2015

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The Product Kata

Melissa Perri

A while ago, I was introducing the Kanban Kata by Hakan Forss to a team that was struggling to meet their deadline. They had failed twice before and their jobs were in jeopardy. Implementing Continuous Improvement and Kata helped the teams create better processes and remove bottlenecks. I was the coach that took them through the motions that Hakan eloquently teaches, which is based on the Toyota Kata by Mike Rother.

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Organizing a Large Product Backlog

Folding Burritos

Trying to organize a large product backlog is a tough thing to do. As times goes by, and the product grows, what was once a simple list of prioritized items gets unwieldy. Working from a huge list makes it very difficult to navigate and very easy to get “lost” in it. You lose track of what’s going on, what should come next and what’s really low priority.

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13 Myths And Misconceptions About Product Managers

Street Smart Product Manager

The good news: product management is now being seen as a legitimate profession and increasingly critical to a company’s growth strategy. (Ok, maybe it was always thus in Silicon Valley, but the rest of the world is now catching up.) The bad news: There are still many myths and misconceptions folks have about our profession. Here … Continue reading 13 Myths And Misconceptions About Product Managers.

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2015 Year In Review – Hardcore Product Management

The Secret PM Handbook

Looking back over 2015 on this blog, I see quite a lot of meaty content! The topics have been hardcore product management-related. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing it. Summarizing (with links to the key posts), we went deep on: The business value of product management , and how valuable it can be for you to improve your effectiveness as a product manager.

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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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A Lean Alternative to a Business Plan: Documenting Your Product/Market Fit Hypotheses

Sachin Rekhi

For years now in the valley we've been shunning the traditional approach to launching a startup: writing a formal business plan, pitching investors, assembling a team, launching a product, and selling it like hell because we've learned the hard way that more than 75% of all startups fail and we needed a more iterative approach that allowed us to learn from our failures and refine along the way.

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From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy

First Round Review

“HELL YEAH WE'RE USING @SlackHQ AT WORK I. LOVE. SLACK.

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What Distinguishes the Top 1% Product Managers from the Top 10%?

Rahul Abhyankar

I came across this question on Quora and it got me thinking. It’s useful to understand what distinguishes the top 1% from the top 10% in any field. The top 10% in any field are likely some of the top notch performers in that field. The margin of difference is very small. Yet there must be that … Continue reading What Distinguishes the Top 1% Product Managers from the Top 10%?

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Product Management Technologies; Five Essentials for Strategic Product Management; Planning Assumptions for 2016

Good Product Manager

We’ve been busy at SiriusDecisions with a lot of new research and resources for b-to-b product management leaders and product managers: The ABCs of Product Management Technologies. In my first post for the new SiriusDecisions Marketplace, I cover The ABCs of Product Management Technologies. This is a great overview of the landscape of tools and applications available for product managers, where I cover the four main areas of product management technology we are following at SiriusDecisions

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Features do not a Product Roadmap Make

Tyner Blain

Last month, Mike Smart of Egress Solutions and I gave a webinar for Pragmatic Marketing on product roadmapping when working in agile environments. We had a great turnout of over 1500 people in the session – with not nearly enough time to answer all of the questions. One attendee asked, “ Please explain how a prioritized list of features is not a roadmap?

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B2B eCommerce, Self-Service Portals, and PIM Trends for 2024

In 2024, B2B customers expect better quality and service with streamlined experiences that match consumer-grade simplicity—no long calls or meetings required. Our B2B eCommerce Trends Report, surveying 400+ B2B professionals in the US and Europe, reveals how eCommerce has become vital to top companies’ strategies. The report shows how leaders are leveraging eCommerce to break data silos, unify channels, and deliver the personalized experiences that customers demand.

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Product Backlog Flows

Pragmatic Marketing

There are plenty of discussions in the agile community about how agile teams work and develop over time. Often neglected or poorly understood is how that work makes its way from the customer to the team. Below is a blueprint for creating an effective and efficient flow of work. I’ve included details but also left it flexible enough to be customized for your company’s specific circumstances.

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Hi Fly: A Lean Airline Story

Melissa Perri

This past year I took six trips to London. Five of those round trip flights were on Norwegian Air. I HATE Norwegian Air. Without fail, every one of my Norwegian Air flights were delayed at least 2.5 hours. But on one trip back from London, I got a surprising test message. I had never heard of this HiFly airline before. I was incredibly skeptical but I needed to get home.

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Benefits (and Caveats) of a Simple Estimation Process

Folding Burritos

We’re all aware that we pretty much suck at estimating how long it will take to build a given piece of software. There are many reasons we fail at this. However, the core of the issue is simple. In general terms, if we want to know how much time some task will take, we need to be pretty sure about What to do, How to do it and to Have done it multiple times.

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5 Indispensible Habits Of Great Product Leaders

Street Smart Product Manager

As a product management leader, there are many demands on your time. It’s easy to get sucked into working on the most pressing issues and on meeting other people’s expectations. As “do-ers”, it’s in our nature to jump on these issues immediately. We pride ourselves on our competence to tackle these right away. But when we do … Continue reading 5 Indispensible Habits Of Great Product Leaders.

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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O'Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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Interview With Hubert Palan, CEO of ProductBoard – Podcast Season 2, Episode 2

The Secret PM Handbook

Here is the second episode of our new podcast season of All The Responsibility, None Of The Authority, crossposted from alltheresponsibility.com. I will be crossposting the new episodes from the new site to this feed as they are published (I’m a little behind now but will catch up!). Introducing Hubert Palan. Nils first met Hubert Palan in November 2014 at the Product Management Summit in San Francisco.

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How to Design Your Customer Validation to Maximize Product/Market Fit

Sachin Rekhi

In my previous post I detailed how I typically go about documenting the initial set of product/market fit hypotheses for an early stage startup and each of the key elements that are important to capture as part of it. Once you've done that, then the far more interesting work begins: validating whether there is in fact truth to each of your most uncertain hypotheses and iterating upon them to eventually find product/market fit.

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Missionaries vs. Mercenaries

svpg

One of my all-time favorite quotes in our industry comes by way of the legendary VC, John Doerr , where he argues that "we need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.” This point captures so much, and gets right to the heart of the most important trait of strong leaders, strong organizations, and strong product teams. This is not hard to spot, either way.

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Positioning Your Startup is Vital — Here’s How to Nail It

First Round Review

Arielle Jackson has experience crafting marketing campaigns at Google, Facebook and Square. This is her messaging toolbox.

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Prepare Now: 2025s Must-Know Trends For Product And Data Leaders

Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, Terrence Sheflin, and Mahyar Ghasemali

As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.

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Product Professional to CEO

Rahul Abhyankar

Google recently promoted Sundar Pichai to the role of CEO. Naturally, this received a lot of press with many articles talking about Pichai’s journey from a middle class family background in India, his education at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Stanford and Wharton, and working at McKinsey and Google. No doubt, it is a remarkable story of progress.

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Minimum Viable Products and Product Requirements; Upcoming Webcasts; Competitive Analysis Workshop in Boston

Good Product Manager

Minimum Viable Products Don’t Replace Product Requirements – They Help Identify Them. “Minimum viable product” (MVP) is the term du jour among entrepreneurs and increasingly among product managers. In the product management advisory service that I lead at SiriusDecisions , we hear the term used frequently by b-to-b product managers to refer to products that have the absolute minimum feature set required to launch – products that are devoid of unnecessary and non-value-adding fe

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You Won’t Believe What These Five Lenses Can Show You About Your Product

Tyner Blain

Fundamentally, product management requires you to assess, synthesize, and prioritize the needs which drive the creation of your product in the context of three main objectives: desirability, viability, and feasibility. While laudable, these objectives are too abstract to be actionable. That’s where the five lenses come in (I could not resist the Buzzfeed-styled title).

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Amplify Your Agile Marketing by Walking on the Moon

Pragmatic Marketing

Now that this tune is stuck in your head, you’re probably thinking, “What the heck does a Police song from 1979 have to do with agile marketing?” We all know the genius of Sting, but was he really 35 years ahead of the curve for agile? Picture the “giant steps you take” as the wavy agile progress line in the chart. Each peak represents another bound as the moon’s one-sixth gravity effortlessly accelerates you toward increased customer engagement and response.

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The 25 Types of Innovation Dominating R&D Today

Innovation varies widely across sectors and organizations, creating value in diverse forms. Understanding different types is crucial for R&D teams to foster creativity and uncover missed opportunities. This guide explores 25 key types of innovation in management frameworks.

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Lean Product Management Manifesto

Melissa Perri

If you want to read the story behind the Lean Product Management Manifesto, you can find it here. Over the past few months I have been working with people in the Lean and Agile community to figure out how we can communicate the benefits of a Lean approach to Product Management. I expect this to evolve and change as we continuously integrate these principles into our own practices and learn.

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Customers value Results, not Tools

Folding Burritos

As toolmakers , we tend to often be thinking (and talking) about the tools we make and the process of making them. We are Product Hunters , Thinkers , People , etc. It is critical for us to have those conversations and try to define and improve what is a very empirical craft; but it’s also imperative that we don’t forget what drives all of it: providing results to our customers.

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The Keys To Productive Brainstorming

Street Smart Product Manager

Let’s face it: brainstorming has gotten a bad rap. And deservedly so. How many of us have been part of a “brainstorming meeting” that turned out to be a total waste of time? Too many people. A purposeless agenda. Meandering conversations that go nowhere. And no follow-up afterward. Sound familiar? In fact, doesn’t “brainstorming meeting” … Continue reading The Keys To Productive Brainstorming.

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Interview With Hubert Palan, CEO of ProductBoard, Part 2 – Podcast Season 2, Episode 2

The Secret PM Handbook

This second part of our interview with Hubert Palan is the third episode of our new podcast season of All The Responsibility, None Of The Authority, crossposted from alltheresponsibility.com. I will be crossposting the new episodes from the new site to this feed as they are published (I’m a little behind now but will catch up!). This is part two of our interview with Hubert Palan, found and CEO of ProductBoard, and long time product management leader and executive.

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Launching LLM-Based Products: From Concept to Cash in 90 Days

Speaker: Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health and Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health, is here to take us through how he guided his company's recent experience of getting from concept to launch and sales of products within 90 days. In this exclusive webinar, Christophe will cover key aspects of his journey, including: LLM Development & Quick Wins 🤖 Understand how LLMs differ from traditional software, identifying opportunities for rapid development and deployment.

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A Practitioner's Guide to Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Sachin Rekhi

Over the past year at LinkedIn I developed a strong appreciation for using Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a key performance indicator (KPI) to understand customer loyalty. In addition to the standard repertoire of acquisition, engagement, and monetization KPIs, NPS has become a great additional measure for understanding customer loyalty and ultimately an actionable metric for enhancing your product experience to deliver delight.

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Innovation vs. Execution

svpg

In my last article I discussed how we need to simultaneously learn fast in product discovery, yet still release with confidence in product delivery. I got a very good response from this article, as well as many questions as to how teams can get better at one or both. This quickly gets into a very deep discussion of culture. You can think of this as the characteristics of a strong innovation culture, versus those of a strong execution culture.

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My Management Lessons from Three Failed Startups, Google, Apple, Dropbox, and Twitter

First Round Review

Kim Scott, veteran of Google, Apple, Dropbox and Twitter, shares what she's learned — especially the importance of giving a damn.