It’s a sad but true fact that the vast majority of B2B apps out there have traditionally focused on basic functionality, satisfying RFP checklists, and convincing corporate buyers of the value that they offer over delighting and amazing the end users who acting really interact with the product in a daily basis. Unfortunately for the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Your Opinion is NOT Always Irrelevant
The folks at Pragmatic Marketing have a popular saying in their training and materials — “Your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant.” For the most part, they’re absolutely right — the point that they’re making is that, while you as a Product Manager may have knowledge of the market and of the users, you yourself are […]
Being the Voice of the Customer is Something You EARN!
During a discussion with a UX designer and a development manager at a recent Product Management Consortium meeting here in Seattle, one of the topics that came up involved some of the things that Product Managers do or say that they find annoying, ridiculous, or just upsetting. And, interestingly enough, one of those was the […]
Incremental Improvement – Why You Need to Change the Wheels While the Bus is Moving
There have been numerous situations in my career as a Product Manager where I’ve come into a project or product that’s so established and critical to client success that there’s a strong hesitancy on the part of anyone to dig in and muck with what’s “working”, even if it’s not really “working” in the eyes […]
Dropbox: The Most MVP of All MVPs
It’s constantly surprising to me that people seem to have such widely different ideas of what the term “MVP” or “Minimally Viable Product” really means. Perhaps it’s a result of the term becoming an industry buzzword, or perhaps it’s because it’s used in some very different contexts, but it always baffles me that people focus […]
The Myth of the “Faster Horse”
I’m sure you’ve heard of the allegorical story that, when asked why he built his cars the way he did, Henry Ford is alleged to say, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that supports the claim that he is to have said […]