In my last article I talked about the importance of knocking down walls, especially the wall between product management and engineering. In this article, I want to describe a technique that helps achieve this, along with several other significant benefits....
As readers of these articles know, I am a big fan of high-fidelity prototyping and user testing on current or prospective customers. These techniques form the basis of Product Discovery; it’s the key to discovering the minimum viable product –...
I can¹t tell you how many times product managers have shown me their sophisticated spreadsheets and algorithms for prioritizing their long laundry list of feature requests (weighting various factors like cost, complexity, risk, customer impact, projected sales impact, documentation, dependencies,...
Many of you probably saw that eBay recently had a lay-off, and given the condition of the economy they are not likely to be the only one doing so. What I wanted to talk about in this article was what...
I picked up this phrase “left of the line” from my friends at the e-commerce site kbb.com. At the highest level, creating software products involves figuring out what to build, and then building it. This line distinguishes those two fundamental...
In several earlier articles I have talked about aspects of prototypes. I’ve talked about using them as the basis for your product spec, and how to use them to test out your ideas on target users, and why I prefer...
In a recent article (The Best Product Management Model) I discussed the notion that there is no single best product management model, and that the most effective model for a given company depends on a wide range of factors. I...
Last week I attended a truly unusual conference (www.gelconference.com). Anyway, as I was walking around I met quite a few people that recognized my name from the newsletter, and soon it became apparent that there’s some common questions out there,...
NOTE: “Design” below refers to User Experience Design, and not Architectural or Systems Design. There are many things in the software development process that can and should be done in parallel. For example, I have long argued that requirements and...
In the previous article I argued for some very significant changes to the way most teams produce software. Several of you wrote to me and asked that I elaborate on my final point, which had to do with the fact...
What is User Abuse? It is when you unnecessarily and (hopefully) unintentionally mistreat your users by releasing changes to the user community that they don’t appreciate. I know it’s hard to believe that not every one of your users is...
I think the product spec is long overdue for a renovation. Some would argue that Agile methods accomplish this by doing away with the spec altogether. I’ve written about some of the issues and limitations of Agile methods elsewhere, but...
The New Year always gets me thinking bigger picture. For some that means reviewing the company mission statement. For others, it means coming up with your annual or quarterly objectives. For me, I’m partial to the Manifesto. A Manifesto is...
In the last newsletter we discussed the Agile Development Processes, and the implications for product managers. In this newsletter we look at the process that the majority of product teams still follow, which is known as the “Waterfall” process. Even...
