product development processes, so I thought I’d make...
In keeping with my recent theme of product planning, I’d like to focus in this article on an important distinction and source of frustration in many companies, and that has to do with the differences between business strategy and product...
Product planning is a big topic that many product organizations struggle with. It spans a range of activities including business strategy, product strategy, product roadmaps, portfolio management, opportunity assessments, project planning and tracking, and project oversight. But in a phrase,...
I can¹t tell you how many times product managers have shown me their sophisticated spreadsheets and algorithms for prioritizing their long laundry list of feature requests (weighting various factors like cost, complexity, risk, customer impact, projected sales impact, documentation, dependencies,...
One consequence of having been around this industry for a while is that I¹ve seen several cycles. Sometimes the downsides are fairly minor and barely touch tech companies, and at other times nearly everyone has lay-offs, cost-cutting, consolidations, or worse....
In some companies, mostly larger companies with multiple business units, there is an additional role in the product mix. This role typically comes about when you have a matrix organization where a common product organization is responsible for serving the...
In a very real sense, every product manager is in the risk management business. Every investment decision we make represents a risk. Should we go for a big project that can potentially redefine our position, or maybe a handful of...
Occasionally product managers will ask me if they should get “certified” as a product manager. There are half a dozen or so organizations that have created their own “product management certification” programs. Now, I do not blame any of these...
