Why Do Products Fail? – Forgetting that Users Learn

Next up in the series on the root causes of product failure – products that fail because you have ignored the user’s level of experience.  The first time someone uses your product, they don’t know anything about it.  Did you design your interfaces for new users?  After they’ve used it for a while, they get pretty good at using it.  How much do you think they like being forced...
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Why Do Products Fail? – Picking the Wrong User Goals

Continuing the series on root causes of product failure, this article looks at the impact of focusing on the wrong user goals.  Even if you have picked the right users, you may have...
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Product Manager – Strategic or Not?

Are product managers really involved in strategic discussions, or are we just order takers?  Adrienne Tan has poked the beehive and started a great discussion with this article.  Joining...
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Specializing Generalist

The ideal agile team is made up of specializing generalists – but what does that really mean?  The goal isn’t to prevent functional silos of expertise, it is to allow people...
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Agile Estimation, Prediction, and Commitment

Your boss wants a commitment.  You want to offer a prediction.  Agile, you say, only allows you to estimate and predict – not to commit.  ”Horse-hockey!” your boss...
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Product Managers & Innovation

Thanks everyone for the great conversation in the most recent #prodmgmttalk chat session!  This week, Roger Cauvin inspired us to think about product managers as innovators –...
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Everything Old is New Again

A lot of teams that I’ve worked on and with get hung up when thinking about defining requirements for “migration projects” and “system upgrades.”  There’s...
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Don’t Prioritize Features!

Estimating the “value” of features is a waste of time.  I was in a JAD session once where people argued about if the annoying beeping (audible on the conference line) was...
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Product Management Slowing You Down?

Does product management slow down your company? What Causes Your Business to Be Slow? Paul Young put out the call for the third annual You Might Be A Product Manager… list....
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Agile Documentation

Agile values working software over comprehensive documentation – it is 1/4th of the original manifesto.  That doesn’t mean don’t document!  It means don’t...
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Provocateurs Gather the Best Requirements

Ask someone what they want, and they’ll tell you they want a faster horse.  Provoke them, and they’ll tell you they have a ‘get there faster’ problem, an ‘equine...
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A Prototype is Worth a Thousand Lines of Code

A picture is worth a thousand words.  A prototype is worth a thousand lines of code.  Two key elements of product management – and of agile development are elicitation and feedback....
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Cadence Versus Risk

I’ve been thinking about the software development process.  Big, upfront, design and requirements.  User research and analysis.  Market insights, gained on exploration or over...
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