The Accidental Product Manager
Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager Where You Too Can Learn To Be A Wildly Successful Product Manger
All too often when we think about the products or services that we are product managers for, we get hung up on the need to be able to touch something. Many of us like boxes with lights on them, CD jewel boxes that snap shut with CDs with nicely printed product labels on them, etc. … Read more
Just in case you have been living at your desk for the past couple of years and hadn’t noticed, Toyota launched a new line of cars a few years ago called Scion. Now we all know the Toyota brand – in fact many of you probably own a Camry because it’s the most popular car … Read more
Keep in mind that job mapping is a process by which Product Managers can discover what product features your customers are really looking for. Job mapping is a process by which you break down into a series of smaller steps the task that your customer is trying to accomplish while using your product. By doing … Read more
A job map identifies what your customers are TRYING to get done at every step of a task while they are using your product. This differs from process mapping which simply defines only what the customer is actually doing at each step – a subtle, but important distinction. Product managers who take the time to … Read more
Last time we talked about “job mapping” how a customer “hires” your product to perform some task. If you can do this well, then you will be able to create an understanding of what aspects of your product the customer likes and is using as well as which ones he/she does not like and is … Read more
As a product manager, you are ultimately responsible for your product’s features. If you’ve guessed well, then you should have a successful product. If you’ve guessed badly, then you may be sitting on a stinker of a product right now. No matter which situation you find yourself in, you are facing one of the greatest … Read more
Being a Product Manager is hard work, being a successful product manager is even harder. Wouldn’t we all like to have a secret weapon that would allow us to cut through all of the roadblocks that others seem to be constantly throwing up all around us? Just imagine if there was some way to get … Read more
It’s just a little bit off-topic, but Meridith Levinson over at CIO.com just interviewed me as a part of an article that she wrote titled Self-Promotion at Work: 8 Tips for Shy People. In these times of economic uncertainty, these tips might be just what the Doctor ordered for your career. Check the article out … Read more
There is a saying that goes “Any publicity is good publicity”. It turns out that this is wrong. In fact, after having given birth to or adopting a product, a Product Manger can see the good name of their product vanish almost overnight if they aren’t careful. A good example of this, on a very … Read more
As the CEO of your product, at the end of the day you are the one who is responsible for it being a success. Not the sales team, not the developers, not the CEO. You. This is one of the HUGE differences between a project manger and a product manger. Project managers can complete their … Read more