Many organizations struggle with decisions-making: both speed and quality are well below where they need to be. Key contributing factors include: While these challenges are common, slow, bad decisions are not a universal problem. Some organizations are able to make good decisions fast and at scale. In this two-part article series I’ll cover the most […]
A Culture of Good Decision-Making (part 1) Read More »
I regularly ask product people how they choose what to develop. Today, an increasingly popular answer is “we focus on the most important user problems”, or its more modern cousin “we prioritize opportunities”. Underlying these answers is a classic model that asserts that product development has to start with mapping out and prioritizing customer problems,
You’re Not Just Solving User Problems Read More »
Product companies tend to manage the lifecycle of projects (AKA ideas) — from the moment the project/initiative is approved until it is shipped. But in a reality where most ideas fail to create value, it is far more important to manage the lifecycle of goals (what we’re attempting to achieve)— from the moment the goal
The Lifecycle of Goals: Research, Discover, Deliver, Monitor Read More »
If you’re a product person Generative AI should be firmly on your radar, not least because some think that it will replace you soon. Hyperbole aside, it’s very reasonable to assume Gen-AI will affect, maybe transform, product development. But what’s going to change? And are there any downsides? As this is a very new technology,
What Does Generative AI Mean For Product Development? Read More »
It’s no secret that product management is often a misunderstood and misused role. Many companies restrict PMs to narrow, stereotypical jobs, hindering their potential impact. Without strong role models, some PMs fall victim to these product management myths and perpetuate them to new hires. Here are six wrong ways to think about the product managers,
6 Product Manager Stereotypes To Avoid Read More »
Observing tech companies you may notice a broad, disturbing phenomenon: everyone’s hard at work “selling” their product ideas — stakeholders and engineers are selling to product managers, product managers are selling to management, and management is selling to everyone (just listen attentively in the next all-hands meeting). As a product manager I too had to
Don’t Let Hype Run Your Product Read More »
When talking to product managers, company leaders, and customer-facing folk, a common belief surfaces: if enough customers (b2c), or an important customer (b2b) ask for something, then we should build it. This axiom is reflected in prioritization discussions as well as in many product management tools that rank ideas by “customer votes”. Customer feedback, whether it
Your Customers Are Not Always Right Read More »
Recently the product sphere had boiled-over over Airbnb removing product managers from product teams and converting them into product marketing managers. The Airbnb transformation may be a one-of (essentially an attempt to adopt the centralist Steve Jobs / Apple model), but the story and the discussion that followed surfaced an age-old debate: who should rule
Who Should Rule the Product? Read More »
As I’m writing this, the dreaded yearly planning cycle is just around the corner and the debate over roadmaps is surfacing once more. On one hand it’s clear that classic roadmaps that show releases on a timeline create both high planning overhead and high waste. On the other hand, attempts to construct roadmaps around outcomes
Planning With Outcome Roadmaps Read More »
Idea prioritization exercises are often hard and unsatisfying. The discussions run long and the decisions feel suboptimal. Using numeric methods like ICE or RICE adds more process, but not necessarily more clarity, as the numbers feel “made up”. I’ve written in the past about how to make better use of ICE, but I have to
Why You’re Struggling to Prioritize Read More »