Inside Product
Just in time product management resources
I’m spending the week with my family in Glacier National Park as part of our quest to visit every National Park in the United States so I wanted to keep this week’s update short. Here are some quick reads for product people that you may or may not want to read on your vacation. Enjoy! …
The success of products and initiatives is highly correlated with well-informed, timely decisions. As a result, decision making is one of three key activities of product ownership. When you’re the person on the team responsible for product ownership, you make sure that decisions get made. These decisions range from broad decisions about the entire product …
What Is Value Based Decision Making Value-based decision making is a method for making critical organizational decisions in an informed and timely manner. Use this tool to identify the most critical decisions you face, determine when to decide, and figure out what information you need to best make those decisions. Because critical decisions often directly …
This Friday (May 19) I’m speaking at the Iowa Business Analysis Development Day (IBADD) about product ownership. In honor of that presentation I decided to focus this week’s newsletter on product ownership and product management in practice. In my blog post for this week, I introduce three organizations that share (and probably influenced) my general …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@timothymuza We are uncovering better ways of delivering solutions by doing it and helping others do it.-Paraphrase of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development Agile software development is now commonly accepted practice. It’s gotten to the point that when people talk about software development or product management they generally imply you’re using some …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@providence Shared understanding. It’s about communication and it’s about agreement. Not necessarily agreement that what we’re doing is the right thing, although that can be extremely helpful. I’m talking agreement that when someone mentions a term, everyone has the same picture in their head about what that term means and why it’s relevant …
I’m excited to speak at the Southwestern Ohio Business Analysis Regional Conference (SOBARC) 2017 this week in Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, I’ll examine the product owner role, and talk about socratic questioning. If you’re going to be at SOBARC, stop by and say hi. If not, I’ll be at IBADD May 19 and Agile2017 in …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@alejandroescamilla Over the past week I read through When Coffee and Kale Compete by Alan Klement to get an idea of how Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) can be applied to internal products. JTBD is the idea that people “hire” products in order to get jobs done. There’s an increasing realization that it’s …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@punttim I’ve noted previously that business analysis and product management are similar activities that exist in different contexts. Business analysis (as described by IIBA) tends to be used in internal product settings whereas product management tends to be used external product settings. The two practices use different techniques. Business analysis makes much greater …
What Is Collaborative Modeling Collaborative modeling refers to the use of well-known requirements analysis and modeling techniques in a collaborative fashion to build and maintain a shared understanding of the problem space and the potential solution. The main premise is that requirements models, which have long been viewed as documentation techniques, can also be put …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@benchaccounting Last week we took a look at some things you could do to start work on a product. Once you’ve established a good rapport with your key sponsor and built a shared understanding with your team, you’re going to want to know more about the people who are going to use your …
Following is a slightly edited excerpt from Beyond Requirements: Analysis in an Agile Mindset What It Is A user is anyone who receives value from a product. Users include people who directly interact with the product as well as those who do not directly interact with the product but receive some value from it. User …
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@matthewhenry In the past few KBPUpdates I explored various product ownership models that exist in the wild. Starting with this issue, I wanted to explore what it looks like to be a product person working on an internal product. This issue takes a look at getting started on an internal product. I share …
Imagine this scenario… The Director of Sales Operations (the Director) just asked you to implement a new system to support the sales bonus program. The Director started the effort and identified key aspects of the program, but realized she can’t pay the proper amount of time to the implementation. She has asked you to take …
If you are a product manager, product owner, or business analyst, you’ll find this list of books helpful. I know I have. User Story Mapping: Discover The Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton and Peter Economyhttps://bookshop.org/widgets.jsNot only is this book a great resource for Story Mapping, but it provides a meaningful description …
