Lean

The ideas of Agile are great. It’s the way it has been codified into rituals and certifications, and rolled out mindlessly that misses the point. When people talk about Lean, the conversation often ends at process optimization, waste, and quality, and misses so much of what the Lean mindset offers. Design Thinking is held high as the Read more »

First coined in the mid 20th century, the term “speculate to accumulate” refers to the need invest (at some degree of risk) in order to make meaningful gains. In other words; roll the dice, take a punt, have a gamble. This is a risky strategy for product managers, and if your gambling skills are anything like Read more »

I wonder what it is about feature roadmaps that is comforting to the C-suite. Is it the false sense of security that you’re setting yourself up to deliver a list of features based on untested assumptions and educated guesses? Is it the delusion that locking your organisation into a plan a year in advance equals Read more »

I always tell the participants of my workshops that as a Product Manager you should be voraciously curious about what’s happening in the field.  Read books, keep tabs on blogs, follow people on Twitter, listen to podcasts, be a massive consumer of ideas and then see what resonates most with you. Here are some of Read more »

Morag McLaren Product Manager at Whatusersdo.com talks to ProductTank London about User Research Tools and Methodologies. The Context & Timing of Research Changes the Results you get You need to find out the context of any insight you are gaining about a user – otherwise you won’t know the why or how, just the what. Read more »

For me, as it also is for many product people, the idea of applying a scientific approach to product management came from Eric Ries in Lean Startup – put simply, his approach outlines the way companies can successfully build and launch new products by learning what their customers really want and by testing continuously. In Read more »

David Binetti is a six-time entrepreneur, having served on the founding team of companies ranging from consumer (QFN, later Intuit’s Quicken.com), to industrial (Arch Rock, acquired by Cisco), to government (USA.gov, acquired by the Federal Government), to political (Votizen, acquired by Brigade) — with three stints as Founder/CEO. Currently, David helps organizations innovate faster with Read more »

Forward Partners look to help early stage ventures get to Series A or seed funding by working with them on getting to viable and sustainable business models within 12 months. As such, for their team of startup experts, communication is absolutely key. So how do they make it work? Dharmesh Raittatha walks us through it. Read more »

“Product/Market Fit” is a concept that every start-up founder knows is important, but many have trouble achieving or even defining. In The Lean Product Playbook, author Dan Olsen details a six-step process to achieving product/market fit: Determine your target customer Identify underserved customer needs Define your value proposition Specify your MVP feature set Create your Read more »

Coach, lean advocate, and author Jeff Gothelf talked about scaling Lean principles at this year’s London #mtpcon. Lean methodologies work well for a single team observes Gothelf: “A lean startup reduces risk by regular and continuous experimentation. When you take the concept of lean and combine it with agile you start to build a practice Read more »