Cauvin

The “Science” of Lean Startup Lean startup practitioners embrace the scientific method, seeking the "truth" about what business model and strategy will lead to product success. We do so by: Formulating hypotheses Crafting and running experiments to test them Learning from the experiments Iteratively feeding our learnings back into revised hypotheses 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”. Customer Development 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. 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 ...

The Goal 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. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri  makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", 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. A Sad but Familiar Story 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. I've done it. Some of the mos...

The Context Over the years, various product management and development methods have come into vogue, most notably agile and lean startup methods. Agile methods addressed requirements , architecture, and development risks using frequent iterations. Lean startup methods take it a step further, iterating on the entire product strategy, including the unique value proposition , the target market, revenue and cost structure, and marketing and sales channels. 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? The Definition 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 ...

Join me Saturday, February 15th, 2014 for ProductCamp Austin 12. 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. 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. 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 register  now. The slots usually fill up quickly. If you'd like to present or lead a conversation ...

Why You Need a Competitive Mindshare Map 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. A sound unique value proposition depends on: Value . It should convey the value of your product. Value is rooted in the problems your product solves. Competitive landscape . It should differentiate your product from available alternatives. Perception . It should acknowledge perceived weaknesses of the product and perceived strengths of competing products. 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 a...

Now that you've had a largely buzzword-free introduction to lean startup methods , 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. Let's examine and demystify the basic lean startup terminology with a rich and concise conceptual model . To view the model of lean startup concepts, click the image below: Lean startup concepts fall within four different clusters: hypotheses, learning, market, and product. Hypotheses Forming hypotheses is a component of lean startup methods. The business model represents the strategy driving more tactical product decisions, and it consists of a set of hypothes...

You'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. One of the top problems companies face as they make product decisions is that the process of learning the market, and learning what makes the product successful, is slow and unreliable . 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. If you find that your organization is facing this problem, it's worthwhile to consider lean startup methods. Just as scientists use the scientific method to learn how the universe works, your product team can apply ...

In the last blog entry, we reviewed the  four problems that companies face, or are trying to overcome, as they make product decisions .  Now we'll look at the ways that most companies make their product decisions. 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. (A downloadable "map" that summarizes the product decision landscape is included at the end of this article.) Customer Wants Product decisions based on feature requests, focus groups, and what prospects and customers say they want. Companies are selling products to ...

Introduction Why is product management important? 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. The Problems   Products don't provide value to prospective buyers and users. 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. 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.   Developers don't know what to build, and why . Developing ...

Join me Saturday, July 20th, 2013 for ProductCamp Austin 11 .  ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network. Two years ago, John Milburn, Scott Sehlhorst , Paul Young , 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. 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? I've proposed a session called "Let...

Join me Saturday, February 16th, 2013 for ProductCamp Austin 10 .  ProductCamp is an "unconference" where product management and marketing professionals teach, learn, and network. 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. This time, I hope to lead a session called "Trouble with Tribbles: The Dos and Don'ts of Prospect Interviews": 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 e...

Great 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. Here are some of the top books I recommend product managers read.  The books I'm listing aren't books on product management per se , 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. 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk Al Ries and Jack Trout Follow @lauraries This classic book enumerat...