I invited several of my friends in the product management, marketing, and strategic consulting fields to provide a little guest content to mix things up here on the Clever PM blog. Today’s installment comes from my long-time friend and current growth hacking specialist Jason Pedwell, who blogs on his own website, LiftDad.com. He’s here today […]
Don’t Believe Your Own Hype
There’s always a ton of hype that we create surrounding our products. Sales positions the product as the best option for prospects and existing customers; marketing spins our features and benefits so that we sound like the best thing since sliced bread; and our CEOs and internal cheerleaders are constantly optimistic about the future, the […]
The Unintended Consequences of Leadership
Almost by definition, leadership involves influencing people — whether that is through direct action and orders, or through indirect influence, the end result is that a leader convinces people to take action toward a particular goal or through particular means. Generally speaking, this is a good thing — a good, strong leader can create a vision […]
What’s Obvious to You Might Not Be to Others
It’s a common situation that all of us face in our lives — we look at something, draw conclusions that seem “obvious” or “common sense” and then we’re astounded when other people look at the same situation and act in direct opposition of that “obvious” conclusion. In most circumstances, this isn’t all that big of […]
Death By Gantt Chart
We’ve all been there — we’re talking about our upcoming projects, discussing possible timelines and resource allocations, working to align our tactical work with the company and product strategy, when it hits you like a brick thrown through your living room window in the middle of the latest Game of Thrones episode: So, where’s the […]
Overcoming Objections to Iterative Development
One of the common challenges that Product Managers have in advocating for more agile product definition and development practices is a rather ironic one — those in power and authority often feel that iteration “doesn’t work” because they feel that once something is “done” it won’t ever be revisited. The irony here is that it’s […]
The Three Forms of Waste – Muda, Mura, and Muri
With Agile development and Lean practices so popular nowadays, sometimes the history behind these practices and philosophies is overlooked or skipped over entirely. Unfortunately, when people miss the underpinnings upon which these concepts are based, they also tend to distort and remake those principles into something that only barely resembles the original concepts behind them. […]
Lessons from a Business Growth Consultant: How Dial Soap Got Cleaned Out
I’ve invited my old friend and former co-worker Molly Lindblom to provide some content on the Clever PM blog; Molly is an exceptional product strategist, and was instrumental in the success that I had creating the LexisNexis Market Intelligence product so many years ago. My experiences working on that product have informed much of what […]
Understanding the Equal and Opposite Reaction
In prior articles, I discussed how one could apply the principles of Newton’s First and Second Laws of motion to their duties as a Product Manager. Here, we close the series by examining Newton’s Third Law — that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The fact is, this law applies as […]
Know What You Don’t Know
A common perception of Product Managers within organizations is that we’re somewhat of a “know-it-all” — which is not always the most productive position from which to do our jobs. Some of this perception is earned — simply a function of the broad base of knowledge, influence, and direction that we are so often assigned. […]
Harnessing Newton’s Second Law in Product Management
In a prior installment, I discussed how the concepts of Newton’s First Law of Motion might be understood and adapted to the world of Product Management. Since writing that piece, I thought it would be interesting to create similar pieces for the other two Laws that Newton originally expounded. While this sounds kind of easy […]
In Defense of Estimates
In the beginning of the year, the #noestimates movement gained some attention and traction in the software development world. It’s an interesting position, with some strong arguments in its favor — but personally I find it to be entirely development-focused and that it ignores the business and customer realities that we as Product Managers must wrangle […]