Mozilla Director of Product Management Blog

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The director of product management at Mozilla (makers of firefox) has started a blog, Sherman’s Blog, about how Mozilla approaches product management. From the first post on the Role of Product Management by Sherman (Dickman), I think this blog is likely to be one to watch.

Mozilla’s approach seems to focus mostly on inbound product management activities (determining what to build) based on the activities they identify. They have a plan to create an MRD for firefox 3.

A Couple Quotes On Requirements Gathering

If you ask a panel of home cooks questions about how to build a better oven, they’ll tell you. But if you ask them about the challenges of feeding a family each night, you might receive a completely different set of answers — answers that might suggest a new product opportunity (such as the microwave oven).

For example, Nike golf shirts now have SPF 30 protection. What types of questions did they ask consumers to come up with that idea?

One of the big challenges in writing valuable requirements is in identifying the value. We presented tips on interviewing to uncover requirements in January. Sherman provides a specific set of three questions that help maintain the focus on what is valuable and why. Check out their elicitation formula and see if you like this new entrant as much as I do.

  • Scott Sehlhorst

    Scott Sehlhorst is a product management and strategy consultant with over 30 years of experience in engineering, software development, and business. Scott founded Tyner Blain in 2005 to focus on helping companies, teams, and product managers build better products. Follow him on LinkedIn, and connect to see how Scott can help your organization.

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