One of the issues that Product Managers commonly face when engaging with teams who claim to be, or who want to be, “Agile” is that most people have never really take the time to actually research the origins of the Agile movement, the principles upon which it is based, or even the histories of the […]
Building Your Product Management Toolkit
One of the challenges that we have as Product Managers is managing our own career trajectories while at the same time running the products that we are tasked with keeping alive and breathing. A wise mentor once told me that we’re all consultants in this day and age, and that we should be sure that […]
“Agile” Does Not Mean “Without a Plan”
A very common, and very dangerous misconception about Agile development — whether you’re using Kanban, Scrum, XP, DevOps, or any other flavor of the week — is that it “requires” or “expects” that you can operate quickly, efficiently, and effectively without necessarily having an overall strategic plan. Bullshit. There certainly are teams and companies who […]
Saying No Without Saying No
One of the biggest challenges that many new product managers face is that they want to make sure that they’re making a good impression on their stakeholders, and they don’t want to say “no” to any request coming in. They don’t want to be viewed as a blocker of progress or as an unsympathetic ear […]
The Role of a Product Manager in Scrum
One of the sometimes-confusing aspects of the Scrum approach to Agile development is how a Product Manager fits into the system. It’s important to understand that Scrum was designed originally as set of development practices, and as such from the textbook perspective views everything through that lens. The crux of the confusion comes primarily because […]
Being an Agent of Change
One of the most important parts of being a Product Manager is becoming an agent of change in your organization. Unless by some absolute miracle you’re working for a company that has everything figured out, has no conflicts at all, and is able to go from theory to strategy to tactics to release smoothly every […]
How to Be Successful as a Non-Technical Product Manager
There seems to be a strong bias in many large companies toward assessing a product manager’s ability to perform based as much (if not more) on their technical ability, background, and knowledge as their real-world, market, and user experience. To me, this is an entirely backward way of approaching the problem, as the entire purpose […]
Pulling Yourself Out of the Fires
If you’re like most Product Managers, you find yourself constantly struggling to manage incoming priorities, especially when there are problems that directly impact your clients, customers, and ongoing plans. It’s way too easy to wind up getting caught up in the constant firefighting efforts that happen on a day-to-day basis, and extricating yourself from the […]
Improving Your Relationship With Sales & Marketing
The relationship between Product Management and the Sales and Marketing teams in some companies can be unnecessarily strained. Often, this shows itself in such counter-productive behaviors as sales reps making promises to prospects or renewing clients based on their own interpretation of the roadmap, or the marketing teams creating collateral that materially misstates the capabilities […]
Why Your User Stories Suck
I find it ironic that one of the most fundamentally important aspects of Agile planning is so very often terribly implemented. User Stories are the single most important thing that a Product Manager/Owner delivers to their development teams — they’re the foundation on which everything the team does is gauged; and all too often, quite […]
“I Don’t Know” is Not a Four-Letter Word
There comes a time in every PM’s life (perhaps even daily) when someone will ask you a question that you honestly do not know the answer to. This question might be about the product, the process, the customer, future plans, or something else business related. And, all too often, we either wind up dodging the […]
Be careful what you put on your backlog…
We’ve all had the conversation…you’re working at your desk, just finished a call with a customer or prospect, and that random person comes around and taps you on the shoulder… “Where’s my feature?” “Huh? What feature?” “You know — the feature you talked about last week.” “Oh, that one! It’s on the backlog.” “I know, […]