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Blog Articles
Viewing entries tagged with 'product management'
Minimum Viable Product
One of the most important concepts in all of software is the notion of minimum viable product (often referred to as “MVP”). But if you’ve been around software products for a while, you know that term is used in many different ways, and while the term intuitively resonates with people, there’s often a lot of confusion about what this really means in practice.
Competition
One of the constants in our business is competition. Very occasionally you find a company that has established a monopoly position, but for the most part, if the market you’re serving is a real market with real customers with real needs, you either have competitors already, or you will very soon.
Product Evangelism
In my last article I wrote about the importance of product passion, and I said that one of the reasons this passion is necessary is for product evangelism.
The Two Core Competencies
Good product teams must be good at product discovery, which means they must get good at learning quickly. They need to be able to zero in on the appropriate target customer, identify the key problems to solve for those customers, and typically the most difficult part of all, apply technology and user experience design to come up with good solutions that will solve those problems.
Preparing For War
Recently Ben Horowitz posted yet another very thought-provoking article, this time on the different type of leadership that is needed for when things are going along fine (“the peacetime CEO”) versus when things get rough (“the wartime CEO”).
The VP Product Role
If you take a look at the list of open product positions at the end of my recent newsletter, you’ll notice a record number of VP/Director of Product positions. In part this reflects the growth we are experiencing in our industry. However, it also represents an increased recognition of the importance of strong product leadership.
Product Discovery With Live-Data Prototypes
In my last article I discussed the keys to product optimization including A/B testing. However, I emphasized that this type of A/B testing is not the same as the A/B testing we do during product discovery. In this article I’d like to talk more about how we utilize live-data prototypes and A/B testing to facilitate product discovery.
Ten Keys to Product Optimization
Product Optimization is a hot topic. It can provide real value to teams. However, many people confuse optimization with product discovery. I’ve written about this earlier. Eric Ries of the Lean Startup movement also recently tried to clear up this confusion.
Consensus vs. Collaboration
While mostly I focus on the techniques and best practices for creating great products, I have truly come to appreciate just how important culture is in contributing to great products. By culture I am including both company culture as well as the cultures of the people working at the company.
Great Products Are Not Just the Product Guy's Job
I recently asked the founder of a startup what he most wanted to know about marketing. He said, “What’s the best way to get publicity without feeling spammy?”