Deciding what features to do in your next product release and beyond can be a difficult process.  There are always more requests than can be done, different priorities from various stakeholders, and even vastly different types of features that are competing for attention.   This paper discusses a framework and tools for assessing how to attack the problem and can be used in both traditional and Agile projects.

Thinking Beyond Features

In recent years, we've seen a number of technology companies create or completely transform entire industries.   Some examples include Amazon Kindle, Apple iPhone, Google Android, Mint, and NetFlix.    In every case, their success was not the result of a new or disruptive technology advancement, but rather a unique technology application based on a business model innovation that was disruptive in some way.    This article provides a primer on business model innovation.  

I admit it.  I’m an online shopaholic.  My addiction started over a decade ago when Amazon delivered my first book right to my doorstep, painlessly and effortlessly.   From there I progressed to flowers, gift baskets, electronics, shoes, travel and practically everything else.   The major reason I got hooked was due to my overall positive customer experience.    The web has come a long way since then and my expectations on the level of service delivered to me have increased, largely due to some innovative companies raising the bar.   This discussion is about paying attention to your customer’s full lifecycle experience, not just product features, to develop true loyalty.

Portfolio Management, Opportunity Assessment, & Release Planning

As technology companies move from the startup phase into more mature states with multiple customers and multiple releases of at least one product, a normal queue of requested functionality or ideas begins to form for what to do next. Customer requests, competitive responses, new opportunities, internal operational issues and defects all begin to pile up and compete for attention. Someone needs to deal with all of this and the question then becomes WHO & HOW? How do we organize, understand, prioritize and decide what to do with this stuff? More importantly, which of these items, IF ANY, will actually contribute to the long term success of the product and company?

A Discussion of Roadmap Planning

In a recent survey of product managers, the biggest challenge they faced was that of “Roadmap planning and commitment”. Figuring out where your products should be headed, in what timeframe and getting corporate support to commit resources to the plan can be daunting and frustrating. This article explores methods for improving the process of developing your plan and in getting organizational support. For reference, also see the article Your Product Management Poll Results.

4 Perspectives to Help You Shape Your Solution

Assessing new opportunities for a product or service is one of the top strategic activities that a Product Manager can do within a company. These opportunities can be in the form of entirely new products, or more likely, enhancements to existing products. They can come from external feature requests, internal stakeholders, or from “out of the blue”. Since the product manager is the “business owner” of the product, there are multiple perspectives he/she needs to assume to be able to make the best decisions for the market and the company regarding these opportunities.

Have You Considered Asking for LESS?

As a product leader, your success is dependant not only on your ability to drive the right products into the pipeline but also on the rest of the organization to be able to build and support them. Sometimes (or perhaps often in your case) no matter how hard you push, nothing seems to happen due to bottlenecks in your organization. This can be a high source of frustration for the product management team (and other executives) and the cause of much conflict in your organization (this I know personally). So what can you do about it?

Assessment & Ideas for Improvement

As a product manager, do you know how you impact the bottom line or major objectives of your company or division? Do you even know how your activities are tied to objectives? As an executive, do you feel your product managers are delivering high value to the organization? Do you even know what they are doing?

Product Management has such a broad definition and set of responsibilities within a company that it can be difficult to assess which activities are truly delivering value. It can also be difficult to determine how to measure product management since their actions may not directly affect the core business metrics of revenue, costs and profits. This article presents a high level means of assessing whether your product management team is delivering all of the value it could, some reasons why it may not be, and some suggested steps to take towards maximizing your team’s contribution.

Prioritizing Strategic and Tactical Activities

A major challenge for many companies is realizing the full value of Product Management within the organization. The reason this is challenging is due to product management not being a clearly defined role with specific activities and responsibilities across the industry. This makes it very easy to have product managers performing the wrong or incomplete set of activities, limiting your product's potential.

Aligning Strategy to Resources

Managing the lifecycle of a product isn’t a clear cut or an easy task.   Managing the lifecycle of multiple products or product lines can be daunting.   How do you decide where to invest and where to hold? How do you decide the best use of your valuable resources?   This is the activity of Product Portfolio Management and the discussion for this article.