Tag: product management
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Pre-release Notes With FAQ As Early As Possible
Pre-release Notes with FAQ are notes for external communication and internal enablement. These are written early in the product definition phase. Here’s my Pre-release Notes with FAQ Template. Benefits The external communication notes help customers understand the proposed product and its value. Prospective customers may buy the planned product or feature. Customers provide early, useful,…
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Product Philosophy in Quotes
The Golden Rule Empathy for users, customers, and our business is the bedrock of a great product. “If you want to build a ship… yearn for the vast and endless sea.” This quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry speaks to me how a compelling product vision can have a tremendous impact. “A problem well-stated is a…
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I’D USE a Great Product
What characteristics make a great product? I’D USE makes it easy to remember: I for intuitive, D for delightful, U for useful, S for smart, and E for ethical. Intuitive Easy to learn and effortless to use for various user types. Delightful Brings joy and positive emotions. Useful Solves real user problems or jobs effectively.…
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A Working Definition Of Strategy
Strategy is making hard choices in advance in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty, to overcome challenges or to pursue opportunities that we can win. This is a definition I assembled through a continually evolving understanding of strategy*. What strategy is not Strategy is not a vision statement or a mission statement. Strategy is not…
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The Product Opportunity Brief
The product opportunity brief is a succinct narrative of the product opportunity, or an idea, followed by a go/no-go recommendation on pursuing it. Here’s my Product Opportunity Brief Template. Ideally, a lot of opportunity briefs are produced from which a few are selected for a “go” (“no-go” is ok because as Steve Jobs said, “Focus is…
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A Trail Map For Data Analysis
Analysis can be intense. Lots of data and metrics. Big data. Lots of tools and data sources. Analysis can be time consuming and need excel gymnastics. Worst case, lots of time spent but no useful insights. Some of this is expected because doing analysis is like a detective finding clues. Nevertheless, it’s useful to have…
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The mindset to win in startups
Harvard Business School has a good working definition of entrepreneurship, even for those who haven’t started their own startups yet. It is – Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled. How can this be applied to winning as a startup employee? Just focus on the outcome This is the “pursuit” in the HBS definition. Focusing…
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So, what’s the problem?
A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved. – Charles Kettering If you believe this, then it is better to initially use the time to define the problem than to work on the solution. Now this is counter-intuitive at startups because there is a bias towards actions and results. How can one get to a better description…
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The 30 Second Message
Elevator pitch – everyone’s heard of this. This is surely useful at startup pitches and career networking. This concept is also useful for communicating updates on pilots because it declutters the mind and focuses everyone’s attention on what really matters. As I reflect on situations when I had to craft the 30 second message, first I have had…
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Share early. Share often.
No news is good news – this adage doesn’t apply to pilots. When running a pilot, there is always news to share with the customer. The only questions are what’s relevant to share, when, by whom to whom, and in which forum. Here are some situations that can occur. A startup may be working late nights…
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