The title of “Product Manager” seems to be a rather vague descriptor in the current world of technology. It’s become so useless, in fact, that some companies have decided to make things even more convoluted by creating even more useless titles such as “Product Editor” (how, exactly does one “edit” a product?). Because of this […]
The Importance of Continuous Improvement
Most of the “Agile” and “Lean” product design and development practices that we follow in the modern age can be directly linked to the lean manufacturing movement from the 1940s and 1950s, largely attributed to the work of W. Edward Deming and his influence on the post-war Japanese manufacturing culture. Deming relied on a “Plan-Do-Study-Act” methodology […]
Anatomy of a User Story
Ironically, one of the most fundamental tools that Product Managers use every day to communicate requirements, expectations, and user goals to their development teams also sometimes seems to be one of the most difficult things to get right. Maybe it’s because many of us are used to the bad, old days of waterfall requirements, maybe […]
Getting Shit Done is Job #1
As a Product Manager, sometimes we get so caught up in either the macro or micro concerns of our day-to-day lives that we forget that getting shit done is our primary job. It does no good whatsoever to have our product remain in a constant state of development, with projects that get put on the shelf […]
Don’t Be Overly Defensive
As a Product Manager, we all have very close ties to our product — in some ways it’s our metaphorical baby. And like any parent, we tend to focus on the good parts of our product — the problems it solves, the efficiency that it provides, the benefits that everyone who uses it gets to […]
The Biggest Mistake Any PM Can Make
Every so often, the question comes up in conversation or online — “What’s the biggest mistake that a PM can make?” And it’s actually a hard question to answer, because there are so many possible candidates: Thinking you’re the customer; Not validating your proposals or approaches; Relying only on anecdotal “data” when making decisions; Dictating priorities […]
The “Power Trio” – Balancing Market, Product, and Technical Needs
One of the biggest challenges facing nearly every Product Manager is the lack of a clearly-defined role in the organization. Even in companies that have “rigorous” organizational structures, the Product Manager often becomes everything to everyone – the hub around which all the other business processes operate. And for the most part, this isn’t necessarily […]
Five Reasons “Why” is the Most Powerful Question in the World
If you haven’t picked up on it by now, I’m a firm believer in the theory of the five “Whys” — that is, whenever you’re engaged in a conversation about your product with a customer, and you start to dig down into the details about a new feature request or just trying to understand how […]
Common Dysfunctions of “Scrum” Teams — Part 2
In the first part of this series, I talked about how many teams who try to transform into “Agile” teams fail because they don’t actually understand what being “agile” is all about, or because they try to cut corners by not fully embracing (at the outset, at least) the fundamental requirements of the methodology that they have […]
Common Dysfunctions of “Scrum” Teams — Part 1
I started this out as a single post, but it’s become far too unwieldy for a single day. Thus, I’m breaking this up into two segments — one focusing on missing the point, the other on finer mistakes that sink potentially “good” teams moving into Agile processes. It’s still one of my longest posts here, […]
Yes, You Really ARE That Good!
One of the aspects of Product Management that can be really hard for people to internalize and adjust to is just how thankless the job can be at times. When things are going badly, the Product Manager is almost always the first person to shoulder the blame — your requirements weren’t clear, the strategy wasn’t […]
How Amazon’s Fire Phone Proves Their “Customers First” Rule
This is a post that I originally published last month in coordination with my friend Molly Lindblom, principal strategy consultant at Business Transformations. I hope you find it just as interesting as her readers did… Amazon.com is pretty much world-famous for their customer-centric approach. Product Managers who want to build something new are supposed to start […]