Just in time resources for internal products
One of the interesting (challenging?) aspects of product management is how every organization seems to have its own interpretation of what a product manager actually should do. It gets even more jumbled in those organizations that are trying to adopt product management for internal products and in their IT organizations. I don’t think you’re ever …
A company I’m working with right now has a periodic product management book club meeting. For the last meeting, we discussed Sense & Respond, How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden. I suggested Sense & Respond because it provides a great explanation of what organizations …
When organizations go through some form of transformation, they inevitably end up with people who they aren’t sure how they fit in the organizational structure. In other words… Move out or move over Sometimes, especially when organizations get transformation help from accounting firms turned consultancies, they get rid of just about everyone in a particular …
I’ve heard it said that the main purpose of managing up is to make your boss’s life easier. Sometimes, making their life easier means making your own life more difficult, at least temporarily. One of those times is when you need to say “no” to your boss. You’re probably thinking “I can see where saying …
This newsletter is a little late this week because I’m with friends in Napa, celebrating my wife’s birthday. (It’s a significant one). As you might expect, we’re visiting wineries while we’re out here, and we’re trying to visit small, family run wineries. The experience is unique; the wine is pretty damn good, and stories of …
Analysis Techniques for Product Owners is a video training course explains how product owners can use business analysis techniques to be more effective.
I suspect if you asked a collection of people who work in IT, you’d get just as many people who say that designers aren’t necessary as you do people who say they are. I’d suggest the former group is wrong. I’ve always had the impression that internal products can gain a great deal from the …
Product management roles offer a viable career path for business analysts, especially those who work on custom software development efforts. Here are the stories of four people who made the shift.
When you read an article on software product management, do you immediately think “that’s a great idea, I’m going to try it out right away!” Or do you think “that’s great for that type of product/company, but it will never work where I’m at?” If you frequently have the latter reaction, chances are you’re reading …
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a couple of interesting posts from some of my connections on LinkedIn. A large grocery store chain had suddenly laid off over 100 people in their communications and IT staff. While those types of layoffs are not unusual, some details in this story made me take a second …
I’ve talked before about how helpful creating examples can be to build a shared understanding of how your product should behave – example mapping. This week I had another reminder about how helpful examples can be. This time it was getting things back on track when I didn’t put examples together earlier. The team I’m …
Have you ever been in a meeting where the thought crossed your mind that “this meeting should have been an email.” There are plenty of meetings that fit that description. So many in fact that a cottage industry has grown up offering swag to celebrate the fact. (This is an affiliate link. Since I didn’t …
Customers are the people who give your organization money in exchange for some product (or service). In order for that product to appeal to those people, it should satisfy a need they have. If the product you work on for your organization is the thing you’re selling to your customers, the importance of understanding those …
Last week, I explained that you can use North Star Metrics to measure business value. During that discussion, I pointed out the North Star Metric is a leading indicator of revenue. As I was writing that letter, I heard this nagging voice in the back of my head. All this talk of revenue is great, …
For "business value" to be valuable, you need to use it to make decisions.
