The Product Guy

OCTOBER 9, 2018

First, I did not know how to frame, develop and present product strategy in a systematic way, and second, as a startup, my company has not historically had a good track record of strategy being developed outside of senior management (read: founder). Two major obstacles stood in my way.

Weak Development Team 130

Weak Development Team Product Strategy Strategy Development 130

Mironov Consulting

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

An essential role of CPOs and other product leaders that’s never listed in the job description is giving organizational 'air cover' to product managers to postpone almost all new requests — so that their teams can finish work already underway.    Lately, I’m calling this permission to stay focused.

Reporting Tools 105

Reporting Tools Software Review Technical Review Weak Development Team 105

The Product Coalition

MARCH 18, 2022

Given that we have finite engineering and product resources, what is the path forward?” Should they/you evolve the features of the core value prop for existing customers or invest in and develop new value props and features for new, adjacent customer segments? Perhaps the sales team isn’t trained adequately.

Customer Experience 190

Customer Experience Onboarding KPIs User Testing Customer Feedback 190

The Product Guy

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

We had just hired a new VP of Product who was radically (and rapidly) changing our product development process, and our engineers – based remotely, in Argentina – were struggling to keep up. “To Well, before, product knew what was going on and engineering didn’t.” and one engineer in Iceland. and one engineer in Iceland.

Engineering 100

Engineering Weak Development Team Technical Review Software Review 100

Mironov Consulting

JUNE 27, 2020

That might seem obvious or naïve, but recent conversations with several B2B/enterprise clients suggest that it’s actually controversial. For context, enterprise tech companies tend to have a small number of large deals each quarter that really matter. ( Expect account-level distrust, bad blood, and a search for who’s to blame.

User Testing 137

User Testing Customer Experience Weak Development Team Enterprise 137

Mironov Consulting

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

But it’s easy for B2B/enterprise companies to fall into a sales-led development model where the majority of work is for individual customers – starving the core product of innovation, new features, quality improvements and technical resilience. Good estimation and busy technical team are the keys to success.

Reporting Tools 108

Reporting Tools Weak Development Team User Testing Feedback Software 108

Mironov Consulting

JULY 28, 2022

Especially in B2B/enterprise software companies, I see two dramatically divergent ( incompatible ) worldviews that IMO explain a lot of corporate behavior. Enterprise Sales and Solutions Teams… Are paid/rewarded/promoted for working with individual prospects or customers one at a time.  Sales

Reporting Tools 133

Reporting Tools Software Review Technical Review Weak Development Team 133

Mironov Consulting

MAY 24, 2022

Everywhere I go, I see massive amounts of product waste : development work delivered on time/on budget that doesn’t drive sales or customer satisfaction or business improvement.  Yet  Yet somehow we don’t see this waste, or mis-attribute it to engineering process problems. Horribly wasteful and frustrating!

Product Research 143

Product Research Reporting Tools Technical Review Onboarding KPIs 143

Split

MAY 31, 2022

When teams embrace testing, they’re more innovative, agile and in sync with ever-changing customer needs. Experimentation also reduces risk, because teams know how the product will be received before it’s rolled out. Yet even if they understand the value of experimentation, some enterprises hold back because of some common concerns.

Customer Experience 52

Customer Experience Enterprise Weak Development Team Systems Review 52

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 14, 2020

Customer Success teams arise out of the need to provide high-touch guidance to your most valuable customers – without disrupting your Sales and Support teams. Our enterprise customers expected white-glove onboarding and ongoing training which, while crucial to their success and our business’s, took teammates out of their core jobs.

User Testing 244

User Testing Weak Development Team Customer Experience Customer Feedback 244

PMLesson's Ace the PM Interview

FEBRUARY 25, 2022

Creating a concise, specific, and relevant front end developer resume is key to landing your next job in tech. For front-end developers, it is important to craft your resume in a way that highlights your skills, experience and programming language knowledge. We created this guide for both junior and senior front-end developers.

Weak Development Team 52

Weak Development Team Development Certifications User Testing 52

The Product Coalition

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Three years later I became a web application engineer at a startup that built software for military and private industries. I became director of communications, leading the development of intranets and web applications. From Startup to Enterprise A job at a startup means a lot of responsibility. With over 300 people in total?—?50–60

Weak Development Team 126

Weak Development Team Systems Review Customer Experience Software Review 126

Mironov Consulting

MAY 16, 2020

A topic that’s come up several times recently in my product leader coaching sessions: how much to delegate to the (individual contributor) product managers on our teams – including different ways of building product skills and balancing personal empowerment against good results. ” But we need good results, not just less work for me. .”

Weak Development Team 145

Weak Development Team Product Research User Testing Customer Experience 145

The Product Guy

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

At JCDecaux, I led the development of an information kiosk for airport passengers. Passengers are also able to view hotel information and use the devices to speak to the sales team of the hotel. A risk is an uncertain event that may have both a positive or negative impact on a product.

User Testing 167

User Testing Weak Development Team Product Research Customer Experience 167

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

Sanj started working at Salesforce back in 2005, when the company had around 1,000 employees and a few hundred million in revenue, and he was a part of its growth for 14 years, holding several leadership positions in multiple markets in EMEA. Since leaving college, I knew I wanted to work in technology, in a sales or go-to-market position.

Feedback Software 210

Feedback Software Customer Feedback Customer Experience Weak Development Team 210

The Product Coalition

JULY 6, 2022

Fifteen years ago Ben Horowitz published his now famous memo, “G ood Product Manager/Bad Product Manager ” in which he posits that “A good product manager is the CEO of the product”. A bad CEO takes the credit and passes on the blame. A bad CEO assumes they have the best idea in the room.

Data Visualization 106

Data Visualization Weak Development Team Technical Review Software Review 106

Mind the Product

JUNE 28, 2018

Is there a difference between developing an enterprise and a consumer product? In both cases your software product is used by humans, but an enterprise is a legal entity, while a consumer is a person. And the fact that an enterprise is a legal entity makes product management for enterprise products a little different.

B2C 135

B2C B2B User Testing Feedback Software 135

Business of Software Conference

JANUARY 16, 2020

Sometimes it takes a system design engineer and some cat gifs to really help you see what you’re doing and this funny and informative talk from Boston in 2019 has both! In this BoS Talk April shows you how important positioning is to your product and how you can be doing yourself a great injustice just by positioning incorrectly.

Positioning 108

Positioning Analytic Tools Reporting Tools Research Software 108

Mironov Consulting

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

Over the last three decades, across 10 full-time jobs and 150 consulting clients, I’ve headed up product teams 18 times (mostly as interim VP ) and helped another dozen companies choose their Head of Product. They don’t value experience running product management teams , instead overweighting narrow technical or market segment familiarity.

Reporting Tools 145

Reporting Tools Analytic Tools Onboarding KPIs Data Visualization 145

The Product Coalition

FEBRUARY 26, 2022

I’ve asked friends who do the job at social events and got the same answer, and frequently asked members of my own teams, who struggled to find the time to do it. To compensate, I’ve seen UX researchers & designers pick up the mantle a lot more, and the design teams have really leaned into this space.

User Testing 171

User Testing Weak Development Team Customer Experience Customer Feedback 171

The Product Guy

JULY 18, 2019

Product development roles and “product” as a discipline are rapidly evolving within technology companies. Doing so will help you better support your team, but also identify and improve on the skills and areas you personally excel, helping you choose the right career path, strengthen your reputation, and building your brand and narrative.

Weak Development Team 137

Weak Development Team B2C Customer Experience Advertising 137

The Product Coalition

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

In my experience, the challenges of becoming a learning organization can only be handled effectively by self-organizing teams. Their collaboration will lead over time to a ‘team of teams’ structure. And just relabeling the positions of the old middle management rarely works. There seems to be a belief?

Agile 177

Agile Startups Technical Review Software Review 177

The Product Guy

APRIL 9, 2020

What about stepping up to lead a team while a coworker is out on leave or joining a new team and having to earn their trust in less than a month? . Using existing behavioral and habit formation research, I developed and employed a simple and effective framework. Have you ever had to talk a difficult customer down from the ledge?

Framework 189

Framework User Testing Product Research Weak Development Team 189

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 16, 2019

Growing a sales team isn’t as simple as putting a bunch of A players in a room and getting them to start selling your product. If you want to build a revenue engine that will fuel long-term growth, you need to build and scale your sales org with intention. and many more to talk about how they’ve built sales teams from the ground up.

Weak Development Team 156

Weak Development Team Data Visualization Strategy User Testing 156

People-First Product Leadership

JULY 17, 2023

In this week’s newsletter, I’m focusing on articles which will help you navigate through the product management fog and learn practices that help setup product teams for success. To ensure your team’s success, think beyond your own team. which bring more value and benefit the organization - not just your team.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Technology Weak Development Team Generative AI 52

Mironov Consulting

SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

Services companies (aka custom development, agencies, outsourcing/nearshoring, contract engineering, consultancies, any work-for-hire) primarily market/sell the time and expertise of their people.  Work ”)  No one cares how big the team is, how long it took to build, or how smart our engineers and designers are.

Reporting Tools 80

Reporting Tools Data Visualization Analytic Tools Feedback Software 80

The Product Coalition

APRIL 25, 2022

The Best Product Managers use Product Management Software for: We’ve broken down this list into four stages of the feature life cycle that contributes to building the product value: opportunity identification and validation, design and prototyping, feature development, and launch and iteration.

Analytic Tools 159

Analytic Tools Data Visualization Feedback Software Research Software 159

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 31, 2019

The process of defining your positioning strategy is not a one-and-done deal – in a crowded marketplace, it needs to be an ongoing exercise. And as the organization grows, the work involved to get teams aligned on who you’re selling to and how you’re selling is not something to be taken for granted either. They include: Close.io

Customer Experience 165

Customer Experience Customer Feedback User Testing Weak Development Team 165

The Product Guy

MAY 7, 2020

Hence it is critical that one is aware of the best practises of the role and develops his own philosophy which results into maximum positive leverage for the organization. A Growth PM is also part of Platform team as the focus is to improve the experience to increase top of funnel and optimum onboarding experience. QA + Rework.

Technical Review 159

Technical Review Research Software Onboarding KPIs Product Management 159

The Product Guy

AUGUST 13, 2020

A lot of them worked in other positions before moving to product management, like engineers, analysts, marketers and project managers, and learned by taking on extra responsibilities. How to learn by doing it and lead a new team at the same time? Some of them are good, and some of them are bad.

Product Management 163

Product Management Product Manager Research Software Feedback Software 163

Mind the Product

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Three years later I became a web application engineer at a startup that built software for military and private industries. I became director of communications, leading the development of intranets and web applications. From Startup to Enterprise. Designers vs Developers. Developers are Also our Customers.

Weak Development Team 84

Weak Development Team Systems Review Customer Experience Software Review 84

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 5, 2019

It’s always there, and it follows you around like a bad penny. It’s the stuff that your engineering team has since learned could have been done a lot better. Nobody’s ever received a call from a big enterprise customer asking if your team is planning on moving towards more of a microservices architecture anytime soon.

Reporting Tools 140

Reporting Tools Customer Experience User Testing Product Management 140

Product Management Unpacked

APRIL 25, 2019

I first saw this method enacted when I was a young product leader at a publicly-held enterprise software company. In my experience, start with core constituents – your immediate team, leaders of development/engineering, sales, followed by top customers. Strengths/Weaknesses). Who should you start with?

Banking 148

Banking Feedback Software Weak Development Team Customer Feedback 148

Mind the Product

AUGUST 23, 2018

Product managers are only hired after the innovation or startup teams get concepts or funding approved. This means that product managers are thrust into developing a product or service concept they had no part in creating. A product manager is the leader and glue for the development team, from concept to launch.

Weak Development Team 118

Weak Development Team Product Management Product Manager Technical Review 118

ProductPlan

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Regardless of whether you’re building products for software, hardware, or services, product managers of every stripe are considered the driver of a product’s strategic development and the single source of truth for questions, requests, and feedback related to their products. Software PMs are able to manage the scope of the product.

Feedback Software 70

Feedback Software Analytic Tools Research Software Data Visualization 70

Business of Software Conference

OCTOBER 11, 2023

As usual, you really had to be there but here are the Sigmacorn notes… 9:00 Mark Littlewood: Opening remarks Welcome to BoS!

Research Software 40

Research Software Feedback Software Analytic Tools User Testing 40

Mind the Product

JANUARY 31, 2019

Product Management and product teams should have close contact with users, and be incentivised and applauded for generating new insights, which in turn are used to make product delivery decisions. When did the product teams last speak to a user? How is the success of the product, and the product teams being measured?

Weak Development Team 89

Weak Development Team User Testing Product Management Product Manager 89