The document provides information on the role and responsibilities of a product manager. It discusses that a product manager must listen broadly to gather ideas, translate those ideas into actionable strategy, fight for the strategy they believe in, communicate priorities to stakeholders, clear obstacles for their team, launch new products, and begin the process again by listening for new ideas for improvement or expansion. The product manager acts as a funnel for ideas and plans, executes strategy, and guides a product from concept to launch and beyond.
Best Practices for Early Stage Product DevelopmentAmr Basha
Product management best practices for early stage product development.
This presentation is based on a study I mad in the company I work for "Arkony" to try to fix things after I finished reading "Inspired" book.
The 8 Disciplines (8D) Problem Solving Poster describes the eight steps of problem solving. The process is applicable to automative, manufacturing and service organizations.
The poster comes in two themes: color and monochrome. Formatted in PDF and in editable PPTX, the poster can be easily printed on an A3 or A4-sized paper from an office copier machine and displayed on employee workstations, or distributed together with your workshop handouts.
The 8D Problem Solving Poster complements the '8D Problem Solving Technique & Tools' training presentation materials. It serves as a takeaway and summary of your problem solving presentation.
A problem is a deviation from a standard, i.e., a difference between what should be happening and what is actually happening. The 8D Problem Solving Poster describes the eight steps of problem solving as follow:
D0: Plan
D1: Initiate Project Team
D2: Define the Problem
D3: Implement Containment Actions
D4: Identify Root Causes
D5: Develop & Verify Solution
D6: Implement Corrective Actions
D7: Prevent Recurrence
D8: Recognize the Team
Just Married: User Centered Design and AgileMemi Beltrame
User Centred Design (UCD) and Agile Development are two of the most exciting and productive Methods to achieve high quality appication both desired by the customers and loved by the users. UCD and Agile Development are though often said to be impossible to combine and that despite their great advantages any attempt would most certainly lead to disaster.
This talk picks up the main points of both methods, shows the key issues and tries to offer a pragmatic approach on how to successfully combine User Centered Design and Agile Development.
Agile coaching exchange 24th september update on 30th september – john colemanOrderly Disruption
More Agile changes for Scrum are either based on "just do it", Kotter style change leadership, Senge style change evolution, Cohn style rollout, Larman/Vodde style rollout, or Schwaber/Sutherland style rollout. Scaling models also get considered. Indeed there are many theories, but usually from two schools of thought. There may be another.
There is a lot of psychological research to suggest that as humans we are highly influenced by the crowd and by "social proof" from people we respect. So, often we imitate them. This explains why mindset shift gets reversed after people sleep on our coaching and why coaching needs repetition/refocus.
John Coleman shared ideas on Agile behaviours. Let's say it's an interesting twist of psychology, change theory, and what we need to do to make good Scrum and other agile methods "go viral" in the enterprise.
Enter the Chalfont Project, Leandro Herrero and Viral Change (TM). And we have an Agile angle from John Coleman. But to be clear, there is only one version of Viral Change(TM) and one must be licensed by the owners of the method to use it. Contact the Chalfont Project or associate companies for more details.
The catch with the exercise in this slide deck is you need to pick 5 or less non-negotiable behaviours per method. Maybe some are missing?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if as well as principles & values, that the Agile Manifesto also had behaviours, as in things that people do at a basic level?
Best Practices for Early Stage Product DevelopmentAmr Basha
Product management best practices for early stage product development.
This presentation is based on a study I mad in the company I work for "Arkony" to try to fix things after I finished reading "Inspired" book.
The 8 Disciplines (8D) Problem Solving Poster describes the eight steps of problem solving. The process is applicable to automative, manufacturing and service organizations.
The poster comes in two themes: color and monochrome. Formatted in PDF and in editable PPTX, the poster can be easily printed on an A3 or A4-sized paper from an office copier machine and displayed on employee workstations, or distributed together with your workshop handouts.
The 8D Problem Solving Poster complements the '8D Problem Solving Technique & Tools' training presentation materials. It serves as a takeaway and summary of your problem solving presentation.
A problem is a deviation from a standard, i.e., a difference between what should be happening and what is actually happening. The 8D Problem Solving Poster describes the eight steps of problem solving as follow:
D0: Plan
D1: Initiate Project Team
D2: Define the Problem
D3: Implement Containment Actions
D4: Identify Root Causes
D5: Develop & Verify Solution
D6: Implement Corrective Actions
D7: Prevent Recurrence
D8: Recognize the Team
Just Married: User Centered Design and AgileMemi Beltrame
User Centred Design (UCD) and Agile Development are two of the most exciting and productive Methods to achieve high quality appication both desired by the customers and loved by the users. UCD and Agile Development are though often said to be impossible to combine and that despite their great advantages any attempt would most certainly lead to disaster.
This talk picks up the main points of both methods, shows the key issues and tries to offer a pragmatic approach on how to successfully combine User Centered Design and Agile Development.
Agile coaching exchange 24th september update on 30th september – john colemanOrderly Disruption
More Agile changes for Scrum are either based on "just do it", Kotter style change leadership, Senge style change evolution, Cohn style rollout, Larman/Vodde style rollout, or Schwaber/Sutherland style rollout. Scaling models also get considered. Indeed there are many theories, but usually from two schools of thought. There may be another.
There is a lot of psychological research to suggest that as humans we are highly influenced by the crowd and by "social proof" from people we respect. So, often we imitate them. This explains why mindset shift gets reversed after people sleep on our coaching and why coaching needs repetition/refocus.
John Coleman shared ideas on Agile behaviours. Let's say it's an interesting twist of psychology, change theory, and what we need to do to make good Scrum and other agile methods "go viral" in the enterprise.
Enter the Chalfont Project, Leandro Herrero and Viral Change (TM). And we have an Agile angle from John Coleman. But to be clear, there is only one version of Viral Change(TM) and one must be licensed by the owners of the method to use it. Contact the Chalfont Project or associate companies for more details.
The catch with the exercise in this slide deck is you need to pick 5 or less non-negotiable behaviours per method. Maybe some are missing?
Wouldn't it be wonderful if as well as principles & values, that the Agile Manifesto also had behaviours, as in things that people do at a basic level?
Basic 8D Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 2Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 2nd of a 3 part presentation.
This handy guide is for anyone involved in problem solving and improvement activities. It contains guidelines on the use of many of the tools and techniques which can be used as part of a Continuous Improvement process.
Stop Jumping To Do!
We are all project managers. When you think about the basics of a project, you can see that every day we manage projects. The question is, how well do you plan them?
John will share his simplified project planning methodology he developed when investigating a way of easily turning strategy into action. Not only will he share with you the simplified approach, but he will take you through an example of the approach and leave you with the basic planning tools you'll need to apply this technique in every project you manage. Here are the benefits of the approach:
• It's easily repeatable.
• It ensures project success.
• It allows for simple timeline planning.
• It takes less than an hour the first time you use it.
From Product Vision to Story Map - Lean / Agile Product shapingJérôme Kehrli
A lot of Software Engineering projects fail for a lack of shared vision due to poor communication among people involved in the project.
A sound maintenance of the product backlog can only be achieved if all the people have a good understanding of what they have to do (common vision).
Roman Pichler, in a post originally written in Jul 16 2012, has proposed a really interesting approach: use various canvas to create and share product vision and product backlog creation and refinement.
This presentation is a drive through these various boards and canvas that should be designed in prior to any product development: the Product Vision, the Lean Canvas, The Product Definition and the Story Map.
Basic 8D Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 1Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 1st of a 3 part presentation.
Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 3Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 3rd of a 3 part presentation.
Introduction to Scrum - An Agile FrameworksAMJAD SHAIKH
Introduction to Scrum - is one of the most popular frameworks for implementing agile. The presentation in quick overview to introduce readers with terms used in scrum & process itself.
Software Quality Dashboard Benchmarking StudyJohn Carter
Software metrics best practices from a benchmarking assignment that indicates how software metrics are reported to management and used to drive behavior. We learned how leading companies used dashboards to report on quality progress and improvement results. We found the best organizations focused on the vital few metrics but also had automated systems with the ability to drill down on metrics at the divisional and team levels. In addition, the best normalized the metrics by number of customers or complexity. They systematically used root cause analysis to analyze bugs in the field. The SW Quality metrics often went beyond the strict definition of quality in that they also measured release predictability and feature expectations. Finally, the best companies used external benchmarks to set their quality targets.
How Agile plus Product Management helps Build the RIGHT Things the RIGHT WayRich Mironov
Strong product managers spent up to half of their time talking directly with customers, buyers, and partners. And the other half of their time with their teams: framing problems, collaborating on solutions, translating features into benefits and vice versa. Making sure that we’re building the RIGHT things as validated directly by users and buyers so that we deliver customer-defined value as well as increased velocity. That’s different from the narrow scrum definition of product owner, which is mostly internal-facing.
To capture and externalise the product vision will provide advantages to the process and the team. You will now have a singular representation, a visible artefact to throw tomatoes at, and the ability to test and improve any or all elements.
Basic 8D Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 2Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 2nd of a 3 part presentation.
This handy guide is for anyone involved in problem solving and improvement activities. It contains guidelines on the use of many of the tools and techniques which can be used as part of a Continuous Improvement process.
Stop Jumping To Do!
We are all project managers. When you think about the basics of a project, you can see that every day we manage projects. The question is, how well do you plan them?
John will share his simplified project planning methodology he developed when investigating a way of easily turning strategy into action. Not only will he share with you the simplified approach, but he will take you through an example of the approach and leave you with the basic planning tools you'll need to apply this technique in every project you manage. Here are the benefits of the approach:
• It's easily repeatable.
• It ensures project success.
• It allows for simple timeline planning.
• It takes less than an hour the first time you use it.
From Product Vision to Story Map - Lean / Agile Product shapingJérôme Kehrli
A lot of Software Engineering projects fail for a lack of shared vision due to poor communication among people involved in the project.
A sound maintenance of the product backlog can only be achieved if all the people have a good understanding of what they have to do (common vision).
Roman Pichler, in a post originally written in Jul 16 2012, has proposed a really interesting approach: use various canvas to create and share product vision and product backlog creation and refinement.
This presentation is a drive through these various boards and canvas that should be designed in prior to any product development: the Product Vision, the Lean Canvas, The Product Definition and the Story Map.
Basic 8D Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 1Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 1st of a 3 part presentation.
Problem Solving Tools & Methods - Part 3Tony Alvarez
I've taught many workshops on basic problem solving over the years at various companies. This 3 part presentation collects tools and methods that I've found useful and that most people tend to be able to put into practice quickly. Problem solving is ground that has been covered by many people many times in the past and this presentation builds on that work, incorporates my experience and hopefully integrates it in a way that provides some new insights. This is the 3rd of a 3 part presentation.
Introduction to Scrum - An Agile FrameworksAMJAD SHAIKH
Introduction to Scrum - is one of the most popular frameworks for implementing agile. The presentation in quick overview to introduce readers with terms used in scrum & process itself.
Software Quality Dashboard Benchmarking StudyJohn Carter
Software metrics best practices from a benchmarking assignment that indicates how software metrics are reported to management and used to drive behavior. We learned how leading companies used dashboards to report on quality progress and improvement results. We found the best organizations focused on the vital few metrics but also had automated systems with the ability to drill down on metrics at the divisional and team levels. In addition, the best normalized the metrics by number of customers or complexity. They systematically used root cause analysis to analyze bugs in the field. The SW Quality metrics often went beyond the strict definition of quality in that they also measured release predictability and feature expectations. Finally, the best companies used external benchmarks to set their quality targets.
How Agile plus Product Management helps Build the RIGHT Things the RIGHT WayRich Mironov
Strong product managers spent up to half of their time talking directly with customers, buyers, and partners. And the other half of their time with their teams: framing problems, collaborating on solutions, translating features into benefits and vice versa. Making sure that we’re building the RIGHT things as validated directly by users and buyers so that we deliver customer-defined value as well as increased velocity. That’s different from the narrow scrum definition of product owner, which is mostly internal-facing.
To capture and externalise the product vision will provide advantages to the process and the team. You will now have a singular representation, a visible artefact to throw tomatoes at, and the ability to test and improve any or all elements.
Building & launching mobile & digital productsAnurag Jain
These slides are an introduction to Product Management for building & launching mobile & digital products for consumers. It covers the basics of Product Management as well as gives an overview of the Product Management process and a practical, iterative approach to building products.
Designing and planning to test a new idea/product/featureJeremy Horn
Slides Alberto Simon recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
Synopsis: The best techniques on avoiding pitfalls such as over scoping, missing key use case coverage, ability to test measurably when building a new product or feature. It will include some tips and guidance on how to select what's truly critical for version1 and building it in a reasonable timeframe.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
http://TheProductMentor.com
David Peres and Rob Patterson of Minalytix discuss what the typical product development process looks like, what development model options are there, and their experiences as entrepreneurs.
Keeping Product Success Metrics in Check by Microsoft Product LeadProduct School
Main Takeaways:
- Parameters to check that can hamper the velocity of your team
- Factors that can influence the volume and/or adoption challenges
- Are you worried about defect inflow and unsure where to start?
- Key points that can impact CSAT/NPS scores, but generally ignored
- Areas to consider while struggling to control the cost of the product
Describe how a product is developed and what are the stages of development and morphology of Design.
It discusses the various challenges faced while developing and also the evolution of different products which have become the daily need of our life.
Tapping into your market: how to develop a framework to make sense of user fe...Emma Hill
As a Product Manager turned Customer Success Manager, I share my tips on creating a manageable framework for making it easier for your organisation to get value out of your feedback from internal and external stakeholders.
Building and scaling a product team is a challenge that every successful product company faces. Brainmates hosted this Sydney AU meetup where we talked about:
- When and how does a startup hire its first product manager?
- Division of labor: how do we grow from one to three to many product folks?
- End-to-end management of product elements/features, or product owner and business owner roles?
- How big is too big?
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
2. WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
• Listen broadly
• Translate to actionable strategy
• Fight for what you believe in
• Communicate priorities as sprints
• Clear obstacles
• Launch
• Begin again
3. WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
how do we get there?
the product manager’s job is to act as a funnel for ideas, listening broadly and
translating into actionable strategy. The product manager fights for the strategy
(s)he believes will achieve the vision, communicating with quantitative
information (financial investment and schedule to launch, revenue potential and
pricing model) as well as qualitative (market differentiators from competition).
Once strategy is agreed upon, the product manager communicates the product
and prioritization plan to all stakeholders and clears obstacles from the paths of
engineers. The product manager guides the launch process, working with
marketing and sales to ensure the product reaches the largest audience with the
most impactful message possible. The product manager listens to feedback,
gathers ideas for improvement, and begins again.
4. the product manager is a funnel for ideas
ideas come from many sources. The product manager’s most
important job is to listen and translate: what is being requested,
and what is the fundamental need that is not being met. The
product manager knows how to ask questions and dig deeper,
finding areas ripe for innovation. The product manager solicits
information from:
• customers (direct feedback is the best feedback)
• the sales team
• marketing
• engineering
• industry publications
• any press or journalism
• friends and family
• the product manager’s cultivated instinct
deliverables
• notes (in any format) that
can be shared with the
rest of the product
management team
LISTEN BROADLY
5. the product manager is a funnel for ideas
SALES * PRODUCT * MARKETING MEETING
• 1 week before: determine questions sales should ask customers
for next meeting (product feedback, pain points)
• During meeting: product management review of product status
or new product launches; review and investigate customer
responses to previous questions
• 2 days after: notes distributed to team
CUSTOMER MEETINGS
• ask a customer to walk you through their typical workflow; take
notes of painful steps / things that would irritate you if you had
this job
• what’s the most / least rewarding part of your job?
• what would you assign someone if you had a magical genie
assistant?
a few resources
• http://startupclass.samaltman.c
om/
• http://paulgraham.com/articles.
html
• http://www.greentechmedia.co
m/
• https://techcrunch.com/
• http://solarbuildermag.com/
• http://www.wired.com/category/
magazine/
• http://www.seia.org/
• https://medium.com/@noah_w
eiss/50-articles-and-books-
that-will-make-you-a-great-
product-manager-
aad5babee2f7#.ezc1tvcf5
LISTEN BROADLY
6. the product manager’s passion is his/her leadership strategy
ideas are not strategy. Ideas are divergent, incomplete wisps of
imagination. A product manager cultivates ideas and turns them
into products, but first a product manager needs a team. To get a
team, a product manager needs a plan and passion. Without
passion, the product manager should look for more ideas. Once
the passion is there, it’s time to start planning:
• what is the problem (hypothetical or real user stories)
• who is affected by that problem (market size)
• what is the solution (proposed product)
• who else is doing something similar (competitors)
• what will someone pay to solve the problem (pricing model and
revenue plan)
• what will it cost to develop the solution (resources, time, capital
investment)
deliverables
• product strategy
presentation (MRD)
• yes / no / need more
information decision
TRANSLATE TO ACTIONABLE STRATEGY
7. the product manager’s passion is his/her leadership strategy
PRODUCT STRATEGY PRESENTATION
• 2-8 weeks before: gather inputs and confirm assumptions from
sales, engineering, marketing, etc.
• 1 week before: product managers notify other department
stakeholders of final assumptions
• During meeting: highlight assumptions made and intel gathered
in coming to proposed strategy. If disagreements begin to derail
conversation, focus on root cause: what differences in
assumptions are being made. Do not leave meeting without
concrete next action steps
• 2 days after: notes distributed to team and next steps
highlighted
• 3 days after: if approved, start working on PRD
a few resources
• The Innovator’s Dilemma
• The Lean Startup
• https://blog.adamnash.com/200
9/07/22/guide-to-product-
planning-three-feature-buckets/
• https://medium.com/@dunn/get
-one-thing-right-
89390244c553#.vtnskl3sy
• https://medium.com/swlh/how-
to-design-a-pitch-deck-lessons-
from-a-seasoned-founder-
c816d1ae7272#.eqs6lymi2
TRANSLATE TO ACTIONABLE STRATEGY
8. detailed communication of plan will set expectations
precision is a product manager’s best ally. Once a product
manager has agreement on strategy, communication should be
consistent and frequent, to the point of excessive. A product
manager should update all stakeholders weekly (regardless of
whether there are changes) on the following:
• schedule
• deliverables
• dependencies & required resources
• potential upcoming roadblocks
• unforeseen challenges
• cost target / current cost
• reliability metrics
• features & capabilities
• customer / market feedback
deliverables
• Product Requirements
Document
• Weekly updates
FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN
9. detailed communication of plan will set expectations
PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT
• 2-4 weeks before: gather inputs and confirm assumptions from
engineering. Solicit early concepts from engineering & company
brainstorm competition
• During meeting: confirm teams are aligned on top level
objectives and tasks toward success. Don’t leave meeting
without sign off to progress to next stage of design
• 2 days after: notes distributed to team and next steps
highlighted
• 3 days after: if approved, start working on Concept phase of
design. Write and get first sprint doc approved
WEEKLY UPDATE
• Tuesday - Thursday: gather updates from department
stakeholders and integrate into weekly update document
• Monday: distribute to management team
a few resources
• http://www.svpg.com/assets/Fil
es/goodprd.pdf
FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN
10. priorities should be achievable, discrete items within the
overarching product schedule
a product manager does not say how to accomplish a product’s
goals. A product manager says what performance characteristics
the product’s success will be gauged by. The engineering
(mechanical, structural, electrical, software, or otherwise) team is
responsible for saying HOW. The product manager says: what
first. Priorities should be spec’d bi-weekly with concluding
feedback reviews led by engineering. To be included in sprint
specifications:
• Goal / intent of the sprint. Include broader product context as
necessary.
• User story solved by this accomplish this priority
• Visual documentation (UX wireframes, mechanical part
rendering, etc.)
• Clarifying team comments / questions/ discussion / notes
deliverables
• Sprint spec document
• End of sprint review, led
by engineering
COMMUNICATE PRIORITIES AS SPRINTS
11. priorities should be achievable, discrete items within the
overarching product schedule
SPRINT SPEC DOCUMENT
• 2 weeks before sprint begins: put together draft of spec
document. Begin gathering detailed support information
(wireframes, concept ideas, references, etc.)
• 2 days before sprint begins: review with engineering
stakeholders. Update to resolve questions / comments
• Day of sprint beginning: release to engineering team
• Day of sprint end: engineering-led review of progress to product
management, engineering, and potentially wider stakeholder
audience
a few resources
• http://bjk5.com/post/607602801
07/shipping-beats-perfection-
explained
• https://www.kennorton.com/ess
ays/leading-cross-functional-
teams.html
• Managing Humans: Biting and
Humorous Tales of a Software
Engineering Manager
• How to Win Friends and
Influence People
• https://www.kennorton.com/ess
ays/how-to-work-with-software-
engineers.html
COMMUNICATE PRIORITIES AS SPRINTS
12. distracted teams don’t do good work.
a product manager rewards success, no matter how incremental,
and vigilantly protects his or her team against scope creep. A
product manager takes all blame for product misses and gives all
credit for product wins. As frequently as necessary (hourly, daily,
weekly), the product manager checks in with his or her team and
acts as champion to destroy:
• requests from anywhere and anyone that do not contribute to
progress on the agreed-upon priorities
• resource limitations in terms of testing environments, prototypes,
etc.
• lack of access to feedback, either from customers or department
or partner company
In case an intractable obstacle is discovered, it is the product
manager’s responsibility to elevate the issue and procure
additional resources or time to allow for new information.
deliverables
• Weekly updates
• Yes / no / need more
information decision on
intractable obstacles
CLEAR OBSTACLES
13. distracted teams don’t do good work
OBSTACLES DOCUMENT
• when obstacle appears that team can’t absorb: immediately
meet with team stakeholders to determine obstacle, effect if
unaddressed, potential solutions, and resources / time needed
for each solution
• 1-2 days after obstacle determined: if necessary, schedule
meeting to review and make decision going forward
• within 3 days: update team with decision
a few resources
CLEAR OBSTACLES
14. a great product isn’t a great product until someone uses it
a product manager releases alpha and beta before launch to
determine, and give engineering time to solve, unknown
challenges. A product manager’s job during alpha and beta is to
talk to every salesperson and customer, soliciting early feedback
and generating “first customer” partnerships. The product manager
communicates new information through frequent team updates,
acknowledging any changes to original plan and re-engaging the
team with new passion. During this phase, the product manager
coordinates with a broader group, including sales and marketing,
so messaging needs to be concise, consistent, and priorities even
more rigorously defended.
deliverables
• Customer specification documents
(installation, commissioning, O&M,
feature sets, etc)
• Certification listings & bankability
reports
• Sales quote capability & pricing plan
• Marketing spec sheet
• Sales presentation for customers
• Systems integrations (CRM, ERP, etc)
• Current & roadmap costs
• Lead times
• Website integration
• Partner references from Alpha & Beta
launches
• Press plan
• Launch presentation
LAUNCH
15. products are never done
after launch, sustaining begins. A product manager uses
quantitative metrics to gauge product success (market share,
average selling price and margin, customer feedback trends, time
from quote to sale, sales conversion rates, mentions in press, rate
of custom product requests). A product manager solicits ideas and
areas for improvement, begins planning to expand the product to
economically fruitful fringe cases, and starts scheming the next
strategy to disrupt the current plan.
BEGIN AGAIN
deliverables
• Notes & discussion with
the product management
team