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 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 ...

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. 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.) 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? Second, many folks in the product management community are familiar with the deba...

Trying new things - especially new software products - can be both intimidating and time consuming. You face a challenge when introducing a product in the marketplace. The forces of nature are working against you, since almost everyone but " early adopters " resists trying new products. A major reason people resist trying new products is the learning curve. People simply don't have the time or patience to wade through pages and pages of documentation just to figure out what a product does, envision what it's like to use it, and how it would disrupt the way they live their lives. One thing you can do to minimize this obstacle to adoption of your product is to provide the shortest path. Providing the shortest path means minimizing the time and effort necessary for a first-time prospective user to obtain demonstrable value from your product. To provide the shortest path, you do some combination of the following: Make available a "quick start" guide that a pr...

It's common for people at all levels of a company, and in all company departments, to comment on the usability of the product or company web site and give suggestions on how to improve it. Why? Here's a clue. I wrote in late 2005 that: Most people, including executives, consider much of marketing to be common sense. We're all consumers, so we all know how we respond to products, names, logos, advertisements, and PR, right? So we're all experts on what works in marketing, no? Wrong. See the original blog entry to learn why marketing is not common sense . The same principle applies to usability. In playing the role of consumer in many aspects of our lives, we use products and web sites, and we know which ones are usable - and perhaps even what makes them usable - right? Wrong. Just as marketing isn't common sense, usability isn't common sense, and for the same reasons. Nonetheless, debates over usability and strategies for redesign can get quite contentio...