Most Product Managers have, at one time or another, heard the apocyphal quote often attributed to Henry Ford, “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” And when we hear the line, we laugh because there’s no way that we would do such a thing — the “faster horse” is […]
Five MAJOR Product Management Mistakes
There are a lot of different hats we wear as Product Managers, which means that there are a great many opportunities for us to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right people. But the inverse of that is also true — by virtue of wearing so many hats, there are a […]
Signs You’re Working With (or Are!) a Bad PM…
Awhile back, I answered a question on Quora about behaviors that indicate that someone may be a bad PM; since I’m in all-day sessions this week in a sales kickoff, I thought I’d re-share these thoughts here on the Clever PM blog… Dictators, not Facilitators This behavior shows up across the board, from the sprint […]
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 […]
Five Things a Clever Product Manager Should NEVER Do
There are a lot of things that Product Managers can be accused of “doing wrong” when it comes to our daily jobs. As a wise mentor once told me, if there’s not at least one stakeholder upset with you, you’re not doing your job right. However, that doesn’t mean that we’re without fault. If we’re […]