tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78791072024-03-07T00:28:29.334-06:00Cauvin"Smart product decisions"Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.comBlogger759125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-14750453004778090892015-10-06T12:22:00.003-05:002023-05-13T10:35:47.069-05:00Is Customer Development Pseudoscience?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-7a918c47-3d7d-229d-36f5-585ec4bb8257" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “Science” of Lean Startup</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/what-is-lean-startup.html">Lean startup</a> practitioners embrace the scientific method, seeking the "truth" about what business model and strategy will lead to product success. We do so by:</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Formulating hypotheses</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crafting and running experiments to test them</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Learning from the experiments</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iteratively feeding our learnings back into revised hypotheses</span></div></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sounds pretty scientific, at least in spirit, doesn't it? Yet this process actually neglects a key ingredient in the scientists' mode of operation. To identify what’s missing, let’s examine “customer development”.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Customer Development</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Steve Blank is one of the pioneers of the lean startup movement. He introduced into the lean startup lexicon the term “customer development”. Customer development consists of sessions and interactions with customers to test hypotheses.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">For example, a product manager might interview a prospect, asking if she agrees with the product manager’s hypotheses about the problems she faces or the value the product might bring to the prospect. Or she might “pitch” her product ideas to a prospect, as a sales person might do, ask for payment or a commitment of some sort, and learn from the prospect’s reactions.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Customer development practitioners, </span><a href="http://steveblank.com/2014/06/23/keep-calm-and-test-the-hypothesis-2-minutes-to-see-why" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">according to Blank</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, start with a relatively specific set of preconceived hypotheses and focus customer sessions almost exclusively on assessing the “validity” and applicability of these hypotheses to customers. As practitioners test the hypotheses, </span><a href="http://steveblank.com/2014/06/28/customer-discovery-the-search-for-productmarket-fit-2-minutes-to-see-why" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they capture data and may stumble across some insights</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But customer development sessions do </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> include open exploration into customers’ challenges, according to Blank.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, </span><a href="http://steveblank.com/2014/07/30/driving-corporate-innovation-design-thinking-customer-development" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blank pigeonholes open exploration as part of “design thinking”</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He suggests <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2015/01/what-is-design-thinking.html">design thinking</a> is, at least in common practice, a lengthy, heavyweight approach to learning, and therefore not appropriate for lean startups. (A <a href="http://steveblank.com/2014/07/30/driving-corporate-innovation-design-thinking-customer-development/#comment-246627">comment</a> by my former colleague, <a href="http://www.jenvandermeer.org/">Jen van der Meer</a>, aptly explains that this view of design thinking is a caricature.)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even lean startups should include open exploration in their customer interview and observation sessions, lest they neglect a vast body of important potential insights.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rummy’s Unknown Unknowns</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is famous for, in a press conference, having distinguished among “known knowns”, “known unknowns”, and “unknown unknowns”:</span></div>
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"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don't know." - Donald Rumsfeld, February 12, 2002</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Known known</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Something we know we know.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Known unknown</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Something we know we don’t know.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Unknown unknown</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Something we don’t know we don’t know.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Learning is the process of converting unknowns (whether known or unknown) to known knowns.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Customer Development starts with, 'I have a technology/product, now who do I sell it to?'” - Steve Blank, <a href="http://steveblank.com/2014/07/30/driving-corporate-innovation-design-thinking-customer-development">"Driving Corporate Innovation"</a> blog entry</span></span></blockquote>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">By focusing customer development on testing preconceived hypotheses, Blank has us concentrate on the known unknowns, or the things we know we don’t know (with sufficient confidence). By definition, a preconceived idea or hypothesis is not, and cannot be, an unknown unknown.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the body of unknown unknowns were very small relative to that of known unknowns, then we could employ Blank’s approach, and we might eventually converge on a set of hypotheses constituting a successful product strategy.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In reality, though, the typical body of knowledge (and lack thereof) might break down as follows:</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In any given domain ripe for innovation, and particularly early in a lean startup process, the body of unknown unknowns may eclipse the body of known unknowns. Moreover, you may think you know the extent of the unknown unknowns, but how would you know you know? Consequently, even if we have a prior set of hypotheses - and even a product based on those hypotheses - we should focus some of our efforts on exploring the vast body of unknown unknowns that exist in a domain or industry.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Customer interviews are about exploring what you don't know you don't know." - Ash Maurya, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172">Running Lean</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, page 71</span></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We should focus some of our sessions with prospective or existing customers on </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exploring</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the situations and challenges they face, not exclusively on directly testing our preconceived notions of what they may be.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You likely do have a set of preconceived hypotheses, but these hypotheses exist within the context of a domain and set of possible stakeholders. This context helps you narrow the scope of your inquiry: the people you should observe and interview, and which aspects of their lives you should explore.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Much as a scientist conducts field studies, a lean startup practitioner should spend at least some time in the field to explore. Much as a </span><a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/product-management-is-like-therapy.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">therapist uncovers patients' problems</a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by exploring their past and present lives, a lean startup practitioner should uncover unknown unknowns by exploring prospects' past and present ways of getting jobs done.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">During interviews, ask prospects what they’ve done and what they currently do. </span><a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2012/01/top-5-prospect-interview-mistakes.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avoid leading questions, hypothetical questions, asking them what they “want”, having customers design your product, and ignoring change management issues.</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">By employing an exploratory approach grounded in a prospect’s reality, we’ll not only uncover insights we never anticipated, but we’ll also indirectly test the known unknowns. A prospect’s unprompted description of a painful experience is far more significant than a response to your eager “do you experience this pain” question.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no need to debate the semantics of “customer development” and “design thinking”. Steve Blank popularized the term “customer development”, and we can defer to his explanation of its definition and its focus. Regardless of the definitions, however, smart lean startup practitioners should include some open exploration in their approaches to interviewing and observing customers. Failure to do so risks missing important opportunities to create innovative and transformative product experiences.</span></div>
Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-73416114202828366692015-08-03T08:30:00.000-05:002017-05-26T17:09:26.974-05:00Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing<div dir="ltr">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Goal</span></b></div>
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As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What Should We Prioritize?</b></span></div>
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The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. <a href="https://twitter.com/lissijean">Melissa Perri</a> makes an excellent case for a "<a href="http://melissaperri.com/2014/05/19/rethinking-the-product-roadmap/#.VbwHPm5Viko">problem roadmap</a>", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">A Sad but Familiar Story</span></b></div>
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If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet.<br />
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I've done it. Some of the most respected names in product management have done it:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://under10consulting.com/articles/prioritization/">Quick Prioritization</a>, by <a href="https://twitter.com/sjohnson717">Steve Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="http://techproductmanagement.com/product_management_scorecard">How to Use a Scorecard to Prioritize Features</a>, by <a href="https://twitter.com/delizalde">Daniel Elizalde</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ProductCampBoston/roadmapping-301-bruce-mc-carthy-productcamp-boston-may-2013">How to Build Roadmaps that Stick</a>, by <a href="https://twitter.com/d8a_driven">Bruce McCarthy</a></li>
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The Spreadsheet is a list of all the ideas for the product roadmap or "backlog", along with columns for every factor imaginable that might affect the priority of the items.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LiFbTva-HezGYqndcyO34M74Rn1Rrpxs542E8ImkDUTcPp35gyM5G8xI44RjSEREUf42yax36990g0NACW8uGwJAxb0-im4n3AYX4R6q-s3D0qMa4DImifOJketjPEPunFJx/s1600/The+Spreadsheet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LiFbTva-HezGYqndcyO34M74Rn1Rrpxs542E8ImkDUTcPp35gyM5G8xI44RjSEREUf42yax36990g0NACW8uGwJAxb0-im4n3AYX4R6q-s3D0qMa4DImifOJketjPEPunFJx/s1600/The+Spreadsheet.png" /></a></div>
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Columns in The Spreadsheet might include:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Man-hours to implement</li>
<li>Tool and other expenses required to implement</li>
<li>Potential revenue</li>
<li>Number of customer requests</li>
<li>Number of lost deals due to absence of feature</li>
<li>Alignment with quarterly or annual corporate strategic priorities</li>
</ul>
Someone creates a "magic formula" in the final column of the sheet that combines and weighs the various factors in the other columns and computes a "score". Then the product manager or team and you all get in a room and fill in the sheet. The group proceeds to debate the finer points of, for example, assigning a "5" or a "6" rating to the "potential revenue" column for a particular feature idea.<br />
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Halfway through the multi-hour exercise, you and the team are fatigued and decide to pick it up another day. Whether or not this follow-up meeting ever happens, the team ignores much of the priorities that result from the effort, and few if any updates ever occur to The Spreadsheet.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Why "The Spreadsheet" Sucks</span></b></div>
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The Spreadsheet approach to prioritization has at least three fatal flaws:</div>
<ol>
<li><b>Organizational dysfunction</b>. It attempts to address organizational dysfunction with formulas and analysis that ignore human factors.</li>
<li><b>Product strategy void</b>. It indicates team members lack a shared understanding of the product strategy.</li>
<li><b>Distraction from unique value proposition</b>. It distracts from your product's value proposition or from the target audience that derives the value from your product.</li>
</ol>
Let's examine each of these flaws in more detail.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Organizational Dysfunction</span></b></div>
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Step back and consider why one or more people on the team thought The Spreadsheet was a good idea. In all likelihood, it was due to difficulty determining or agreeing on priorities.</div>
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At some point, you may have asked your product manager, "Why aren't we working on feature Y instead of feature X? What data do you have to back up your decision?" Or members of the sales team bypass the product manager, talk directly to developers, and tell them how the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/5-ways-companies-make-product-decisions.html">next big deal</a> will happen if only they would implement a killer feature. Or multiple product managers are competing for development resources and employ passive aggressive tactics to divert those resources to work on their products.</div>
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<a href="https://dennisforbes.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/whatwouldyousay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://dennisforbes.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/whatwouldyousay.jpg" width="320" /></a>By now, you recognize the recurring theme: dysfunctional interactions among team members. The hope is that The Spreadsheet causes everyone to set aside their distrust and passive aggression and become "objective". If we just focus on the numbers and let the "magic formula" compute the score, all these dysfunctional interactions will go away, and we'll get on the same page.<br />
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Once you recognize the context (dysfunctional team interactions) and the proposed solution (objective analysis of priorities), it becomes obvious to anyone with a modicum of human sensibility that the proposed solution misses the mark.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Product Strategy Void</span></b></div>
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Why does this distrust and passive aggression exist in the first place? Or if no such dysfunctional behavior is occurring, why is it nevertheless so hard to get on the same page? It could be due to personalities and culture, or it could be that the team simply doesn't have a shared understanding of the product strategy.</div>
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One model of product management is that the product manager or product owner (The All-Knowing One or <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/12/who-owns-product.html">The Decider</a>, as <a href="https://twitter.com/ttorres">Teresa Torres</a> might say in jest) knows best, prioritizes a backlog, and doles out the work to designers and developers. "I've prioritized it for you; just design and implement it."</div>
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This approach works fine when the product manager or owner is, in fact, all knowing, has the time to meticulously specify and prioritize every user story in the backlog, and when the designers and developers are machines that do exactly what they're told. Good luck with that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQZ-lDUPPUPpU17jJdYDjDLPHXxfyOTfdRU0SZARAMiiTi3WAtLYfV1plGNj5clJ8MeKr3aundaV7m2XTh6900SfMNgB05i13tLb7UI4eCVxndOGoVL7nSukMWzniJalSXJpE/s1600/Product+Strategy+Void.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQZ-lDUPPUPpU17jJdYDjDLPHXxfyOTfdRU0SZARAMiiTi3WAtLYfV1plGNj5clJ8MeKr3aundaV7m2XTh6900SfMNgB05i13tLb7UI4eCVxndOGoVL7nSukMWzniJalSXJpE/s320/Product+Strategy+Void.png" width="320" /></a>What happens in the real world? The All-Knowing One is swamped, she has no time to talk to prospects and customers, and designers and developers keep pestering her with questions. When the product manager is wrong or has no sound basis for her answers, she loses credibility.</div>
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May I suggest another approach?</div>
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Teams are most productive when they share a strategic vision and each team member can "fill in the blanks". What if the product manager facilitated a shared understanding of the product strategy? Then each member of the team would feel confident making decisions without going back to The All-Knowing One. And the prioritizing that team members do on a daily, or even hourly, basis would flow naturally out of that strategy.</div>
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In the absence of a shared understanding of the product strategy, you, your product manager, and team members aren't likely to agree on priorities. The Spreadsheet isn't a strategy and is no substitute for a strategy. It won't fill this fundamental void.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Distraction from the Unique Value Proposition</span></b></div>
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Let's say you do have a product strategy and a shared team understanding of what it is. A fundamental part of your product strategy is the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/11/competitive-mindshare-maps.html">unique value proposition</a>.</div>
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The unique value proposition is the value you envision your product uniquely delivering to a target market.</div>
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When the team chooses the product's unique value proposition, it selects a singular, overarching theme that implicitly embodies the set of market problems it plans to solve with the product. It has largely selected the high-level priorities and deliberately set aside problems and features that don't support the overarching theme.<br />
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For more information on unique value propositions and how to position your product relative to the competition, see this entry on <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/11/competitive-mindshare-maps.html">competitive mindshare maps</a>.</div>
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Imagine sales and customers bombard the team with requests for a "killer feature" that has little or nothing to do with the unique value proposition. How does the feature fare in The Spreadsheet?</div>
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Well, it scores well in the "number of customer requests" category. Perhaps it has great "revenue potential" as well, so bump up the score in that column, too. Sales claims it loses a lot of deals due to the lack of the feature. It looks like this feature might score very well indeed on The Spreadsheet.<br />
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But evaluating the feature through the lens of the unique value proposition might lead to a very different assessment of its priority. In fact, the feature might undermine, or be unrelated to, the unique value proposition.<br />
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Now, given the feedback you've gotten from customers and sales, you might want to consider whether to "pivot" and change the unique value proposition, and thereby the product strategy, for the product. Alternatively, you might consider spinning off another product or company with a fresh and separate set of product strategy hypotheses based on the new information.<br />
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But if you believe you already have a product strategy worth pursuing and testing, The Spreadsheet has led you astray. If you prioritize features without regard for the unique value proposition, you end up with a fractured product that distracts from - rather than delivers - its promised value. It may deliver bits and pieces of value, but those pieces have little relation to each other. They don't coalesce around a central theme.<br />
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While the "potential revenue" rating might nonetheless seem to justify the high priority, it neglects the power of brand: the long-term impact on revenue of a cohesive product that delivers a clear value proposition.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">How to Prioritize</span></b><br />
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At this point, you're wondering how your team <i>should</i> prioritize, if not using The Spreadsheet.<br />
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I propose three primary questions to guide prioritization:<br />
<ol>
<li>To what extent does this item (feature, user story, epic, market problem, theme, or experiment) support the unique value proposition?</li>
<li>What is the level of effort required to implement this item?</li>
<li>What will implementing this item enable us to learn?</li>
</ol>
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(Heck, I might throw in a fourth one: how fun will it be to work on this item? It matters.)<br />
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The answers to these questions aren’t numbers team members plug into a formula. They form the basis for thought processes and conversations. Consider them holistically and always in the context of the unique value proposition. As Teresa Torres <a href="http://www.producttalk.org/2014/02/the-simplest-and-most-important-question-you-face-as-a-product-leader">cautions</a>, "If you use time-to-build to prioritize what to build next, you’ll end up with a product full of easy solutions." Teresa rightly urges us to emphasize impact on a goal. I contend <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/11/competitive-mindshare-maps.html">the goal is delivering the unique value proposition, as I wrote in 2013</a>.</div>
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Accordingly, your product manager should lead the process of determining the product strategy (including the unique value proposition) and foster a shared understanding of it, and the reasons for it, among the entire team (across all departments). The product manager may also lead the process of conceiving experiments to continually test the riskier assumptions behind the product strategy hypotheses.</div>
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This high-level strategic baseline sets the stage for every member of the team to make common sense day-to-day prioritization decisions without resorting to numbers and formulas and without going back to The All-Knowing One for guidance. And when the product manager or team prioritizes one item over another, it will flow naturally out of the shared understanding of the product strategy. Steve Johnson calls it "<a href="https://www.under10playbook.com/blog/empowering-judgment-with-context">empowering judgment with context</a>".</div>
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Healthy conversations about how my three considerations apply to an item should and will occur. But rarely will you need to ask for the "data" that justifies a prioritization decision. The Spreadsheet approach won't appeal to anyone, except perhaps to the most hopelessly analytical members of the team. God bless 'em.</div>
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Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-72976645453755065772015-01-04T18:48:00.000-06:002017-05-23T15:48:50.748-05:00What Is Design Thinking?<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Context</span></b><br />
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Over the years, various product management and development methods have come into vogue, most notably agile and <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/what-is-lean-startup.html">lean startup</a> methods. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/09/bufr.html">Agile methods addressed requirements</a>, architecture, and development risks using frequent iterations. Lean startup methods take it a step further, iterating on the entire product strategy, including the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/11/competitive-mindshare-maps.html">unique value proposition</a>, the target market, revenue and cost structure, and marketing and sales channels.<br />
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Recently, you may have heard more and more chatter about "design thinking". I certainly have. What is it, and how does it differ from agile and lean startup methods? How can companies leverage it to innovate and develop better products?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Definition</span></b><br />
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If you do some web searches, you'll notice a lot of vague references to design thinking and a diversity of views about what it is. After exploring some definitions, I'll borrow from various descriptions and accounts of design thinking to form what I believe is a coherent explanation of what it is.<br />
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Let's see how Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, defined "design thinking" in his <a href="http://www.ideo.com/images/uploads/thoughts/IDEO_HBR_Design_Thinking.pdf">seminal article</a> in <i>Harvard Business Review</i>:<br />
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"[Design thinking is] a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos."</blockquote>
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Clear as mud, eh?</div>
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My former colleague, Davide Casali, defines it as follows:<br />
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This definition is concise and nicely aligns with the plain meanings of the words. It leads us to the key question: what are the characterizing activities of design thinkers? Indeed, Wikipedia states:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4Zj9Xpf0g-XBo-DAi0Viit5Sd5QU904cy3TbUGPaPKicLIjXJemYSYwVJIJjxVW7OuVQygSuJznRujwFRuBqzjPGZCDcgAQbTsInaGdKs4NrDOOyyUdOtVW4eVTl3eknGmE7/s1600/Design+Thinking+-+Wikipedia.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4Zj9Xpf0g-XBo-DAi0Viit5Sd5QU904cy3TbUGPaPKicLIjXJemYSYwVJIJjxVW7OuVQygSuJznRujwFRuBqzjPGZCDcgAQbTsInaGdKs4NrDOOyyUdOtVW4eVTl3eknGmE7/s1600/Design+Thinking+-+Wikipedia.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Hmm. I'm not sure about the "design-specific" part of this definition, but let's look at the activities that characterize design thinking.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Activities</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1IUd_ZVEzqN5e-ra_EAupvJPkwaOgkKsTv1qrk5aEQiA/pub?w=849&h=801" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1IUd_ZVEzqN5e-ra_EAupvJPkwaOgkKsTv1qrk5aEQiA/pub?w=849&h=801" width="400" /></a></div>
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Note: these activities characterize design thinking but do not necessarily come in any particular sequence or imply a particular "process".<br />
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<li><b>Explore</b> the problem domain. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2012/01/top-5-prospect-interview-mistakes.html">Interview prospective customers</a> and users. Observe and experience the problem and its context first hand.</li>
<li><b>Define</b> the problem you are trying to solve. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/12/problem-understood-is-problem-half.html">Half of the battle in designing a great solution is to clearly define the problem</a> you're solving.</li>
<li><b>Ideate </b>to generate perspectives on the problem and ideas for solving it. Set aside analytical thinking and engage your right brain.</li>
<li><b>Hypothesize</b> about the problem, solution, and business model. What would have to be true for the problem to resonate with prospects and for the solution to solve the problem? How would you know that <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2014/02/stop-validating-and-start-falsifying.html">your hypotheses and assumptions are false</a>?</li>
<li><b>Experiment</b> to test your hypotheses and assumptions. Employ prototypes and confront prospects with real and concrete choices.</li>
<li><b>Learn</b> from all your other activities, especially from exploration and experiments. Design thinking isn't (merely) about "creativity" and having a sense for the "right" solution. It's about learning and discovery.</li>
</ul>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Key Concepts</span></b><br />
<br />
Design thinkers leverage key concepts that differentiate the solutions that emerge from their activities.<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Holism</b>. In design thinking, the product is a set of <i>experiences</i>, not of features, that provide value. The nature and value of the experiences depends on a <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2014/11/what-product-managers-can-learn-from-the-apple-ipod.html">larger ecosystem, such as the one Apple created with iTunes</a>.</li>
<li><b>Iteration</b>. You almost never get it right the first time, and you shouldn't spend a lot of time trying. While design thinkers don't necessarily employ a particular process, they iterate in their approaches to understanding the problem, the customer, and the solution.</li>
</ul>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Final Thoughts</span></b><br />
<br />
Some product managers, agile teams, and lean startup practitioners engage in some of the same activities, and apply some of the same concepts, as design thinkers. In particular, iteration has long been a core part of agile processes. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/what-is-lean-startup.html">Lean startup</a> practices are iterative and also incorporate hypothesizing, experimenting, and learning in a build-measure-learn loop. The best product managers learn about markets by interviewing and observing prospective customers and users.<br />
<br />
But agile and lean startup methods differ from design thinking in several ways:<br />
<ol>
<li>Though certain activities and concepts characterize design thinking, it's not a "process".</li>
<li>While <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2009/03/agile-is-not-just-development.html">agile methods are iterative and include some hypothesizing, experimenting, and learning</a>, they don't necessarily include other design thinking activities or a holistic view of the product.</li>
<li>Open-ended exploration is not part of lean startup methods, though they arguably incorporate all other design thinking activities. (I'll address this controversial topic in a future blog entry. UPDATE: Read how the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2015/10/is-customer-development-pseudoscience.html">"customer development" concept in lean startup methods, at least according to Steve Blank, does NOT include open-ended exploration</a>.)</li>
<li>You can employ lean startup methods without a holistic view of what constitutes a "product".</li>
</ol>
Many product teams suffer from tunnel vision, which stifles innovation. The tunnel vision stems from paying insufficient attention to raw exploration and <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2014/02/stop-validating-and-start-falsifying.html">obsessing over "validating"</a> their preconceived ideas. And most of them treat products as collections of features instead of holistic sets of experiences. Product managers can up their game by leveraging all aspects of design thinking.<br />
<br />
UPDATE: I covered design thinking at ProductCamp Austin 14. The title of my session was "WTF Is Design Thinking". You can get a link to the slides by tweeting this blog entry. Send this tweet:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What Is #designthinking? http://cauv.in/wtfdt</blockquote>
<i>Thanks to <a href="http://www.intenseminimalism.com/">Davide Casali</a> and <a href="http://www.streetsmartproductmanager.com/">Shardul Mehta</a> for reviewing and providing feedback on initial drafts of this blog entry.</i>Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-63460766756569685722014-11-30T16:58:00.000-06:002014-11-30T18:00:27.586-06:00What Product Managers Can Learn from the Apple iPod<b>The Story</b><br />
<br />
When Apple unveiled its iPod digital music player back in October 2001, I dismissed it as a <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2006/06/parity-products.html">parity product</a>. I already owned the Cowon iAUDIO CW100 MP3 player, loaded with my favorite tunes. There was Apple, generating great hype over the iPod as if it were a breakthrough product.<br />
<br />
The idea of a portable digital music player was nothing new. The first mass-produced MP3 players came out in 1998. In late 2001, the concept may have been new to a lot of Apple customers, but it wasn't new to me. I proudly showed my MP3 player to friends when they gushed about the iPod.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/116Jw3laeT2pfbTE3TVuRuJjCuEJts1JiDS_qCG_WwRI/pub?w=285&h=520" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/116Jw3laeT2pfbTE3TVuRuJjCuEJts1JiDS_qCG_WwRI/pub?w=285&h=520" width="174" /></a>Thus Apple's iPod was not an innovative product in and of itself. Years later, however, I realized the significance of ecosystem of which the iPod was a part. Apple had released iTunes (with technology purchased from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundJam_MP">SoundJam MP</a>) and created the iTunes Store for finding and downloading music. Unlike <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster">Napster</a>, it was a safe and legal way of distributing and acquiring music.<br />
<br />
The prior way of playing portable digital music required a user first:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping">"Rip" a song from CD</a> or download the MP3 file (illegally, in many cases) from Napster.</li>
<li>Connect a USB or other cable and transfer the file to a portable MP3 player (after installing the appropriate drivers).</li>
</ol>
<div>
No big deal for me. But the vast majority of users didn't know how, or want, to mess around with ripping CDs, installing drivers, or downloading and transferring files. They wanted to acquire and listen to <i>songs</i>, not files. Before Apple's iTunes and iPod, it was about "ripping", drivers, files, and transfers.</div>
<br />
Apple had created an ecosystem. Its product managers and designers considered the entire set of user experiences, not just users' direct experiences with digital music players. If you viewed the iPod as a product in isolation, it wasn't innovative. The innovation was in creating a set of elegant (and legal) user experiences around acquiring and playing digital music.<br />
<br />
<b>The Lesson</b><br />
<br />
This story makes you wonder: what is a product? Is a product a collection of features? Or is a product, in a sense, a set of user experiences? Product managers should focus on enabling users to have a set of experiences. Doing so requires considering (and building, if necessary) the entire ecosystem, not just a piece of it. The real innovations often lie <i>outside</i> of what product managers typically consider to be the product.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-49473670215210891612014-09-18T15:11:00.000-05:002014-09-18T15:11:08.627-05:00Website Product ManagementManaging a website, whether the target visitors are internal to an organization or are in the public at large, is not merely a matter of slapping together some web pages and linking them together. It's also not merely about design.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNzI06-XuVv9oqBVa_rSo5EwbhgufMR_gOGiTXRdkMEGuCizkYjX5CMn8kL1mETwcp2zJiRHWcpj1hGpI6l94BZYLhuEcE5A7sSCAak4yTvV3_Dic5Mqa6GceFpA0gfbJSSM7u/s1600/WPM+Cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNzI06-XuVv9oqBVa_rSo5EwbhgufMR_gOGiTXRdkMEGuCizkYjX5CMn8kL1mETwcp2zJiRHWcpj1hGpI6l94BZYLhuEcE5A7sSCAak4yTvV3_Dic5Mqa6GceFpA0gfbJSSM7u/s1600/WPM+Cover.png" height="320" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
No, managing a website includes such challenges as:<br />
<div>
<ul>
<li>How do you elicit and prioritize the requirements for the website?</li>
<li>How do you position and market the website to the target audience?</li>
<li>How do you test your assumptions and continuously adjust to the needs of your target audience?</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
Note that those who manage any product face the same challenges. In his recently-published <span style="font-family: sans-serif;">book, </span><i style="font-family: sans-serif;"><a href="http://websiteproductmanagement.com/">Website Product Management</a></i><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">, </span>David Hobbs teaches us how to manage websites as the "products" they are.</div>
<div>
<br />
David was gracious enough to allow me to interview him about website product management and post his answers here. Enjoy!<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. Why is product management important for websites?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A. Organizations are usually stuck in the rut of thinking of their web presences as a series of projects. On the face of it this may not seem like a problem: after all, some changes to websites are big enough to warrant project management techniques. That said, the <i>emphasis</i> causes problems in a variety of ways: a) it leads people to believe that maintaining a website is more of a technical problem, b) a focus on what’s possible (or fits within a budget) rather than what’s important, c) it overlooks ongoing change (and probably even maintenance), d) it comes too late to integrators / development shops, e) and it leads to disjointed efforts. Product management needs to drive what all those projects are doing, and also to ensure that the organization is set up for other types of changes that are smaller than projects. Fundamentally, product management needs to make sure the web presence is coherent.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. How is website product management different from product management elsewhere?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHPIm-nAZWD9PNr-kt2vCZgF2rtKyVLw_SKkJjiAls1e_tNJktkyKV2j_YB-2K5Zi8o_Ogi6oRMV7sCtvRmhb0ZyoILvq43OT8T_7NWI4qYkaCLQbmmEPviwCadqItjWjzDR2/s1600/Hobbs+Pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHPIm-nAZWD9PNr-kt2vCZgF2rtKyVLw_SKkJjiAls1e_tNJktkyKV2j_YB-2K5Zi8o_Ogi6oRMV7sCtvRmhb0ZyoILvq43OT8T_7NWI4qYkaCLQbmmEPviwCadqItjWjzDR2/s1600/Hobbs+Pic.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A. First off, it’s extremely easy to make changes to websites. Of course, some readers may think “it’s not simple to change my website,” but that is a process or implementation issue. At its core, it’s easy to make website changes. Since it’s always “live,” if you make some simple changes to HTML (or other components of the site) then the whole world sees the change. But this could also be said of products that are delivered via the web. So the real differentiator is the natural inclination for a wide range of folks to feel like they “own” parts of the site. Sometimes the ownership is legitimate, and sometimes it is less so. Of course any product has a range of stakeholders, but usually pretty much everyone (and certainly every major group) in an organization feels they own chunks of the website. That’s the reason in the book I focus on the need for everyone to think of their website as a product, and not just some central team. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. When managing a website, what are the very most important things teams can do to manage them more like products?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A. For website product management, I break it down into three key ways of thinking: business first, long term, and broadly. So perhaps the most important thing teams can do is to consider each of these three aspects when considering any change. So when you are thinking about changes:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ask first what the business need of the change is. If that isn't clear, then you probably should not do it (even if it is “easy” to do).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">How will this work long term? Is this implemented in a way that will be difficult to maintain? Does it box you in for future change? Is it unnecessarily adding complexity to the implementation (or to the site visitor)?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is this just going to benefit one group, or will it help the website broadly? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don’t have to buy the book to </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-82ac6a64-89e2-cd72-393b-48beb851f306"><a href="http://websiteproductmanagement.com/flowchart.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">get a free flowchart to better handle website change</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Q. What activities of website product managers are the most strategic?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A. I don’t necessarily advocate that someone has the title of “website product manager.” Depending on the size of the web presence, an existing role could take on this extra responsibility. Regardless, I advocate for broad acceptance within an organization of product management thinking. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think the most strategic activities are: 1) defining the vision for the site, and 2) rising above the day-to-day requests in order to set a solid foundation (what I think of as getting the bones right). There is a subtle dance between these two. You can’t just declare a vision that isn't implementable. Actually, you can and people frequently do — they just aren't very helpful and usually counterproductive. The vision needs to be inspiring, grounded in the business need, and implementable. To be implementable, you need to think about how long term and on an ongoing basis how your goals will be met (just implementing once isn't enough). In particular, one of the most damaging things that can happen to a web presence are one-offs, and these happen all the time. Frequently one-offs are lauded as victories. But they often lead to an even more disjointed experience. The bones need to be defined to <i>accommodate</i> the types of changes that will be happening and not break.</span></span></div>
</div>
Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-58778097520736815892014-07-22T20:01:00.001-05:002014-08-20T11:49:23.993-05:00Join Me for ProductCamp Austin 13<span style="font-size: large;">UPDATE: The presentation won "Best Session" at ProductCamp Austin 13. Check out the slides <a href="http://slidesha.re/1mmb1oj">here</a>.</span><br />
<br />
Join me Saturday, August 2nd, 2014 for ProductCamp Austin 13.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QsRK7q2pitZK33YJlu_ETypef2fi2b6X761bRURqIKEKJ4Yo7BSU2wA1z060Jf_mZpeCKuLc8TgvBl62W1PO4efJnSvJ0E75So3xToY1KzVBnyIWss4OgBKJ4lQE7iP-35s3/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QsRK7q2pitZK33YJlu_ETypef2fi2b6X761bRURqIKEKJ4Yo7BSU2wA1z060Jf_mZpeCKuLc8TgvBl62W1PO4efJnSvJ0E75So3xToY1KzVBnyIWss4OgBKJ4lQE7iP-35s3/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" /></a>I <i>think</i> I missed only one ProductCamp Austin "unconference" since helping to organize the first event. At ProductCamp, product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network.<br />
<br />
For the upcoming event, I've proposed a session called "Google or search.com? Why We Suck at Naming Products and Companies".<br />
<br />
What the heck is a hopdoddy?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOvVh6cr9IAVDk32z-4wpw0uRpQ6IdDuNoapeGeuh_wKQJQq_EgcPCMG5FkUUoEey8k7C1vR8LK7FwEIQij8w7AMGYx4oD7AD6ky8ouabTRXDwZehZi6U6FgE5xynJdSPLNm1/s1600/Hopdoddy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOvVh6cr9IAVDk32z-4wpw0uRpQ6IdDuNoapeGeuh_wKQJQq_EgcPCMG5FkUUoEey8k7C1vR8LK7FwEIQij8w7AMGYx4oD7AD6ky8ouabTRXDwZehZi6U6FgE5xynJdSPLNm1/s1600/Hopdoddy.png" height="99" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Did you know that scientists have studied what makes a great brand name? The findings may surprise you. Our intuitions about brand names are the opposite of what the science tells us.<br />
<br />
In the session, we’ll answer:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>What goals should you strive to achieve when choosing a name for your product or company?</li>
<li>What does the science say about what types of names best accomplish these goals?</li>
<li>How should you choose a name?</li>
</ul>
<br />
Prepare to challenge your intuitions.<br />
<br />
As I write this blog entry, <a href="http://bit.ly/PCATX13">registration</a> for ProductCamp Austin 13 is open. If you'd like to present or lead a conversation at the event, <a href="http://bit.ly/PCA13PS">propose a session</a>. UPDATE: Check out this <a href="http://bit.ly/PCA13SL">list of proposed sessions</a>.<br />
<br />
Hope to see you at ProductCamp Austin 13!Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-7879345154765012272014-02-09T18:59:00.001-06:002022-05-11T12:30:00.556-05:00Stop Validating and Start Falsifying<div class="separator" style="clear: both; display: none; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgk4L99JyhDmA5Zu3sPuPsESwoLsnMTxJbE4rAiAyq0cJdnZjjDpjQGJuENAd5gyj8UW0mnZHOf58lsl6lmLUQjQeZFA0iM49wxWaWnBwFNz7H89021JfNQha8x00LT4tYq5sD/s1600/False.png" /></div>
The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray.<br />
<br />
<b>Why Validate?</b><br />
<br />
In <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/what-is-lean-startup.html">lean startup</a> circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://twitter.com/talshalit/status/102786341317783552"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlQ99bKCNz8h-wfz_qif1IAF6OHEIP9Et29TSwWXYwbb_gKhh1vIfjFL8X1jLlSaPXn_jVRfTqTXP8wgtSTCIN1U2g2x_29ug3ylXwIdlZUYuPv1Bd5HazlsEcWhlrT7ytuvi/s1600/Validate+Idea.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market.<br />
<br />
Indeed, it makes sense to transcend <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/5-ways-companies-make-product-decisions.html">conventional approaches to making product decisions</a>. Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/10/lean-startup-concepts.html">lean startup concepts</a>, and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach.<br />
<br />
Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinion about such aspects of the business model as:<br />
<ol>
<li>The most pervasive and urgent market problems the product should solve.</li>
<li>Whether the solution truly addresses the market problems.</li>
<li>What price customers would be willing to pay.</li>
<li>What tactics will most effectively drive prospects to buy.</li>
</ol>
Presumably, the "validated learning" approach of lean startup enables the organization to identify which opinions are factual and not mere speculation.<br />
<br />
<b>Validation in Practice</b><br />
<br />
But let's consider what our naive lean startup practitioner (we'll call her "Cameron") does in practice.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYCkmlpy8PyDRS7ijhqBzClvCLLM2rH-aQVaB4pqp8uy-dqqyknH3CUHPB5H50qTUkj8T0LJxw1lFOmJcRzDhVAKczhC1hADFYCiNcQhw1BVeKYWxGT3l6MEUdDSt274T-cPIS/s1600/Demo.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYCkmlpy8PyDRS7ijhqBzClvCLLM2rH-aQVaB4pqp8uy-dqqyknH3CUHPB5H50qTUkj8T0LJxw1lFOmJcRzDhVAKczhC1hADFYCiNcQhw1BVeKYWxGT3l6MEUdDSt274T-cPIS/s1600/Demo.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Present the idea</b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Cameron puts together a slide deck, minimum viable product (MVP), or demo, presents her idea to one or more prospects, and eagerly awaits feedback. The prospects say, "I like it!" or "I would buy it!" Cameron feels warm inside, as the prospects have "validated" her and her idea.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_FTL53JfiSn0wrpoXvkGI2I2U2VFycMYoZvVbuMFQWuE4cZrFHS97Atx5AqLw3yplyGYbMw5A9oJ8UAANcI1ouAH-qqpT4MZfXMvDDz53oc7iI2UzGp3r_qld1ZgMuhXAcyf/s1600/Pain.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_FTL53JfiSn0wrpoXvkGI2I2U2VFycMYoZvVbuMFQWuE4cZrFHS97Atx5AqLw3yplyGYbMw5A9oJ8UAANcI1ouAH-qqpT4MZfXMvDDz53oc7iI2UzGp3r_qld1ZgMuhXAcyf/s1600/Pain.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ask about the "pain point"</b></span><br />
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<br />Since solving an urgent and pervasive problem or "pain point" is usually a prerequisite for product success, Cameron visits with prospects and asks them if they experience one of the problems she envisions her product would solve. "Yes," reply the prospects. Feeling "validated", Cameron does an internal high-five with herself.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiywHqzKfnRjNTl4ZauIXVF1UakpQM0Thd8b-7woc6gHIbLmJLMR3qb1MvmdXUUwn19wCaSINlfFhtie6oQvoQZsoL3p2_S3ZCjMocyv4FWQZN6mI86DpQH6x7LVEMWwp7lGHmR/s1600/Dollar.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiywHqzKfnRjNTl4ZauIXVF1UakpQM0Thd8b-7woc6gHIbLmJLMR3qb1MvmdXUUwn19wCaSINlfFhtie6oQvoQZsoL3p2_S3ZCjMocyv4FWQZN6mI86DpQH6x7LVEMWwp7lGHmR/s1600/Dollar.png" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Name a price</span></b><br />
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<br />Cameron asks prospects what they would pay for a solution with the features she envisions for her product. Prospects "name their price". Or, in equally naive fashion, Cameron herself names a price and asks, "Would you pay X for the product?" Prospects reply affirmatively. Cameron can hardly contain her giddyness as her pricing assumptions are "validated".<br />
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Cameron feels extra special for having "gotten out of the building" to visit customers.<br />
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<b>What's Naive about Cameron's Approach?</b><br />
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The results of all of Cameron's efforts are practically worthless, aside from the emotional affirmation she may feel. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2012/01/top-5-prospect-interview-mistakes.html">When you visit prospects, you don't get reliable information by posing hypothetical questions.</a> When you seek validation from someone, you will tend to get it. Cameron unwittingly designed her interactions with prospects in a manner likely to confirm her preconceived ideas, and her interpretations of the results were naive. Let's call it "validation bias", an insidious psychological disorder that has infected the lean startup community.<br />
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Note: had Cameron conducted a survey, though seductive because it would have yielded quantitative data, the results would still have been suspect to the extent the questions were hypothetical and failed to confront prospects with real choices and commitments.<br />
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<b>What's the Alternative?</b><br />
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If you want to be scientific in your approach to product decisions, you craft experiments and make <i>falsifiable</i> predictions, with the intention of <i>testing</i>, not "validating", the hypotheses and underlying assumptions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgk4L99JyhDmA5Zu3sPuPsESwoLsnMTxJbE4rAiAyq0cJdnZjjDpjQGJuENAd5gyj8UW0mnZHOf58lsl6lmLUQjQeZFA0iM49wxWaWnBwFNz7H89021JfNQha8x00LT4tYq5sD/s1600/False.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgk4L99JyhDmA5Zu3sPuPsESwoLsnMTxJbE4rAiAyq0cJdnZjjDpjQGJuENAd5gyj8UW0mnZHOf58lsl6lmLUQjQeZFA0iM49wxWaWnBwFNz7H89021JfNQha8x00LT4tYq5sD/s1600/False.png" /></a></div>
Philosopher Karl Popper is famous for having championed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability">falsificationism</a>, a set of principles that shifted the emphasis from <i>verifying</i> scientific beliefs to ensuring they are possible to <i>falsify </i>via experiments:<br />
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According to Wikipedia:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"A statement is called <b><i>falsifiable</i></b> if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false."</blockquote>
In fact, Popper argued that a statement isn't scientifically factual at all if it isn't falsifiable.<br />
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<b>What Cameron Could Do Differently</b><br />
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Instead of asking hypothetical questions, Cameron could ask the prospects what they <i>actually</i> do (and have done) instead of what they <i>would</i> do. She could probe into their current and past experiences and note whether the supposed problems manifested themselves in those experiences. She could <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/08/ethnography.html">sit with prospects in their native environments and observe (ethnography)</a>, first hand, their situations and challenges. Cameron could test her value proposition and pricing hypotheses by <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/07/negative-pricing.html">quantifying the costs that problems and their workarounds impose on prospects</a>. She could ask for an actual commitment to pay for the product once it's released.<br />
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Cameron could also work with her team to craft "digital" experiments and predict how those experiments will turn out. For example, her team could author "how-to" guides, downloadable on landing pages, that help prospects solve the problems she assumes they face. The team could predict how many people will visit those landing pages and how many people will proceed to download the guides. (To make prospects aware of the how-to guides, the team could run Facebook ads or Google AdWords to drive people to those landing pages and see if the predicted number of page visits and downloads materializes.)<br />
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The possibilities are endless, but they require a mindset that emphasizes falsifying product ideas and business model hypotheses, not "validating" them.<br />
<br />Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-69901419452433211372014-01-21T09:08:00.002-06:002014-07-22T19:32:15.613-05:00Join Me at ProductCamp Austin 12Join me Saturday, February 15th, 2014 for ProductCamp Austin 12.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QsRK7q2pitZK33YJlu_ETypef2fi2b6X761bRURqIKEKJ4Yo7BSU2wA1z060Jf_mZpeCKuLc8TgvBl62W1PO4efJnSvJ0E75So3xToY1KzVBnyIWss4OgBKJ4lQE7iP-35s3/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QsRK7q2pitZK33YJlu_ETypef2fi2b6X761bRURqIKEKJ4Yo7BSU2wA1z060Jf_mZpeCKuLc8TgvBl62W1PO4efJnSvJ0E75So3xToY1KzVBnyIWss4OgBKJ4lQE7iP-35s3/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" /></a>By now, if you're a product management, marketing, or technology professional, you've probably heard of ProductCamp. ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network.<br />
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ProductCamp depends on volunteers to organize it, propose and lead sessions, provide lively conversation and debate, set up and tear down the day of the event, and recruit sponsors to keep it free. Participants can propose sessions prior to the event, and participants vote the morning of the event to determine which sessions they will have the opportunity to attend throughout the day.<br />
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As I write this blog entry, registration for ProductCamp Austin 12 is open. If you're ready to commit to participating in the product management and marketing conversation, I suggest you <a href="http://bit.ly/1mBoGtP">register</a> now. The slots usually fill up quickly. If you'd like to present or lead a conversation at the event, <a href="http://bit.ly/1dRsljx">propose a session</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I37jy1E9mfDxJJ-PiPBgOGj0bUAmjJelXpvZxqXzQAvX31a0ajTMBKMOESGY2bfIux3XTMEn9V5y4Cgtpj0fKfuOPDELFjR2tOMDNV5gaecxlnW7XF3uS5XwG6IMmu14sGCC/s1600/5+Ways.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I37jy1E9mfDxJJ-PiPBgOGj0bUAmjJelXpvZxqXzQAvX31a0ajTMBKMOESGY2bfIux3XTMEn9V5y4Cgtpj0fKfuOPDELFjR2tOMDNV5gaecxlnW7XF3uS5XwG6IMmu14sGCC/s1600/5+Ways.png" height="181" width="320" /></a>I've proposed a session called "5 Ways Companies Make Product Decisions".<br />
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Is your company making ad hoc or informed, deliberate product decisions?<br />
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In the session, we'll look at five ways companies make strategic and ongoing tactical decisions about how they develop, market, and sell products and solutions. How do they decide what features to include in their products, what messages they will use to articulate the value of their products, what marketing tactics they will use, what prospective customers they will target, and other day-to-day choices?<br />
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We'll discuss the pros and cons of each method and explore other methods that may be more likely to result in product success.<br />
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I'd love to hear your perspective and see you at ProductCamp Austin 12.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-44685955888025504922013-11-03T17:27:00.002-06:002021-06-25T13:13:49.256-05:00Competitive Mindshare Maps<b>Why You Need a Competitive Mindshare Map</b><br />
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The core of your product strategy lies in your product's positioning and unique value proposition (UVP). It should drive nearly all product decisions, including the roadmap, feature prioritization, marketing messages, and sales approaches.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdtZgKFhh7jBYMzhPDEzpL5yf3Oyi6UJI8-LvvEC1jTToPhvhDbWmX1-HTAb6ECLsLUEoNHfs7NfT02sjrP-JjiFcpLzPsQ5aziYg-dZpNcinCOt-2H1ZXTv3otd8-f_BUzjb/s1600/BMC+-+UVP.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdtZgKFhh7jBYMzhPDEzpL5yf3Oyi6UJI8-LvvEC1jTToPhvhDbWmX1-HTAb6ECLsLUEoNHfs7NfT02sjrP-JjiFcpLzPsQ5aziYg-dZpNcinCOt-2H1ZXTv3otd8-f_BUzjb/s400/BMC+-+UVP.png" width="480" /></a></div>
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A sound unique value proposition depends on:<br />
<ol>
<li><span><b>Value</b>. It should convey the value of your product. Value is rooted in the problems your product solves.</span></li>
<li><span><b>Competitive landscape</b>. It should differentiate your product from available alternatives.</span></li>
<li><span><b>Perception</b>. It should acknowledge perceived weaknesses of the product and perceived strengths of competing products.</span></li>
</ol>
<div>
Surprisingly, most companies take the value of their products for granted and don't bother to explicitly formulate a unique value proposition. For others, determining a unique value proposition is haphazard, with little or no process guiding the decision. At best, they focus on the value and pay insufficient attention to perceptions and the competitive landscape.</div>
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Enter the competitive mindshare map. A competitive mindshare map helps you determine a unique value proposition for your product and ensures it properly accounts for the competitive landscape and market perceptions.</div>
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<b>What is a Competitive Mindshare Map?</b></div>
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<div>
A competitive mindshare map is a visualization of how products are positioned in the competitive landscape. The competitive landscape, however, is not a set of line items or numbers in a spreadsheet or chart. The competitive landscape is the mind of the prospect.</div>
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The fourth law among <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/eric-on-22-immutable-laws.html">Ries and Trout's 22 immutable laws of marketing</a> is the Law of Perception. It states:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span>Marketing is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions.</span></blockquote>
<div>
A competitive mindshare map divides the mind of the prospect into territories and places each offering into the territory it occupies. Just as a country, no matter how great its military might, can't occupy an entire continent, your product can't occupy every territory in the prospect's mind. You must acknowledge the perceived strengths of competing products and the perceived weaknesses of your product. You must cede the territory your product can't realistically occupy.</div>
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Positioning your product is a matter of fortifying and defending the territory it already occupies, invading weakly-defended territory, or capturing uncontested territory your product can hold.</div>
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1b12if_F38WepSOA96fxeJU-RBSSJR--y-L0L_rNwI6A/pub?w=563&h=395" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1b12if_F38WepSOA96fxeJU-RBSSJR--y-L0L_rNwI6A/pub?w=563&h=395" /></a></div>
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<b>Composing a Competitive Mindshare Map</b></div>
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To compose a competitive mindshare map, you start with an image of a head and a brain (you can get a template below). I suggest using Google Drawings, but you can use any drawing tool, even a white board and markers if you like. For your product and each competing product, you then:</div>
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<ol>
<li><span>Place a logo in a distinct region of the brain. You carve up the brain into any size, shape, and number of regions. Typically, you can extract logos from competitor web pages.</span></li>
<li><span>Provide a short (no more than three major words) category name or theme that conveys the perceived strength the product "owns" in the minds of prospects.</span></li>
<li><span>Provide a terse explanation of the product's perceived strength.</span></li>
</ol>
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Depending on the tool you're using to compose the map, you can make the logos hyperlink to web pages with more information (such as actual product pages or more detailed competitive intelligence documentation).<br />
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After your first draft, take a step back and ask yourself:<br />
<ol>
<li><span>Does the map include the major competitors, including in-house solutions that customers might build themselves?</span></li>
<li><span>Does your category name or theme convey a promise that your product actually delivers (or will deliver in the future)?</span></li>
<li><span>Do the category names (or themes) and descriptions of competitors accurately represent their perceived strengths?</span></li>
</ol>
<b>Positioning Guidelines</b><br />
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Positioning your product doesn't have to be "black magic". A number of concrete factors should guide the positioning of your product and the selection of a unique value proposition. This <a href="http://www.cauvin.biz/articles/FormulateMessages.htm">article will help you take a methodical approach to positioning</a> as you compose your competitive mindshare maps.<br />
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Above all, keep in mind that the more focused the category, the more powerful and easier it is to defend. Indeed, the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/law-of-focus.html">Law of Focus</a> states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span>No matter how complicated the product, no matter how complicated the needs of the market, it's always better to focus on one word or benefit than two or three or four.</span></blockquote>
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Your brand gains power from sacrifice. As <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AlRiesofficial">Al Ries</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/lauraries">Laura Ries</a> state in the Law of Expansion (from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060007737"><i>The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding</i></a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span>The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.</span></blockquote>
and in the Law of Contraction:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span>A brand becomes stronger when you narrow the focus.</span></blockquote>
You'll face strong pressure to extend and expand the territory your product occupies. As a general rule, it's best to resist it. Ironically, the power gained by <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/11/target-market.html">narrowing the brand's focus has a halo effect that increases - not decreases - its reach into the minds of prospects</a>.</div>
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<b>Get the Template</b></div>
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The easiest way to start is to get the template. Click one of the options below. Simply create a copy of the template in Google Drawings or download the template in PNG image format.<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/1axCaD5"><img border="0" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1MzsNzA-WeN8pTKLGxR8KZ4Z4Lqj7PpQIk-iYpw7G4js/pub?w=215&h=177" /></a>
<a href="http://bit.ly/17ASeUB"><img border="0" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1uMMuwGl4aWLiQ30l5ShoSNtZQSpEbwA9biSee43_bDk/pub?w=215&h=177" /></a></div>
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<b>Next Steps</b></div>
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To the extent you didn't collaborate with others to compose the competitive mindshare map, schedule sessions to review it with the executive team, marcom, sales people, and customers.</div>
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If you're torn between two value propositions, you can devise experiments (such as A/B tests with landing pages) to test how they resonate with prospects.</div>
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Incorporate the unique value proposition into the business model canvas for your product. (Go <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/10/lean-startup-concepts.html">here</a> for an overview and downloadable model of these and other <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/10/lean-startup-concepts.html">lean startup concepts</a>.)</div>
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Ideally, your team <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/08/pervasion.html">evaluates every product decision in terms of the extent to which it fulfills the promise of the unique value proposition or helps to instill, in the minds of prospects, the association between your product and its unique value proposition</a>.</div>
Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-27612155130346272012013-10-07T08:15:00.000-05:002013-10-07T08:15:08.490-05:00Lean Startup Concepts<div dir="ltr">
Now that you've had a largely buzzword-free <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/what-is-lean-startup.html">introduction to lean startup methods</a>, you may be interested in a bit deeper understanding of the concepts and terminology. Lean startup methods incorporate scientific methods and principles of agile development to help practitioners learn markets quickly and reliably and deliver successful products. But lean startup enthusiasts and practitioners throw around a lot of terminology and concepts that may seem alien or not particularly meaningful to you.</div>
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Let's examine and demystify the basic lean startup terminology with a rich and concise <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2006/11/conceptual-models.html">conceptual model</a>. To view the model of lean startup concepts, click the image below:<br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/GCFCiv" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="385" src="https://www.lucidchart.com/publicSegments/view/5246e5bd-5fa4-48ba-aff4-24b00a0049df/image.png" width="500" /></a></div>
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Lean startup concepts fall within four different clusters: hypotheses, learning, market, and product.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8RHeSOVLG-JK5PCmlWbeeJ1SSDYoV7g_vBolqND53NPLhen2G-jA7LaLrNWqSc6-e9cEWasBCAL11OAETFIVvkvRLqX4rwxx6SqmMqQzq4rns5DJ7Zu6c6NLH4R_b6gBkpRkt/s1600/Light+Bulb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="75" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8RHeSOVLG-JK5PCmlWbeeJ1SSDYoV7g_vBolqND53NPLhen2G-jA7LaLrNWqSc6-e9cEWasBCAL11OAETFIVvkvRLqX4rwxx6SqmMqQzq4rns5DJ7Zu6c6NLH4R_b6gBkpRkt/s200/Light+Bulb.png" width="80" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">
Hypotheses</span></b><br />
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Forming hypotheses is a component of lean startup methods. The <b>business model</b> represents the <b>strategy </b>driving more tactical product decisions, and it consists of a set of <b>hypotheses</b>. These <b>hypotheses</b> are rooted in the market <b>problems</b> the <b>product</b> is intended to solve. The product serves as a set of <b>solutions</b> to these <b>problems</b>.<br />
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<b>Prospects</b> and <b>customers</b> typically have <b>existing alternatives</b> to at least partially address or work around the same <b>problems</b>. The <b>unique value proposition</b> conveys an overarching theme of addressing the <b>problems</b>, and it leverages the <b>unfair advantage</b> the company possesses relative to any competition. A <b>high-level concept</b> summarizes the <b>unique value proposition</b> using a metaphor likely to be familiar to members of the targeted <b>customer segments</b>.<br />
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<b>Metrics</b> measure the key <b>activities</b> from which the company and customers derive value, such as adoption, usage, and purchases. <b>Customer segments</b> represent the target market for the <b>product</b>, and sales and marketing <b>channels</b> reach these <b>customer segments</b>. <b>Revenue streams</b> come from such sources as product purchases and advertising, and they offset the <b>cost structure</b> for the <b>product</b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigcD0gPTvc0AS_n8GBDcLUZGw1y0_sWvTG1QNse0Wb7Qs-YnHFO54BEwmssU3Z-970XTRO7RtsjDf8RO23DGblWAohpHuemtA-5QKV0nkGvZPVBSyQHZ82YBmeKPECi9PLQUPG/s1600/Experiment.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigcD0gPTvc0AS_n8GBDcLUZGw1y0_sWvTG1QNse0Wb7Qs-YnHFO54BEwmssU3Z-970XTRO7RtsjDf8RO23DGblWAohpHuemtA-5QKV0nkGvZPVBSyQHZ82YBmeKPECi9PLQUPG/s200/Experiment.png" width="80" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">
Learning</span></b><br />
<br />
Lean startup methods are first, and foremost, about efficient learning. We conduct <b>interviews</b> of <b>subjects</b>, which include <b>prospects</b> and existing <b>customers</b>, to uncover initial <b>insights</b>. <b>Hypotheses</b> rest on <b>assumptions</b>. These <b>assumptions</b> entail <b>predictions</b> that we can test with purposeful <b>experiments</b>. The results of these experiments yield further <b>insights</b> that we use to adjust our <b>assumptions</b> and <b>hypotheses</b>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5v8giABIqSZFlNWz3Lezko-2X3wKvxmmdtBeC3hsrYKwjTQGb9hooaNAMbkKGB0ydoL9dPtdIfdLZFtrxQ56xFILxjsIPX5rY5KxmNJxv7LiJl7DL5VMQoz1GHOjUtIrRzLiS/s1600/Market.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5v8giABIqSZFlNWz3Lezko-2X3wKvxmmdtBeC3hsrYKwjTQGb9hooaNAMbkKGB0ydoL9dPtdIfdLZFtrxQ56xFILxjsIPX5rY5KxmNJxv7LiJl7DL5VMQoz1GHOjUtIrRzLiS/s200/Market.png" width="80" /></a><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">
Market</span></b><br />
<br />
We sell <b>products</b> to <b>prospects</b> who face <b>problems</b>, and those <b>prospects</b> become <b>customers</b>. <b>Early adopters</b> are initial <b>customers</b> that can be key partners in helping lean startup practitioners form, test, and refine <b>hypotheses</b>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj-lU4rPpTZjj38ywqqupldB2cy_yuh8uaGtP7Hk2p9mHGIqq2jZaX1Z5W9IOGAwNQvWsQTHUmdUzvWNsrWni8-pK6qdgJOnCKE7tXvBUDQ-eB_Tqb6Xj6DoDew-gQUVdWxVa/s1600/MVP+Octagon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrj-lU4rPpTZjj38ywqqupldB2cy_yuh8uaGtP7Hk2p9mHGIqq2jZaX1Z5W9IOGAwNQvWsQTHUmdUzvWNsrWni8-pK6qdgJOnCKE7tXvBUDQ-eB_Tqb6Xj6DoDew-gQUVdWxVa/s200/MVP+Octagon.png" width="80" /></a><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">
Product</span></b><br />
<br />
The <b>business model</b> outlines the <b>strategy</b> for a successful <b>product</b>. Developing a <b>minimum viable product (MVP)</b> enables us to minimize the amount of time needed to deliver value to <b>customers</b>, to determine whether <b>prospects</b> will pay to solve their <b>problems</b>, to determine whether the <b>product</b> satisfactorily addresses those <b>problems</b>, and to determine whether the <b>product</b> is usable.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Parting Thoughts</b></span><br />
<br />
Most lean startup concepts aren't new. Taken as a whole, however, they incorporate and enhance the common ways that companies make product decisions in a manner that can accelerate, and improve the reliability of, learning and implementation. The scientific and agile approach fosters a greater likelihood of product success.<br />
<br />
Is your company incorporating all or most of these concepts in the ways it makes product decisions? If so, what sorts of successes and challenges have you had? If not, why not?</div>
Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-90845156415912621802013-09-23T07:30:00.000-05:002013-10-07T14:15:14.696-05:00What Is Lean Startup? Here's What You Need to KnowYou've probably heard a lot of buzz about "lean startups". You may wonder if it's mere hype, applies just to tiny bootstrap ventures, or if adopting some lean startup methods might actually benefit your company.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/rcauvin/status/372115175425716224"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Oy6MT8hye_N8vP7RyYBiMjgaIhmda8WRAGyND3brX4u6XoBhREh4fSbtRQj2zwtjUM8oBZ9o1VfAAWo_-_Q0iDgcjsaxxgteiHSLfREgGJZb5sSoi4oOU-cWv_KK3wlFatiL/s1600/Slow+and+Unreliable+Tweet.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
One of the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/08/4-problems-companies-face-in-making.html">top problems companies face as they make product decisions</a><br />
is that the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/5-ways-companies-make-product-decisions.html">process of learning the market, and learning what makes the product successful, is slow and unreliable</a>. Sometimes they suffer analysis paralysis, swerve from one big deal to the next, allow conventional industry wisdom to stifle innovation, or squabble over uninformed personal opinions. In other cases, they make decisions quickly but fail to learn from their inevitable mistakes until after they've invested exorbitant amounts of time and money.<br />
<br />
If you find that your organization is facing this problem, it's worthwhile to consider lean startup methods.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://twitter.com/rcauvin/status/380071944982257664"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FdN1Bj8t94BAQP_L1QPYzNZL4xg-cmW-QmK6sme1ZoAXIU8dHWEM5_lUFw97pAB2rJOYLLTN-yWvR_Oc6bZinQKn9d_4HFpGSMAGNMQQlkx2B-8GGTQg7tycCiodPkDGTw_3/s1600/Scientific+Method+Tweet.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Just as scientists use the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method">scientific method</a> to learn how the universe works, your product team can apply lean startup methods to learn what business model for your product will work in the market. Lean startup practitioners:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Collect data. </b>Practitioners <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/08/ethnography.html">observe</a> and <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2012/01/top-5-prospect-interview-mistakes.html">interview prospects</a> to gain qualitative insights into their situations, challenges, and the ways they operate. They also examine quantitative data for further insights.</li>
<li><b>Form hypotheses.</b> Based on their observations and insights, practitioners form and capture hypotheses about the business model for their products. These hypotheses include the problems to solve, the key elements of the solution, the unique value proposition, the buyer and user personas, key metrics or user activities, costs, and revenue streams. Hypotheses may also include measurable predictions of the impact of various marketing or sales tactics.</li>
<li><b>Conduct experiments.</b> Recognizing that at least some of their initial business model hypotheses are likely to be wrong, practitioners design and run experiments to test the hypotheses. Often these experiments confront prospects with real-world choices (such as functional product) and measure how prospects behave when confronted with these choices.</li>
<li><b>Learn and adjust.</b> Having conducted experiments to test hypotheses, practitioners analyze the results and adjust their hypotheses.</li>
</ol>
These activities often occur in parallel and not necessarily in this sequence. For example, entrepreneurs commonly think of product ideas prior to formally collecting market data.<br />
<br />
Applying these methods in an iterative or continuous fashion enables product teams to confront product strategy risks and quickly and reliably learn markets with more targeted - and ultimately, less wasteful - business investments.<br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/rcauvin/status/380316942059319297"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeShXtDQOlrZOvKcq9c9nD4syhKOnTC4-ZitZSzLVFCsKzfmsmRR8jdCKbWChgIbMsK8SBFP02sBum0S_lH9xfUjyxEf3uqct2N4MWo-9FYu9lHS4_rzFhNxVOIi4RdAIPrA_X/s1600/Agile+Tweet.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Lean startup practitioners essentially apply agile methods to the entire business for a product. Most software companies have adopted at least some agile development practices. But unlike companies that iterate merely on the <i>development</i> of the product, lean startups <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/09/bufr.html">iterate on the requirements</a>, the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2006/03/positioning-series.html">positioning</a>, the target markets and personas, and sales and marketing tactics. They monitor and optimize the sales and usage funnels. They emphasize the delivery of working product and prospect-touching experiments over exhaustive planning and documentation devoid of external feedback.<br />
<br />
<b>Summary</b><br />
<br />
Learning markets reliably and expeditiously, and learning what will make products successful, is one of the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/08/4-problems-companies-face-in-making.html">primary challenges many companies face</a>, whether those companies are startups or large, established corporations. By applying scientific practices and agile principles across the entire business for a product, lean startup is designed to address this challenge.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tS0DN6PmGAJPVAxN-uSJJEBjTxK3xPg3sLai3uNNgq9NOa3k9bKZzq3Gw-c6hzGKCLjhXYzi1UA270WXWE-ivikL8UM9qd3lTJ3d01c65oceYG_Y4Qt5w_ayREAu24_5Y_-B/s1600/Lean+Startup+Word+Cloud.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tS0DN6PmGAJPVAxN-uSJJEBjTxK3xPg3sLai3uNNgq9NOa3k9bKZzq3Gw-c6hzGKCLjhXYzi1UA270WXWE-ivikL8UM9qd3lTJ3d01c65oceYG_Y4Qt5w_ayREAu24_5Y_-B/s200/Lean+Startup+Word+Cloud.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
How does your <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/09/5-ways-companies-make-product-decisions.html">company currently make product decisions</a>? How would you know it's time to add new approaches or practices to the mix? The next blog entry will explain how you can begin to put some lean startup methods into practice right away, once your team is ready for some change.<br />
<br />
Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/koenbb">Koen Bosma</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ashmaurya">Ash Maurya</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/tipthefuture">Emiliano Villareal</a> for providing helpful feedback on this blog entry, and for their thought leadership on the topic of lean startup methods.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-66789746933500871462013-09-03T08:28:00.001-05:002013-11-19T10:56:28.711-06:005 Ways Companies Make Product Decisions<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In the last blog entry, we reviewed the </span><a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2013/08/4-problems-companies-face-in-making.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">four problems that companies face, or are trying to overcome, as they make product decisions</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">. Now we'll look at the ways that most companies make their product decisions.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Companies that develop, market, and sell products and solutions make strategic and ongoing tactical decisions. They decide what features to include in their products, what messages they will use to communicate the value of their products, what marketing tactics they will use, what prospective customers they will target, and many day-to-day choices. Whether or not these decisions are deliberate or ad hoc, most companies use some combination of the following ways of making product decisions.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">(A downloadable "map" that summarizes the product decision landscape is included at the end of this article.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Customer Wants</b></span><br />
<i>Product decisions based on feature requests, focus groups, and what prospects and customers say they want.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOtJSIRmwugVd1kGyeg87zFAyPeAgtpSVd_MKE8ngIBvE020e04_9vXStQCQ1SneENdW1QBwNvlvOYSP-V8MYpzwI-MNFeHM6EuiChyw_OQ3jgrkRDomfHPnvOGHhIbSKz3Us3/s1600/Customer+Wants.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOtJSIRmwugVd1kGyeg87zFAyPeAgtpSVd_MKE8ngIBvE020e04_9vXStQCQ1SneENdW1QBwNvlvOYSP-V8MYpzwI-MNFeHM6EuiChyw_OQ3jgrkRDomfHPnvOGHhIbSKz3Us3/s200/Customer+Wants.png" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>Companies are selling products to make money by creating happy customers. With the “customer wants” model of making product decisions, you reach out to prospective and existing customers, since they’re the ones who will ultimately be buying your product. If you are able to deliver what prospects want, they are much more likely to buy your product.<br />
<br />
To gain insight into what they want, companies listen to what prospects say during sales and customer support calls, tally up feature requests, monitor support and discussion forums, and conduct focus groups and surveys. A conversation with a customer might include explicitly asking her what she thinks of a particular feature idea, or she might offer her own feature ideas.<br />
<br />
Pros:<br />
<ol>
<li>Incorporates direct feedback from prospects and customers rather than speculation from inside the company about what they may want.</li>
<li>Can lead to prospects becoming customers once you’ve implemented the requested features.</li>
</ol>
Cons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Customers are <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/07/henry-fords-faster-horse-quote.html">experts on their own situations and challenges but don't know what they want</a>, so you end up implementing features that don't provide value.</li>
<li>Research shows that customers' hypothetical predictions about what they would buy are not reliable.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Deal Driven</b></span><br />
<i>Product decisions driven by the next big deal in the sales pipeline.</i><b> </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dhrtKnBJ6lraN0VuJudEn7lo2bUSoBF9bi8ta5xk04jU3iNGzcjZ8uMVuRPJboQStM1sS6lNmblL71B1T9EJUzNnYWxc_E9Lw3leoxjAXxqQCB4mweryxeV2QlKO" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dhrtKnBJ6lraN0VuJudEn7lo2bUSoBF9bi8ta5xk04jU3iNGzcjZ8uMVuRPJboQStM1sS6lNmblL71B1T9EJUzNnYWxc_E9Lw3leoxjAXxqQCB4mweryxeV2QlKO" width="198" /></a></div>
The ultimate measure of a successful product is how much money it makes. At any particular time, sales may be working on a deal that could bring in a large amount of revenue for the company. The prospect in such a deal often has particular needs that the product could address with some additional development. In the deal-driven approach to product decisions, the needs of prospects in these major deals drive the product decisions and priorities.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Pros:<br />
<ol>
<li>Increases the likelihood that revenue-producing deals will convert.</li>
<li>Ties product decisions and priorities to revenue potential.</li>
</ol>
Cons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Leads to scattered, incoherent value propositions for the product.</li>
<li>Causes abrupt swings in product direction, eroding the morale of the product team.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>Intuition</b><br />
<i>Product decisions based on common sense and what's cool.</i><br />
<br />
<b id="docs-internal-guid-38d298cf-c6de-c80b-b30a-4204bdff9716" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8MZJ-I4SbsmD8_FJZeTdAx5idMPm5xy8Qi5WxERo8WW5Iju0_X2XNLpE4rhss-qpijeJwIrRI8NbUmxBd44TB406ZX1-84z75eMN0X3WiR74rBBTAPNkq8d22cmE" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8MZJ-I4SbsmD8_FJZeTdAx5idMPm5xy8Qi5WxERo8WW5Iju0_X2XNLpE4rhss-qpijeJwIrRI8NbUmxBd44TB406ZX1-84z75eMN0X3WiR74rBBTAPNkq8d22cmE" width="200" /></a>Disruptive and innovative products often come from visionaries who incorporate cool technologies and have an intuitive sense for what consumers want. Executives and members of the product team are themselves consumers and thus have their own personal opinions about the most effective ways to market and sell a product. Developers on top of the newest technologies see how they can apply the technologies to implement innovative product features. Since everyone in the company is a potential user of the product, <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/05/getting-feedback-on-usability.html">they all chime in on what the best design and user interface is</a>. In many organizations, these sorts of intuitions drive product decisions.<br />
<br />
Pros:<br />
<ol>
<li>Anticipates needs that prospects don't yet realize they have.</li>
<li>Leverages internal knowledge and avoids expensive market research.</li>
</ol>
Cons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Effective <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/12/marketing-is-not-common-sense.html">marketing often defies common sense</a>. Despite the fact that we're all consumers, most members of the product team probably haven't studied marketing principles.</li>
<li>Personal preferences and intuition often don't reflect those of the target market.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Industry Experience</b></span><br />
<i>Product decisions based on prior industry experience and accumulated wisdom.</i><br />
<br />
<b id="docs-internal-guid-38d298cf-c6de-529f-d619-9beaa5387229" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qw3K5foEUYTfyZvq_qZ6ymEi1BGtcY49uKidgSYcjlD8yUHJ1S_4uTO4_thNChXt8RQNBNteM8NA6dp4e5gPDmaBS3Nzj9ZxU16u2nJewMTkAAfqujAQeLxU8CGD" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qw3K5foEUYTfyZvq_qZ6ymEi1BGtcY49uKidgSYcjlD8yUHJ1S_4uTO4_thNChXt8RQNBNteM8NA6dp4e5gPDmaBS3Nzj9ZxU16u2nJewMTkAAfqujAQeLxU8CGD" width="200" /></a>Some companies rely on employees with prior experience in a domain or industry to guide product decisions. Experience provides wisdom about a market and what works and doesn't work in an industry. Based on industry background, such as knowledge of the competitive landscape, customer needs, and existing technologies and practices, members of the product team make judgments about what features to include in the product and how to market and sell it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Pros:<br />
<ol>
<li>Reduces or eliminates the learning curve for understanding the customers, technology, competition, and needs in an industry.</li>
<li>Brings industry connections and relationships that sales and development can leverage.</li>
</ol>
Cons:<br />
<ol>
<li>May inhibit innovation and outside-the-box thinking. Most <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/09/business-week-stop-hiring-leaders-from.html">companies emphasizing industry experience in their hiring practices do not, as a general rule, innovate well</a>.</li>
<li>Provides no guidance for <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/09/industry-experience-how-important-is-it.html">tackling risks and unknowns outside the prior industry experience</a>.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Left Brain</b></span><br />
<i>Product decisions based on analyses such as Kano and A/B testing and documented as detailed product specifications.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b id="docs-internal-guid-38d298cf-c6df-d201-e54c-931a1b71940c" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
To take the intuition and guesswork out of making product decisions, team members with a left-brained bent employ a variety of rigorous approaches and analytical tools to determine and document product priorities and marketing tactics.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nIylT1y_K0B9k_Zf9aTOjdmVsNBAkxSfn5p9_nf4bM2G6wsTu2fbEmD2II_8sGicKJe33n99obu8HCeywh-IB1fMBp-d--sRKMc4aumtmi6MF8x3DvpZ-x8O5P0u" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nIylT1y_K0B9k_Zf9aTOjdmVsNBAkxSfn5p9_nf4bM2G6wsTu2fbEmD2II_8sGicKJe33n99obu8HCeywh-IB1fMBp-d--sRKMc4aumtmi6MF8x3DvpZ-x8O5P0u" width="241px;" /></a>For example, a member of the team may maintain a spreadsheet with candidate market problems to solve, or with all the proposed enhancements to the product, and rate them on various criteria. They base product decisions on the items with the highest ratings. Some more sophisticated product managers analyze customer preferences using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kano_model">Kano analysis</a>, rating features in terms of the extent to which they evoke surprise and delight, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, indifference, or an erosion of overall perceived value.<br />
<br />
In some cases, business analysts, product managers, or product owners will then compose detailed product specifications. Often, the individuals with analytical instincts will go far beyond writing <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/07/epic-conversation.html">epics and the basic user stories</a>, and will delve into <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2008/02/interaction-design-neglected-skill.html">interaction design</a>.<br />
<br />
For determining the most effective marketing tactics, the team may use A/B tests and other data, seeing which ones work best in practice.<br />
<br />
Pros:<br />
<ol>
<li>Brings transparency and rigor into the process of making product decisions.</li>
<li>Distills disparate data into actionable information. </li>
</ol>
Cons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Can lead to products with incoherent and scattered value propositions.</li>
<li>Ignores timeless marketing principles.</li>
<li>Biased to product decisions with available data and to tactical alternatives that are easiest to measure.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<div>
<br />
<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1lswnLl2qVnyZXBbHesRewPToP7jKAJiz3rbfIb2apgY/pub?w=1049&h=676"><img height="408" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1lswnLl2qVnyZXBbHesRewPToP7jKAJiz3rbfIb2apgY/pub?w=1049&h=676" width="580" /></a></div>
Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-72694145872783035362013-08-26T07:48:00.000-05:002013-08-26T10:59:29.597-05:004 Problems Companies Face in Making Product Decisions<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Introduction </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Why is product management important?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Whether or not they employ product managers, companies make daily decisions about how to develop, market, and sell their products. As they make these decisions, companies typically face - or are trying to overcome - four general problems.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The Problems</b> </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdSFgSf2Uqpb5GC3CiIlo-JPZKL6YDRnsQwaj-W4xBGALztfWm_AQjIpyISh7gC_Es-D1T9xDYRWTdfQwrP-6aEzUQ97XGH6cRrEcKt6eyv6TwZ6u7KiiWrCI6nHw26HCKOjl/s1600/No+Value.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdSFgSf2Uqpb5GC3CiIlo-JPZKL6YDRnsQwaj-W4xBGALztfWm_AQjIpyISh7gC_Es-D1T9xDYRWTdfQwrP-6aEzUQ97XGH6cRrEcKt6eyv6TwZ6u7KiiWrCI6nHw26HCKOjl/s1600/No+Value.png" /></a><span id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1bd-159e-ad8d-b7f1af87444d" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1bd-159e-ad8d-b7f1af87444d" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Products don't </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provide value </span><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to prospective buyers and users.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Products that don't deliver value generally don't succeed in the marketplace. Value comes from solving problems that prospective customers face. "Cool" technologies and feature-laden products, if they don't help customers solve or avoid compelling problems, don't provide value that lead to usage or sales.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Effective product management identifies a set of prospect problems that drive an overarching value proposition, and it empowers the entire product team to deliver and communicate that value.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGQKvWi_diAcjyKuTpbrrFYY3Qnb7mASrXEws7ktbBAvyvCl9B8-twhtPL8E-0gO0daaOBcLZu6KyQWk6nclhLlzEkmN-4mmtb0yVGmazGYE1iunM1sTv5q6tZ9dm6vjUd3IE/s1600/No+Value.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXGQKvWi_diAcjyKuTpbrrFYY3Qnb7mASrXEws7ktbBAvyvCl9B8-twhtPL8E-0gO0daaOBcLZu6KyQWk6nclhLlzEkmN-4mmtb0yVGmazGYE1iunM1sTv5q6tZ9dm6vjUd3IE/s1600/No+Value.png" /></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7879107" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7879107" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1c5-7ebc-4fb6-d1116c5cb13b" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1c5-7ebc-4fb6-d1116c5cb13b" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Developers don't know </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what to build, and why</span><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Developing a great product requires a shared understanding, not only of what the product should do, but why it should do it. In some cases, developers field varying - even conflicting - feature requests from sales and other colleagues and aren't equipped to prioritize them in a sound manner. Moreover, when developers don't know the motivating reasons for implementing product features, they are unable to fill the "gaps" and make the best judgment calls when questions about appropriate product behavior arise. Some developers aren't as motivated to work on products or features unless they recognize the value to buyers and users.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Great product management works with designers and developers to create a shared understanding of the product <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/definition-of-requirement.html">requirements, which are the least stringent conditions that must hold to solve or avoid the problems</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimggk9Vsg_wLcDGIRbULf0mp_5ib9LQOjNYMByGfCUR-Nvqms87EVDHWw50LpKk7q3_sMPumLgPiaN8hzClBw-V5WY34zRFMSuFA347VKUBUPaq4688tMhCqByCRcuMRgDW6JP/s1600/No+Value.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimggk9Vsg_wLcDGIRbULf0mp_5ib9LQOjNYMByGfCUR-Nvqms87EVDHWw50LpKk7q3_sMPumLgPiaN8hzClBw-V5WY34zRFMSuFA347VKUBUPaq4688tMhCqByCRcuMRgDW6JP/s1600/No+Value.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />Sales and marcom can't consistently </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">articulate the value</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of products.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When sales and marcom don't have a thorough understanding of buyers and users and the problems they face, it makes it difficult for them to generate and convert leads. In such an environment, sales and marketing messages lack the clarity and consistency needed to foster brand awareness and perception of value.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The best product management develops crisp value propositions, consistent with <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/eric-on-22-immutable-laws.html">timeless marketing principles</a>, that sales and marcom can use in messaging prospects.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUFTByXe_NEkWcVEo6fnwvzNwTp-7voDKYFR5BbC2Cr55HjR4tLW7TwfrZxMXBQN_-LQ1rK5lpsU5WJMdHXzsRlkKapCQComSDPLf2tUKX4naN4XKrr7ydA3ZBWTL3LJ6BtYa/s1600/No+Value.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUFTByXe_NEkWcVEo6fnwvzNwTp-7voDKYFR5BbC2Cr55HjR4tLW7TwfrZxMXBQN_-LQ1rK5lpsU5WJMdHXzsRlkKapCQComSDPLf2tUKX4naN4XKrr7ydA3ZBWTL3LJ6BtYa/s1600/No+Value.png" /></a><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1ca-ba46-50b5-3bac5d54d504" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-1b5a4721-a1ca-ba46-50b5-3bac5d54d504" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The process of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">learning the market</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is slow and unreliable.</span></b></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The initial business model for a product is a set of hypotheses. For any particular product, some of these hypotheses almost invariably turn out to be wrong. Guesses about what will appeal to the market may reflect our peculiar personal preferences and not rest on a solid foundation. In other cases, prospects themselves lead us astray, requesting features they'll never use. The marketing tactics or sales channels we thought would be the most effective don't meet our expectations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Companies learn these lessons over time, but often in a painful and expensive manner. Great product management immerses itself in markets and employs iterative feedback loops to test and modify business model hypotheses, thereby producing more educated hypotheses and quickly discovering mistakes.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Thoughts</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These problems have many manifestations. Moreover, a</span>s with all problems, <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/08/when-to-stop-asking-why.html">we can ask "Why?"</a> and determine problems further up the problem chain. These four problems ultimately lead to less revenue, wasted time and money, and frustration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the next entry, we'll explore the ways that companies make product decisions as they experience, or attempt to address, these problems.</span></div>
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Product managers lead the process of making strategic decisions about what should go in a product and how to market and sell it. Ideally, they base these decisions on in-depth knowledge of the market - prospective buyers and users, the problems they face, and the competition - and apply sound marketing principles to make the decisions. They build a shared understanding of the market, the business model, and the strategy among members of the team.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Talent, not Industry Experience</span></b><br />
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But how can a hiring manager identify a product manager that will excel at performing these duties? As Buckingham and Coffman advise, the most <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/05/four-keys-of-great-managers.html">successful managers select candidates based on talent, and not so much for experience</a>. Thus the typical product manager job posting that lists experience in the industry as a prerequisite is misguided. Read <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/09/industry-experience-how-important-is-it.html">more on the topic of industry experience and product management</a>.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">What Is Talent?</span></b><br />
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According to Buckingham and Coffman, a talent is “a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied”. Unlike a skill, a talent spans every aspect of a person's life and doesn't manifest itself merely in a particular field or professional environment.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Talents</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj7Bsf6y4-RcS7OVnoQijlfID7i1U8O8gUfsWMxFNmywGeldc7HNwi-iHCviAHvTlbRCwNonLy7W_nDoR3XXNmgeL1Hb1PIgjeVtRRx7SnVmbVvAICtZRyPlxudxGF60ovDDgS/s1600/Acquisitive+Learner.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj7Bsf6y4-RcS7OVnoQijlfID7i1U8O8gUfsWMxFNmywGeldc7HNwi-iHCviAHvTlbRCwNonLy7W_nDoR3XXNmgeL1Hb1PIgjeVtRRx7SnVmbVvAICtZRyPlxudxGF60ovDDgS/s1600/Acquisitive+Learner.png" /></a><b>Acquisitive and emergent learner</b>. The primary talent of a great product manager is that she <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/product-manager-as-student.html">pro-actively acquires knowledge, learns without direction</a>, and constructs new knowledge from the patterns she observes. Researcher Martin Rayala distinguishes among four types of learning: <a href="http://thesecondprinciple.com/optimal-learning/types-of-learning">transmission, acquisition, accretion, and emergence</a>. The most talented product managers don't rely on learning through instruction (transmission) or on learning through experience (accretion).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGC3Qr2Mrc2_di2QCbEPSV7FqFxtTXB4h7kyGxO7iq96_AWydvfyIsJFELpus8MN3Urp8TVBl0w6lgAvNk4nA7gNVcrCbWMT9nUB3rSjQv6baeZmq0KQ9L35irL0jv_TuplLJU/s1600/Principled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGC3Qr2Mrc2_di2QCbEPSV7FqFxtTXB4h7kyGxO7iq96_AWydvfyIsJFELpus8MN3Urp8TVBl0w6lgAvNk4nA7gNVcrCbWMT9nUB3rSjQv6baeZmq0KQ9L35irL0jv_TuplLJU/s1600/Principled.png" /></a><b>Principled</b>. Great product managers align activities and details with larger goals and principles. Acquiring market knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for making sound product decisions. A great product manager is relentless in applying timeless marketing principles (<a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/contradicting-instincts.html">which are often counter-intuitive</a>) and in asking how activities and decisions help the company and the customer.<br />
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<b>Disciplined</b>. Great product managers impose structure on work and life. They aren't satisfied with "unconnected dots" and, in their professional lives, are constantly striving to make sense of market data and synthesize it into a coherent overarching model and strategy. This characteristic is closely tied to emergent learning.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcG8X150rt2dBT3rD59EudLrLUOBARE8SgGDiDXYM31YeY3wl2Mn_pdA6aBJU3XeZrxP-0thBm6W0ynxQwb57SLnaolgXBzT-3QXotpT91ZJUfRbhAeJ48uWTRGRFGX2mPtuA/s1600/Adaptable.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcG8X150rt2dBT3rD59EudLrLUOBARE8SgGDiDXYM31YeY3wl2Mn_pdA6aBJU3XeZrxP-0thBm6W0ynxQwb57SLnaolgXBzT-3QXotpT91ZJUfRbhAeJ48uWTRGRFGX2mPtuA/s1600/Adaptable.png" /></a>
<b>Adaptable</b>. Great product managers adjust beliefs and actions in response to new information. While relentless in adhering to principles, they know market realities determine product success, and they recognize that up-front hypotheses about the market require testing through build-measure-learn feedback loops.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsw1SYXFCQHERqSZFymjMM0NY5bvfZihXRpy5J4CIriXE1xt3INTY1r6pYwc1xgZzwwI9qsl2nise_gKNwrLbpV7pggtbgYIJcy8n0NPSrtiejJlHkYc8IUk9IGVQdOycpe6K1/s1600/Facilitative.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsw1SYXFCQHERqSZFymjMM0NY5bvfZihXRpy5J4CIriXE1xt3INTY1r6pYwc1xgZzwwI9qsl2nise_gKNwrLbpV7pggtbgYIJcy8n0NPSrtiejJlHkYc8IUk9IGVQdOycpe6K1/s1600/Facilitative.png" /></a>
<b>Facilitative</b>. Great product managers recognize, cultivate, and activate talents and opportunities. They exhibit leadership by identifying and activating the talents in team members. They <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/product-management-is-like-therapy.html">uncover challenges that prospects face</a>, recognize opportunities, and facilitate the people and processes to nurture and pursue them.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">How to Identify Talent</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/why-bother-havi.html">Resumes are a poor way of identifying and evaluating talent</a>. Instead, conduct brief interviews of product management candidates, probing into their passions and approaches to life, work, and solving problems. As a general rule, you'll gain the most reliable and important insights into candidates' talents from what they say about everyday life situations, not how they describe their work-specific skills. Using these methods and identifying these talents, a hiring manager can find a promising product manager candidate who hasn't even previously played the role.<br />
<br />Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-89031064457276551892013-07-15T13:38:00.000-05:002013-07-15T13:57:51.385-05:00Join Me at ProductCamp Austin 11<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL_zMpw27f1TLrgzh4_MV8jFZrNNA58bHH3ghrYAGnPBOq3qtQ8tClmUjZwqUrFOccaFj0WPUa_54KkhYmmwptO9TBAonJb9nD4-AR8ADOrqsNYFfKmG5QWEP3bSXuiAe7ZiN/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL_zMpw27f1TLrgzh4_MV8jFZrNNA58bHH3ghrYAGnPBOq3qtQ8tClmUjZwqUrFOccaFj0WPUa_54KkhYmmwptO9TBAonJb9nD4-AR8ADOrqsNYFfKmG5QWEP3bSXuiAe7ZiN/s320/PCA-global-logo.gif" width="320" /></a>Join me Saturday, July 20th, 2013 for <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/events/productcamp-austin-11">ProductCamp Austin 11</a>. ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network.<br />
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Two years ago, John Milburn, <a href="http://www.tynerblain.com/">Scott Sehlhorst</a>, <a href="http://www.productbeautiful.com/">Paul Young</a>, and I led a session on "The Future of Product Management". We noted that the "lean startup" movement was on the rise and would soon become a focus of product management discussion and debate. Sure enough, "lean startup" is all the rage these days, or at least talking about it is.<br />
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Yet to the extent product managers have embraced lean startup concepts, most of them have barely put them into practice. They've done little more than compose a business model canvas or used the "minimum viable product (MVP)" buzzword a few times. How can product managers move beyond these basics, put lean startup methods into practice, and derive real value from them?<br />
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I've proposed a session called "Let's Get Nekkid: Applying Lean Startup Methods":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>You've heard about lean startup, and you may have even gone through the exercise of composing a business model canvas. Let's move beyond the theory and hype and examine the practical tips, tools, and guidelines you can use to apply lean startup methods to your company's product management and marketing efforts.</i><br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1rYp_Hb-03TGr4LrhjDtORDEqdssrJMoog41FaMEhMXs/pub?w=521&h=453" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1rYp_Hb-03TGr4LrhjDtORDEqdssrJMoog41FaMEhMXs/pub?w=521&h=453" width="200" /></a><i>We'll briefly cover business model canvases, but we'll also look at the real-world application of customer development interviews, minimum viable product (MVP), funnel metrics, experiments to test and revise assumptions, instrumenting products to gain insight into what users are actually doing, and the pitfalls of applying lean startup methods.</i></blockquote>
The full list of proposed sessions is <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PCA11-Sessions-pdf.pdf">here</a>.<br />
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<b>WHAT</b>: <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/events/productcamp-austin-11">ProductCamp Austin 11</a><br />
<b>WHEN</b>: July 20, 2013 from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM<br />
<b>WHERE</b>: AT&T Conference Center @ 1900 University Ave., Austin, TX 78705<br />
<b>COST</b>: Network, volunteer, pitch a session idea, or just make new folks feel welcome.<br />
<br />
You must <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/events/productcamp-austin-11">register</a> (free) to attend.<br />
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You can get transit directions to the event by visiting the <a href="http://www.capmetro.org/planner/default.aspx?loc1=&loc2=1900%20UNIVERSITY%20AVE&loc2lat=30.281162&loc2lng=-97.739897&loc2src=S&type=A&time=8:30%20AM&date=07/20/2013">Capital Metro trip planner</a> and filling in your starting location. If you choose to drive, parking is available for a fee in the AT&T Center underground parking lot.<br />
<br />Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-284537767713791652013-02-09T16:35:00.000-06:002013-02-14T12:31:00.906-06:00Join Me at ProductCamp Austin 10<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL_zMpw27f1TLrgzh4_MV8jFZrNNA58bHH3ghrYAGnPBOq3qtQ8tClmUjZwqUrFOccaFj0WPUa_54KkhYmmwptO9TBAonJb9nD4-AR8ADOrqsNYFfKmG5QWEP3bSXuiAe7ZiN/s1600/PCA-global-logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL_zMpw27f1TLrgzh4_MV8jFZrNNA58bHH3ghrYAGnPBOq3qtQ8tClmUjZwqUrFOccaFj0WPUa_54KkhYmmwptO9TBAonJb9nD4-AR8ADOrqsNYFfKmG5QWEP3bSXuiAe7ZiN/s320/PCA-global-logo.gif" width="320" /></a>Join me Saturday, February 16th, 2013 for <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5163135076">ProductCamp Austin 10</a>. ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network.<br />
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I've attended almost every ProductCamp Austin event since I and others helped founder Paul Young organize the first one, which took place June 14, 2008. I'm looking forward to seeing some fresh faces such as Hilary Corna, Jessica Tunon, Chris Hample, as well as catching up with old friends like Colleen Heubaum, John Milburn, Prabhakar Gopalan, Scott Sehlhorst, Joshua Duncan, Elizabeth Quintanilla, Devin Ellis, Mike Boudreaux, and Amanda McGuckin Hager.<br />
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This time, I hope to lead a session called "Trouble with Tribbles: The Dos and Don'ts of Prospect Interviews":<br />
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<i>Prospect interviews are a critical part of product management and lean startup methods. But most people take the wrong approach, leading to unreliable or misleading market learnings. In this session, we'll examine the top five mistakes product managers and entrepreneurs make when conducting prospect interviews. There will be a brief presentation followed by an open discussion about best practices for prospect interviews and how they can inform the business model for your products.
</i></blockquote>
The full list of proposed sessions is <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PCA10-Session-List.pdf">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>WHAT</b>: <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5163135076">ProductCamp Austin 10</a><br />
<b>WHEN</b>: February 16, 2013 from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM<br />
<b>WHERE</b>: AT&T Conference Center @ 1900 University Ave., Austin, TX 78705<br />
<b>COST</b>: Network, volunteer, pitch a session idea, or just make new folks feel welcome.<br />
<br />
You must <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5163135076">register</a> (free) to attend.<br />
<br />
You can get transit directions to the event by visiting the <a href="http://www.capmetro.org/planner/default.aspx?loc1=&loc2=1900%20UNIVERSITY%20AVE&loc2lat=30.281162&loc2lng=-97.739897&loc2src=S&type=A&time=8:30%20AM&date=02/16/2013">Capital Metro trip planner</a> and filling in your starting location. If you choose to drive, parking is available for a fee in the AT&T Center underground parking lot.<br />
<br />Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-31753336245921921972012-05-21T06:00:00.000-05:002012-05-21T06:00:06.462-05:00Product Management BookshelfGreat product management requires a combination of learning, leadership, facilitation, and strategy skills. To gain and maintain proficiency, new and experienced product managers alike can benefit from reading books on these topics. My product management bookshelf includes a number of texts that never cease to benefit me. I find myself referring back to the books to refresh my skills, rekindle my product management passions, and cite interesting passages to friends and colleagues.<br />
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Here are some of the top books I recommend product managers read. The books I'm listing aren't books on product management <i>per se</i>, but they cover skills essential for effective product management. If you're an executive overseeing a product management or product team, consider buying these books for the team's product management bookshelf.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/KkuXFv">22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk</a></i></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Al Ries and Jack Trout</span></b><br />
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This classic book enumerates and explains the principles that an organization should apply when making strategic marketing decisions.<br />
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A product manager leads the process of making such product decisions as which market problems to solve, the unique value proposition the product should embody, and which buyers and users to target. Market knowledge is necessary to make informed decisions but is not sufficient. Timeless principles of marketing are also essential for synthesizing this knowledge and applying it to actual strategic decisions about the product.<br />
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Your product manager has identified unsolved problems in the marketplace and how the market perceives competitors. But how should the product team decide which of the unsolved problems to take on and what brand promise(s) the product should make that will resonate in the market? Ries and Trout tell us that the Law of Focus, the Law of the Opposite, the Law of Sacrifice, the Law of the Mind, the Law of Candor, and other "immutable laws" should determine these types of decisions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3Uxad5GjUlPylpSHr26DOO4pDdUpzLVpJwTEsrYAQHY5fxta7l5ZNDAnNGmoyf9XzaPSYq44FiE6W6st5sCIXzezOF3nWgIeMDjcAHBXIjWuD6g_efaGkxuqNA4jNQS9wS0_/s1600/RunningLean.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3Uxad5GjUlPylpSHr26DOO4pDdUpzLVpJwTEsrYAQHY5fxta7l5ZNDAnNGmoyf9XzaPSYq44FiE6W6st5sCIXzezOF3nWgIeMDjcAHBXIjWuD6g_efaGkxuqNA4jNQS9wS0_/s200/RunningLean.png" width="133" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/KkvgA3">Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works</a></i></b></span><br />
<b>Ash Maurya</b><br />
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This new book is by a thought leader in the lean startup community who has refined and synthesized the best ideas of Eric Ries, Brant Cooper, Alex Osterwalder, and Steve Blank, and has melded them with a thorough understanding of both marketing and development.<br />
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You've heard about agile development. <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2009/03/agile-is-not-just-development.html">Is it really just for development</a>, or does it encompass product strategy, marketing, and sales? Lean startup clearly encompasses all of them. In particular, you won't optimally define all aspects of your product strategy up front. Your product strategy is a set of hypotheses that you can methodically validate or invalidate using qualitative and quantitative measurements over time, enabling you to iterate and "pivot" as needed to optimize them.<br />
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The book tells us what goes into the business model for a product, describes each of its components in detail, how to make explicit the testable assumptions that underlie the hypotheses, and how to go about testing them quickly in your prospect interviews and by developing and releasing a minimum viable product (MVP).<br />
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At first glance, you might think this book is about entrepreneurship and product development. It is, but it also squarely addresses questions central to product management at any organization.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/JJ3Ncy">Marketing Warfare</a></i></b></span><br />
<b>Al Ries and Jack Trout</b><br />
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My friend Prabakhar Gopalan makes a <a href="http://prabhakar.me/2011/08/15/productcampaustin2011">great case that strategy is not war</a>, but this book nonetheless applies the warfare principles of Sun Tzu to marketing. In particular, when your product team is making fundamental decisions about the unique value proposition and positioning of the product, it's essential for the team to understand these principles.<br />
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Ries and Trout describe how, depending on the competitive landscape, you should adopt an offensive, flanking, or guerrilla strategy. When conceiving and adjusting your unique value proposition, your product manager needs to <a href="http://www.cauvin.biz/articles/FormulateMessages.htm">identify the biggest competitor, understand its biggest strength in the market, identify the weakness within that strength, and turn the biggest weakness of your own product into a strength</a>.<br />
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Not a lot of product managers are familiar with these concepts; your product managers can differentiate themselves and give you a business advantage if they understand and apply them.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/c1RCK7">Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can't buy and sellers can't sell and what you can do about it</a></i></b></span><br />
<b>Sharon Drew Morgen</b><br />
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If your product manager buys into the conventional wisdom, she understands that prospect problems lie at the root of many of the strategic decisions required for product success. This wisdom, in my opinion, is absolutely valid. However, it doesn't address an entirely separate set of factors that determine product success.<br />
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Before any buyer or user will adopt your solution, she must navigate all of the behind-the-scenes issues, emotions, and personalities that in many cases have nothing to do with the problem. The book teaches product managers this lesson and also to appreciate that they will never know - and don't need to know - what all these issues are. Product managers will learn from the book, however, some important skills they can apply to assembling the right people for <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2012/01/top-5-prospect-interview-mistakes.html">prospect interviews and to facilitating those interviews</a>.<br />
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In addition, a key challenge product managers face is getting buy-in for product decisions and driving the organizational change needed to execute on those decisions. To address this challenge, a <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/08/what-is-buying-facilitation.html">product manager benefits greatly from understanding systems thinking, decision facilitation, and change management</a>. The book explains how a "seller" (for our purposes, the product manager convincing the organization to adopt a new product strategy) applies this other set of skills that precede but enable the "sale".<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/emcoY2">Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach</a></i></b></span><br />
<b>Gerald M. Weinberg</b><br />
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Especially when it comes to technology products, a product manager is a technical <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html">leader</a>. He can't just inform the process of making product decisions; he also needs to unlock the synergistic talents of the entire product team to make and execute on the decisions. If the product manager has a technical background, it can be helpful, but it doesn't qualify him to be a technical leader.<br />
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This book teaches the soft skills and self-awareness necessary to transform a domain or technical expert into a problem-solving leader who brings out the best in others. "MOI" stands for:<br />
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<li>Motivation. Provide the motivation for individuals and teams to work together towards common goals.</li>
<li>Organization. Create and integrate with processes that enable teams to work effectively.</li>
<li>Ideas. Manage the flow of ideas to foster innovation and problem-solving.</li>
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Got other product management books you'd recommend? Add them to the comments, or tweet them with the #prodmgmtbookshelf hashtag.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-56355539114290447352012-01-09T06:16:00.000-06:002013-09-11T10:57:10.361-05:00Top 5 Prospect Interview MistakesOne invaluable tool that product managers use to understand markets is the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/product-management-is-like-therapy.html">prospect interview</a>. We identify prospective buyers and users who may share a common set of problems, and we conduct one-on-one interviews with them to probe their situations and dig deep into the challenges they face. The situations and challenges inform our product strategy and decisions.<br />
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If you're a company executive, you may be reluctant to empower your product managers to conduct interviews with prospects, as what happens during these interviews could potentially jeopardize a future sale. Even if you have confidence in your product managers not to jeopardize a sale, you may view prospect interviews as a dubious way of gaining market understanding.<br />
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Rest assured that prospect interviews will tend to foster trust and enhance future sales possibilities while providing a richer understanding of the market. But only if product managers conduct them properly and avoid certain pitfalls.<br />
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The top five mistakes product managers make when conducting prospect interviews are:<br />
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<b>1. Pitch the product. </b><br />
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The biggest no-no when conducting a prospect interview is to attempt to sell the product or pitch its benefits. It immediately puts the prospect on the defensive and undermines the purpose of the interview, which is to understand the prospect. It communicates to the prospect that you think you already understand her needs, without even having probed into her unique circumstances. You're effectively <i>telling</i> her what she needs instead of <i>determining</i> what she needs.<br />
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<b>2. Ask the prospect what she wants.</b><br />
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If, during our conversations with them, we focus on what prospects <i>want</i>, we distract them from what we really need to understand. We need to <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/07/henry-fords-faster-horse-quote.html">guide the conversation to the situation and challenges they face, not to what prospects think they want</a>. Once we understand what problems they face, and choose which ones to solve with our product, our team of design and implementation experts can come up with the innovative solutions to those problems.<br />
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<b>3. Ask the prospect to design the product.</b><br />
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As a general rule, prospects are not experts in designing solutions to the problems we may choose to solve for them. If they were, they probably wouldn't need us or the products we develop. With a product manager's skilled facilitation, however, we can <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/product-management-is-like-therapy.html">work with prospects to uncover their problems</a>. In some cases, it may be beneficial to "co-create" the product with prospects or customers, but <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/12/problem-understood-is-problem-half.html">a prior investigation and mutual understanding of what problems to solve is a prerequisite</a>.<br />
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<b>4. Ask hypothetical questions.</b><br />
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"How much would a product that does X, Y, and Z be worth to you?" "How many times per day would you use feature X of our product?" These types of questions are hypothetical and generally yield little useful information. Prospects don't know what they <i>would</i> do. They know what they <i>actually</i> (currently) do. Conclusions extrapolated from what prospects actually do are often more reliable than direct answers to hypothetical questions.<br />
<br />
Some hypothetical questions are necessary and useful. In general, however, try to rephrase hypothetical questions as factual questions that give you insights into the patterns likely to guide prospects' future behavior. For example, instead of asking how much they'd pay for a product, <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/07/negative-pricing.html">determine how much it costs them <i>not</i> to use your product</a>.<br />
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On a related note, be careful with direct questions. A direct question isn't open ended; it makes assumptions that may not be valid and ignores other possibilities that might be important. Start with open-ended questions to allow for answers you can't anticipate and delve into more direct questions only after you've given the prospect an opportunity to introduce unanticipated topics and concepts.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Ignore change management issues.</b><br />
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No matter what problems a prospect faces, and how much it costs his organization, the problems are usually nestled comfortably within a system that's resistant to change. Explore these change management issues with the prospect. Determine the people and processes tied to the problems the prospect and the organization are facing. Use <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/08/what-is-buying-facilitation.html">Buying Facilitation®</a> to determine change management issues that would precede any purchase or attempt to adopt a new solution. Standing outside the prospect's system, you will never be able to understand all of these issues, but you'll get a more complete picture of the prospect's situation and challenges if you stimulate her to consider the system in which they occur.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZsP-b9B9iqTj_Yb1u8afvfNXfsGLmOzA4R1U5CtalLWX2Xme0S8kbuL8GUcN8kTV-VXZh6ztR3aQ850Rrff_qbMec50S9Xa7EiMTDsD9d7kLLLazq5LNSxR0jhGf_weiIUDmI/s1600/Overconfidence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZsP-b9B9iqTj_Yb1u8afvfNXfsGLmOzA4R1U5CtalLWX2Xme0S8kbuL8GUcN8kTV-VXZh6ztR3aQ850Rrff_qbMec50S9Xa7EiMTDsD9d7kLLLazq5LNSxR0jhGf_weiIUDmI/s200/Overconfidence.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
In many organizations, it can be an uphill battle for product managers to talk to prospects outside of a sales call or presentation. Consequently, product managers who do manage to interview prospects feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence in their market understanding and product decisions. However, this confidence can be misplaced if the product manager has made these common mistakes when conducting prospect interviews.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-85319307562595016332011-12-05T00:30:00.000-06:002011-12-05T00:30:09.870-06:00Who "Owns" the Product?Recently, I've noticed a number of product managers on social channels claim that product managers "own" the products they manage. On the surface, this claim seems rather innocuous and uncontroversial. But the claim bothers me, for several reasons.<br />
<br />
Let's examine why anyone would make such a claim. I can think of a few reasons. (I'll get to the notion of "product owner" in agile development later.)<br />
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First, a single point of accountability simplifies how we conceptualize the product management role. It's understandable that product managers are tempted to find a simple definition of product management. The responsibilities of the role vary greatly across different companies, and few people can articulate concisely what a product manager is or does. So it's nice to boil it down to ownership of the product. But what does it really mean to own the product?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipN38SY3RLIFVFL7B_ZJJrqEmu7jzWytK75g1oIy_FreE_bcNxqwphOjZP85Fo4yuRsyusxp0FkLHpxJ1MCm3bq2aAfu40_mIEntEgS9ow80HUzsHlBinrhSkB1uyvxf25INag/s1600/Choke_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipN38SY3RLIFVFL7B_ZJJrqEmu7jzWytK75g1oIy_FreE_bcNxqwphOjZP85Fo4yuRsyusxp0FkLHpxJ1MCm3bq2aAfu40_mIEntEgS9ow80HUzsHlBinrhSkB1uyvxf25INag/s1600/Choke_small.jpg" /></a></div>
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Second, many folks in the product management community are familiar with the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html">debate about product management "authority"</a>. Product managers typically lack formal authority but assume much of the responsibility for the output of the product team and for the ultimate success of the product. Perhaps some product managers believe that, if we convince executives and team members that we "own" the products we manage, they will grant us the authority to make product decisions that stick.<br />
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For example, if the product manager disagrees with a user experience (UX) designer on the team about a design decision, the product manager can "overrule" the UX designer's recommended approach, since somehow the product manager's ownership of the product trumps the UX designer's design expertise. I don't subscribe to this authority-based model, and I doubt product "ownership" does much to support it in practice.<br />
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Third, the other side of the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html">product management "authority" debate</a> believes in the romantic notion of leadership as unilateral self-empowerment with little or no enablement from others. Under this view, product "ownership" implies that the product manager steps up to take full responsibility and accountability for the success of the product despite the lack of formal authority. It's a statement of confidence and sometimes derision towards those who complain about the lack of formal authority. Yet this view rests on a naive and overly simplistic view of leadership, as I have <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html">argued before</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWpsjtYHN7RHir2J_13NMa73sCrptINtrUPX1JyhjDckpEpF0d4Uj3BhTbRBdyUJnbKSiTfnAYmNqFpZqeCWQjwakOyIK7Hvn4S18_2zPTz_z8IjdqQ2P1SfvYHOQkVfmnPo2/s1600/collaboration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWpsjtYHN7RHir2J_13NMa73sCrptINtrUPX1JyhjDckpEpF0d4Uj3BhTbRBdyUJnbKSiTfnAYmNqFpZqeCWQjwakOyIK7Hvn4S18_2zPTz_z8IjdqQ2P1SfvYHOQkVfmnPo2/s320/collaboration.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
But the practical reason you should reject the notion of product management "owning" the product is that it undermines one of the key determinants of product success. The most successful product teams possess a culture in which the <i>team </i>owns the product. Each member of the team - whether a developer, sales person, marketer, support specialist, or tester - has strengths and plays roles that contribute to the team effort, and ultimately to market acceptance and product profits. They all feel accountable for the success of the product and the team, and there is no need for a "single throat to choke". This form of accountability is a highly effective motivator and yields impressive productivity and outcomes.<br />
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A product manager's unique role on a team is informing the strategy that drives all the team's product decisions. She does so by leading the process of eliciting and sharing market knowledge and applying marketing principles to form the basis for sound product decisions.<br />
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Finally, no discussion of "product ownership" would be complete without a note about the use of the term "product owner" in agile development. The original use of the term referred to a person on the team who could serve as a proxy to the customer or market. It wasn't someone who was solely responsible or accountable for the success of the product or project. Originally, it wasn't even someone who necessarily had tactical "backlog management" responsibilities. No, it was mostly a role that helped inform the team's requirements decisions from a customer and user perspective.<br />
<br />
A product manager's role is a bit broader than agile's original notion of product owner, in that a product manager's insights and perspectives drive not just requirements, but positioning and messaging as well.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-68355270288825025752011-07-28T23:28:00.004-05:002011-07-29T07:29:34.404-05:00Join Me at ProductCamp Austin 7<a href="http://productcampaustin.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/PCA-global-logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="62" src="http://productcampaustin.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/PCA-global-logo.gif" width="320" /></a>Join me Saturday, August 6th, 2011 for <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/events/productcampaustin7">ProductCamp Austin 7</a>. ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network.<br />
<br />
Along with a team that included <a href="http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/about/team/john-milburn">John Milburn</a>, <a href="http://tynerblain.com/blog">Scott Sehlhorst</a>, and founder <a href="http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/about/team/paul-young">Paul Young</a>, I attended and helped organize the <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2008/05/productcampaustin.html">first ProductCamp Austin</a>. This time, assuming our proposed session makes the cut, we'll be leading a panel discussion on the future of product management.<br />
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You've heard the traditional challenges product managers face (<a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/08/when-to-stop-asking-why.html">basing product decisions on market problems</a>, <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html">leadership without formal authority</a>, getting buried in tactical tasks). But product management has grown up, and there are new challenges we face. What is the future of product management, and how will it address these new challenges?<br />
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Austin's "Gang of Four" product managers will lead an interactive conversation on such topics as:<br />
<br />
1. We've gone agile. Do we still need product management?<br />
2. Will product managers join the executive ranks? (CPO = Chief Product Officer)<br />
3. Will product managers embrace cutting edge "lean startup" and "customer development" processes?<br />
<br />
What do YOU think the future of product management holds?<br />
<br />
WHAT: <a href="http://productcampaustin.org/events/productcampaustin7">ProductCamp Austin 7</a><br />
WHEN: August 6, 2011 from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM<br />
WHERE: AT&T Conference Center @ 1900 University Ave., Austin, TX 78705<br />
COST: Network, volunteer, pitch a session idea, or just make new folks feel welcome.<br />
<br />
You must <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/register?orderid=44783583905&ebtv=C&eid=1882192689&client_token=noqueue">register </a>(free) to attend.<br />
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You can get transit directions to the event by visiting the <a href="http://www.capmetro.org/">Capital Metro trip planner</a> and filling in your starting location. If you choose to drive, parking is available for a fee in the AT&T Center underground parking lot.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-52225789174069412742011-07-25T07:30:00.003-05:002017-01-12T10:50:11.887-06:00An Epic Conversation<i>The following is a fictitious example of the type of conversation that could occur at many organizations claiming to use agile development methods.</i><br />
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Joan is the VP of engineering at Trendy Startup, a rapidly-expanding company developing a suite of cloud storage products and services.<br />
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Joan's organization uses the popular scrum development process to develop its products. Product managers and owners create user stories, allocate them to iterations and releases, and manage them in backlogs. Quality assurance (QA) engineers write tests for the user stories, and developers implement the user stories. Team members meet daily to review the previous day's accomplishments, agree on what they'll do today, and surface any obstacles they are facing.<br />
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Joan is proud of her teams and their adoption of agile methods and practices. She touts the Trendy Startup's development processes to her fellow executives and to prospects and customers.<br />
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All members of her product teams have embraced agile methods, but two of her independent-minded engineers, Raquel and Oscar, are frustrated and have begun to question the results. They decide to meet with Joan to discuss their concerns. <span id="goog_1162610324"></span><span id="goog_1162610325"></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9mw_f-cmoXfZfEAaaKyve7E2-eZ8AO9KBqZ1q5Ij9lgSUKOHpANRcZsSXU3fX2b14HIfM8Xpy5hE2HTBcObByoW_GIHcyXGBpsAlMAxBrMr0yK8y-B2XhJDYbty15dCfqBZa/s1600/Conversation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9mw_f-cmoXfZfEAaaKyve7E2-eZ8AO9KBqZ1q5Ij9lgSUKOHpANRcZsSXU3fX2b14HIfM8Xpy5hE2HTBcObByoW_GIHcyXGBpsAlMAxBrMr0yK8y-B2XhJDYbty15dCfqBZa/s1600/Conversation.jpg" /></a><br />
Joan: "What's up, Raquel? Oscar?<br />
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Raquel: "We're concerned about our development process at Trendy Startup."<br />
<br />
Joan: "Raquel, you know we're an agile shop. It's important that we all buy into agile practices, and frankly I don't think there's a place in our company for engineers who can't fit into agile teams."<br />
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Raquel: "Oh, I have no problem with agile methods. My concern is that I don't think we're really doing agile."<br />
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Joan: "Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean. We've adopted all the major practices, haven't we?"<br />
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Raquel: "Sort of. But what we call 'stories' are really just development tasks. We're not defining acceptance criteria for our user stories. And our product roadmap is oriented around features instead of what really matters to users."<br />
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Oscar: "Exactly! I'm frustrated because we seem to be losing sight of delivering value to customers. I actually don't care whether we are doing 'theoretically pure' agile, but we've gotten too far in the weeds."<br />
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Joan: "Ultimately, we can't deliver value to customers and be successful in the market without dealing with the details; things like font sizes, the positions of buttons and other user interface elements, and even grammar."<br />
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Oscar: "Of course. But we need to tie these details back to the larger picture of what the user is trying to accomplish as they are exposed to these details."<br />
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Raquel: "Right. That's part of what I mean about not doing agile properly. Many of the stories in our backlog are development tasks to 'move the Cancel button two pixels to the left'. But there is no tie-back to a real user story, which should state what the user wants to do and why she wants to do it."<br />
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Oscar: "I would go even further. Even when we do have real user stories, I sometimes lose sight of the big picture."<br />
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Raquel: "Good point! We've made some attempts to group user stories under features, but that's not how Mike Cohn says to do it. Cohn says to use epics and decompose them into user stories."<br />
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Joan: "But we <i>do</i> use epics. We group our user stories into epics such as 'asynchronous storage' and 'cloud infrastructure'."<br />
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Raquel: "But those aren't real epics! A story is a narrative. An epic is a long narrative. Look them up in the dictionary! In agile, a story is a placeholder for a narrative that achieves users' goals, and an epic is a placeholder for a longer, end-to-end narrative that captures and implements the larger goals of the users and buyers."<br />
<br />
Joan: "Okay, I have to draw the line here. This organization doesn't care what the real definition of 'epic' is. We're not employing poets or novelists here. And in the final analysis, it doesn't matter whether we're doing what some purists think is agile. We care about producing quality software that will sell in the marketplace."<br />
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Oscar: "I couldn't agree with you more on those points, Joan, but I think Raquel has hit on precisely why the team loses the user perspective. Users care about what they're doing and what their goals are, not about 'asynchronous storage'."<br />
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Joan: "What would you suggest as an alternative? Can you provide an example of what you consider a true epic, Raquel?"<br />
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Raquel: "Here's one: 'As a gadget guy, I want to view and edit my documents from any device connected to the Internet so that I'm not dependent on any particular device for access.'"<br />
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Joan: "Okay, that seems to capture succinctly what the user wants to do, and the overarching value of our suite of cloud storage products. Your concerns are starting to become more concrete for me. Raquel, how do you suggest we modify our agile process to address these concerns?"<br />
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<i>Raquel pulls up the following diagram from a <a href="http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/system/presentation/file/119/Cohn-ADP09-Introduction-to-User-Stories.pdf">Mike Cohn presentation on user stories</a>.</i><br />
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Raquel: "Let's make sure we include real epics in our portfolio and product roadmaps. Let's decompose epics into user stories and include the user stories in our backlog. When we need to split a user story to fit into an iteration, our first instinct should be to split it by iteratively strengthening the acceptance criteria, not always by decomposing it along functional lines. All development tasks we include in the backlog should reference the user stories they support. Also, let's follow <a href="http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/topics/user-stories">Mike Cohn's template for epics and user stories</a> to ensure they are understandable to users and are verifiable. We can also group stories according to themes, but let's make sure the themes tie back to prospect problems."<br />
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Oscar: "Works for me! I really like the idea of epics standing for lengthy, end-to-end stories. They really tie everything together to show the value to customers and users in such a way that I, as a developer, can see how the details fit into the big picture. As a matter of fact, I've noticed a recurring pattern we could employ."<br />
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<i>Oscar proceeds to draw the following diagram on Joan's whiteboard.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiH2bEu6y-lQ8ZFV7SIPREE0sTNVKOp6mevHGscPfyp_y3TwRLI3J7by8Ysk0n35C1rGOcx16ZyvmrEsOeetOXOCmX2zFeQxntEaL8BV-ASwW4OZuVFjIpYAxJ7aL58zCH-eXW/s1600/StoryDecompositionPattern.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiH2bEu6y-lQ8ZFV7SIPREE0sTNVKOp6mevHGscPfyp_y3TwRLI3J7by8Ysk0n35C1rGOcx16ZyvmrEsOeetOXOCmX2zFeQxntEaL8BV-ASwW4OZuVFjIpYAxJ7aL58zCH-eXW/s640/StoryDecompositionPattern.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Raquel: "Pretty cool, Oscar. Your diagram shows a decomposition of an epic into smaller stories. The epic encompasses what the user ultimately wants to do and the unfortunate - but often necessary - system interactions that administrators must perform behind the scenes to enable the true value for end users. You've divided what we would need to implement into chunks our product owner could put in the backlog and our developers could complete in a single iteration. At the same time, none of the individual user stories by itself delivers what the end user needs. The top-level epic captures all of the stories playing out and satisfying the end user's needs."<br />
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Joan: "Now that you've explained them, these ideas make a lot of sense to me. We need to make this a team conversation and decision. I will fully support your starting this conversation with the team and proposing your ideas. I suggest a series of 'brown bag' lunches to discuss our process and possible modifications to it. Let's set the expectation that no decisions will be made at these lunches, but through open sharing of ideas and perspectives, we'll naturally converge on some improvements to our processes." <i> </i>Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-38639146031733228282011-06-22T08:14:00.001-05:002011-06-22T21:47:15.743-05:00Debunking Leadership Myths<b>Typical Conversation Between Product Managers</b><br />
<br />
Many conversations about product management and leadership have taken place in the blogosphere and Twitter. The typical exchange goes something like this:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 1: "Product managers have a lot of responsibility but no formal authority."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 2: "Authority is something to be earned, not granted."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 1: "But developers and sales don't listen to me, because they don't report to me and are in different departments."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 2: "Great leaders work with cross-functional teams."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 1: "Yes, but I don't get any support from executives when I work across departments."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Product Manager 2: "You shouldn't need support if you are a great leader."</span></blockquote><b>Leadership Myths </b><br />
<br />
Let's put to rest the two opposing leadership myths that underlie these types of exchanges. The opposing myths are:<br />
<ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">A great leader's effectiveness comes from authority.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Great leaders are largely self-empowered and require little or no help to influence others and be effective.</span></li>
</ol>Some people believe leaders are granted authority. Other people have a romantic model of a leader as someone who, with little or no help, achieves great things and influences and earns the respect of others.<br />
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Both of these notions of leadership are ill conceived.<br />
<br />
<b>What is Leadership</b>?<br />
<br />
On page 12 of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem-Solving-Approach/dp/0932633021">Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem Solving Approach</a></i>, Gerald M. Weinberg defined an organic model of leadership:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Leadership </i>is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered.</span></blockquote>A person can lead in many ways – by fostering a shared understanding of problems the group will solve, by organizing and putting supportive structures in place, by motivating others, by stimulating or managing the flow of ideas, and in some cases by acting unilaterally. In almost every case, the leadership manifests itself in enabling or helping others.<br />
<br />
But guess what – <i>leaders also need empowerment</i>. They need help. In fact, one great talent of many leaders is that they know when and whom to ask for help. Indeed, Weinberg wrote on page 261:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;">People become leaders thinking they will help other people. Before long they realize that it's <i>they </i>who need help. They need help to see themselves as others see them, to carry them through their mistakes, to learn about other people, and to deal with the frustrations of trying to be helpful. The only way to learn to be helpful is by learning to be helped.</span></blockquote>A great leader may appear completely ineffectual in one environment yet masterful in another environment. The difference lies in how supportive and empowering the environment is for the leader.<br />
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<b>Product Management Leadership Challenges</b><br />
<br />
The formal authority that most product managers lack may not limit their leadership, but the lack of formal authority often reflects a disempowering environment.<br />
<br />
Most people – executives included – don’t fully understand the product management role. They don't recognize that<a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/product-management-is-like-therapy.html"> product managers need to be like therapists</a> to understand markets. They aren't aware that <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/12/marketing-is-not-common-sense.html">marketing principles tend to defy common sense</a>. In a work environment where executives and fellow employees don't understand the role and what it means to be effective in it, product managers receive limited support.<br />
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At this point, if you still believe in the romantic model of leadership (the one in which great leaders don't need support from others), you think this description of product managers' situation is just whining. Why don't product managers just "buck up" and overcome this situation?<br />
<br />
To overcome the situation, product managers can attempt to build credibility and educate executives and others around them. But recognize that most product managers are hired into a poorly-defined role, are expected to behave tactically, and are actively discouraged from spending time defining their role and educating others about it. <br />
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Indeed, the worst corporate environments actively prevent product managers from realizing their leadership potential. On page 166 of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Change-John-P-Kotter/dp/0875847471"><i>Leading Change</i></a>, John P. Kotter wrote: <br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;">Highly controlling organizations often destroy leadership by not allowing people to blossom, test themselves, and grow. In stiff bureaucracies, young men and women with potential typically see few good role models, are not encouraged to lead, and may even be punished if they go out of bounds, challenge the status quo, and take risks. These kinds of organizations tend either to repel people with leadership potential or to take those individuals and teach them only about bureaucratic management.</span> </blockquote>Take note of the last sentence about this type of organization repelling people with leadership potential. We'll revisit it at the end of this piece.<b><br />
</b><br />
<br />
<b>What to Do?</b><br />
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As an executive, you can empower your product managers by providing them with support. Support doesn't necessarily mean giving product managers formal authority. But you can:<br />
<ul><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Encourage (and budget for) your product managers to visit prospective and existing customers, to observe them in their native environments, and to conduct one-on-one interviews with them.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Encourage your product managers to share their market knowledge with others throughout the organization. For example, suggest that a product manager set up a mid-day meeting and have the company provide lunch for everyone who attends.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Encourage (and budget for) your product managers to attend training and learn and share best practices in public forums.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Let others in the organization know that you believe these activities, and the functions of product management, are important.</span></li>
</ul>For more information on the challenges of creating an organization that empowers its employees and fosters innovation, see <a href="http://blog.rebeccafrasier.com/?p=64">this paper</a> by my friend and colleague, Becca Frasier.<br />
<br />
<b>Self-Empowerment</b><br />
<br />
Finally, let's consider how product managers can empower themselves.<br />
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When a great leader finds herself in a disempowering environment, she changes her environment.<br />
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In some cases, she does so by establishing mutually supportive relationships with others, by "speaking truth to power" (making the case to executives for organizational change), by teaching, and by demonstrating competence and building credibility over time.<br />
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However, the often-overlooked quality of great leaders is that they quickly recognize disempowering environments, extricate themselves from them, and seek out and place themselves in empowering ones. People who hold onto the romantic notion of leadership might see such a tactic as cowardly or as a form of avoidance, but it is in many cases the only realistic - and the most empowering - approach.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-18791704935629923492011-03-20T20:56:00.005-05:002011-03-20T21:04:35.810-05:00Talents of Great Agile Team MembersRecall the advice of Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman: <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/05/four-keys-of-great-managers.html">hire people based on talent, not so much for experience, intelligence, and determination</a>.<br /><br />Talent is defined as “a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied”.<br /><br />So, what are the talents that great agile team members share? Here are some possibilities:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">focus </span>– sets goals and uses them every day to guide actions</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">discipline </span>– imposes structure onto life and work</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">reflection </span>– examines past choices and learns from experience</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">adaptability </span>– quickly adjusts practices to achieve goals</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">strategic thinking</span> – plays out future alternative scenarios</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">cooperation </span>– interacts with others constructively</span></li></ul>Note that, when a person possesses them, talents span every aspect of a person’s life and do not merely manifest themselves in a particular job or work environment.<br /><br />How would you add to this brainstorm of possible talents that great agile team members share?Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-65764208354867698422011-02-27T07:22:00.002-06:002011-02-27T08:50:19.075-06:00ProdMgmt Talk on 02/28/2011Join me on 02/28/2011 (Monday) at 5 pm CT for the next ProdMgmt Talk. ProdMgmt Talk is a weekly Twitter event in which product management professionals examine and answer questions about a particular topic. You can follow the conversation <a href="http://www.twebevent.com/prodmgmttalk">here</a> or configure your favorite Twitter tool to show tweets containing the #prodmgmttalk hash tag.<br /><br />This week's topic is innovation and how it relates to product management. We will be discussing the following questions:<br /><ol><li style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Are product managers innovators or innovation enablers?</span></li><li style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;">What do great product managers do to innovate or foster innovation?</span></li><li style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;">What is the relationship between requirements and innovation?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Does agile product management foster or hinder innovation?</span></span><br /></li></ol>How would you answer these questions? I'll be sharing my thoughts and hope to see yours on Monday.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7879107.post-7018417158618720742011-01-04T09:52:00.014-06:002011-01-04T13:46:31.841-06:00How to Prevent Product ParalysisDoes your company suffer from product paralysis? Product paralysis occurs when progress halts on improving or innovating a product. At some point, you've probably experienced:<br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">A product team can't agree on major product decisions, so they concentrate on minor bug fixes and enhancements that have little or no market impact.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Bold product decisions are made (often by members of the team that just happen to wield the most influence at the time), but the decisions come under fire and are put on hold shortly thereafter.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Team members don't buy into product decisions, so they undermine them, stall their execution, or just aren't motivated to be productive in executing them.<br /></span></li></ol>The most effective product managers - to the extent that company executives empower them to do so - employ three approaches to prevent product paralysis:<br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Base product decisions on <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2007/04/principles.html">market understanding and marketing principles</a>.</span> Teams will not buy in to major product decisions unless they can make a compelling case for them. It's hard to make a smart product decision without understanding the market and the principles of marketing (<a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/10/contradicting-instincts.html">which are often counter-intuitive</a>).<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Involve the team in making product decisions.</span> In the <span style="font-style: italic;">authoritarian </span>model of product management, a product manager becomes an expert on the market, gets input from development on the technical feasibility of implementing new features, and makes unilateral decisions. In the <span style="font-style: italic;">organic</span> model of product management, a product manager leads the process of collective product decision-making and arms the team with the market information and marketing principles necessary to produce quality decisions. A product manager applying the organic approach uses <a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2010/08/what-is-buying-facilitation.html">change management and decision facilitation</a> to foster buy-in and to motivate the team to execute.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://blog.cauvin.org/2005/06/agile-product-management.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Iterate on the research and development of products.</span></a> Product teams will make mistakes. They will never fully understand the impact of product decisions on their customers until the team at least partially executes and tests those decisions in the market. Thus the team will and should revisit decisions. An effective product team leader helps the team confront risks and uncertainty quickly and in a disciplined fashion. Frequent iterations provide a systematic way of learning and of evaluating and revisiting product decisions.</span></li></ol>Thanks to <a href="http://www.arandomjog.com/">Joshua Duncan</a> for helping me to refine my thoughts on the organic model of product management.Roger L. Cauvinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08969779835314260680noreply@blogger.com8