A common theme in online discussions and forums around Product Management lies in how to level up our skills and be a better Product Manager. While there are a lot of different options available, just as there are as many different aspects of Product Management to focus on, there are some very specific areas that […]
Balancing Agility and Strategy
One of the common struggles that Product Managers are faced with is figuring out how to be “agile” while still managing to a vision or strategy that’s been established by the Executives or Board. The important thing to remember is that strategy and agility are not in conflict with one another — if a strategy is […]
Manage to Data, Not Guesswork
There are a great many different corporate cultures to be found in the world, but one consistency among far too many of them is decision-making processes that rely more on gut-level instinct and whomever yells the loudest rather than on hard data. For some companies, this has served the CEO well — a small, nimble […]
10 Questions: Paul Jackson
It’s time for the next installment of my ongoing series of “Ten Questions” for thought-leaders and colleagues from the Product Management world! This month I’ve reached out to Paul Jackson, a longtime Product Manager from the UK who showed up on my radar a few years ago when he started to feature some of my posts […]
A Product Manager’s Guide to Technical Debt
There’s always a fine balance to be found between making sure that your product is as buttoned-up as possible when it ships and the small (sometimes large) sacrifices that we have to ask our technical teams to make in order to just get the damn thing out the door. Within this gap lies the dreaded […]
Agile Transitions – How to Start With Practice, Not Theory
I’ve talked before about the dangers of a “cargo cult” mentality when it comes to Agile practices, but in this instance I’m going to take a Devil’s Advocate position, at least it will appear that way. All too often, people and companies start their Agile transitions with training about the “theory” of Agile — what […]
10 Questions: Rich Mironov
For the second installment of my “10 Questions With…” I reached out to one of my mentors in the PM/Consulting space, Rich Mironov. I met Rich many years ago at ProductCamp Seattle, where he was giving a presentation about the struggles and challenges of the role that really spoke deeply to me and where I […]
10 Questions: Lewis C. Lin
This is the first in a (hopefully) continuing series of interviews with leaders in the Product Management community, hosted right here by the Clever PM. The idea is to have five static questions about Product Management in general, and five questions that are specific to the current participant’s areas of focus. For the very first […]
When is an MVP *not* an MVP?
For a term that’s so well-established in our profession and so widely used, it always surprises me when people abuse and misuse the concept of Minimum Viable Product (or “MVP”). It seems like such a fundamentally simple and clear concept, but often in practice it gets all wrapped up around the axles of internal struggles, until […]
Why is Change So Damn Hard!?
One of the primary things that Product Managers are constantly working on is change — changing the way people view our customers, changing the way our customers view our product, changing the culture of our company to be more agile, changing peoples’ minds about what’s important and what’s not…the list goes on and on. And, […]
PM 101 – Working With Service Teams
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of my “PM 101” articles, so I figured with 2017 just kicking off now is as good a time as ever! Past articles have focused on marketing, sales, and design teams, but this time I want to focus on service teams. These types of teams are your integration specialists, […]
Five New Resolutions for PMs in 2017
A couple years ago, shortly after I launched the blog, I posted my first New Year’s Resolutions for Product Managers, which was a big hit. Somehow it slipped my mind to update it for 2016, but here I am with an update as we roll into the new year…one as full of uncertainties as it […]