Why do products fail? Trying to organize all of the reasons that your product might fail is a Herculean effort. Understanding how your product did, will, or might fail will help you focus on what you need to do next.
Category Archives: Requirements
Rating Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 7
At this point in the product comparison series, you know who your customers are, which problems are important to them, and which products compete to solve those problems. It’s time to score the competing products and see how the solutions your product provides (or will provide) will stack up. This is the latest in a series on comparing products, jump back to the start of the series if you came here first, but hurry up :).
Know Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 6
You start with a point of view about what makes a minimum viable product. When your product launches, it is your customer’s point of view that matters. You must understand which problems your customers care about solving, and what solutions are available to your customers today. You need to understand your competition to make informed decisions about your product. This is the latest in a series on comparing products – jump back to the beginning of the series to catch up, we’ll wait.
Read the rest of the article …
Important Problems – Comparing Products Part 4
If you understand the important market problems, you can make a good product. If you understand how important each problem is, for each group of customers, you can make a great product. If you’re new to this series, go back and start at the first article, we’ll wait for you right here.
Market Problems – Comparing Products Part 3
Comparing products without an understanding of the important market problems by which to compare the products is a waste of time. This is the third in a series on comparing products - jump back to the introduction if you haven’t already read the previous articles. Go ahead, we’ll wait, then come back.
Agile Estimation, Prediction, and Commitment
Your boss wants a commitment. You want to offer a prediction. Agile, you say, only allows you to estimate and predict – not to commit. ”Horse-hockey!” your boss exclaims, “I want one throat to choke, and it will be yours if you don’t make a commitment and meet it.” There’s a way to keep yourself off the corporate gallows – estimate, predict, and commit – using agile principles.
This is an article about agile product management and release planning.
Posted in Agile, Business Analysis, Prioritization, Process Improvement, Product Management, Project Management, ROI, Requirements, Software development, User Stories
Tagged agile estimation, agile prediction, agile release planning, cone of uncertainty, project planning, release planning
101 Comments
Requirements Management Journey – Part 0
Requirements Management – I’m embarking on a journey to help several teams manage their requirements with their existing systems and tools. This is the first in a series of articles, where the rubber meets the road. I’ll look at both the theory and the realities of what works (and doesn’t) in practice. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Read the rest of the article …
The Value of Insights
Intellectual Property. The legal jargon definition of this term has come to effectively mean “something I’ve patented, copyrighted, or hold as a trade secret.” A more general interpretation is “an idea.” For product managers, the most valuable ideas are insights.
Everything Old is New Again
A lot of teams that I’ve worked on and with get hung up when thinking about defining requirements for “migration projects” and “system upgrades.” There’s some intangible barrier to being market focused when it comes to improving existing internal systems. Every new product represents a solution to an existing problem. Why do so many projects move forward with teams that are blind to the actual requirements?
Don’t Prioritize Features!
Estimating the “value” of features is a waste of time. I was in a JAD session once where people argued about if the annoying beeping (audible on the conference line) was a smoke alarm or a fire alarm. Yes, you can get to an answer, but so what?! The important thing is to solve the problem.
Latest Articles
Comments on all Articles
