March 31st, 2010

Minimum Market Acceptance

April Dunford just presented Startup Marketing 101 at DemoCamp Toronto.  Great ideas from the ‘marketing and your startup’ point of view.  I’ve often said that product managers and product marketers care about much of the same market data, they just do different things with it.  The idea of minimal feature set came up in April’s presentation – this article talks about product management, agile, and initial market acceptance.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

March 25th, 2010

ProductCamp Austin Spring 2010

ProductCamp Austin Spring 2010 Logo

ProductCamp Austin is here again!  The Spring 2010 session is this Saturday, 27 March 2010 at the AT&T Conference Center on the UT campus in downtown Austin.  Make sure and say hi when you’re there!

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

March 16th, 2010

Great Product Manager Questions

Red Macaw

The Laudi Group and Red Canary organized and shared a great set of questions for product managers and answers from a panel of product management leaders.  Steve Johnson, another leader in our space shared his answers to the same questions, and in this article, I share mine.

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

March 11th, 2010

Business Goals and Requirements

Inventory in a warehouse

One of my colleagues got into a debate with one of his colleagues about the differences between goals and requirements.  His opponent fired the following salvo: “[That] is not a business requirement in any company of the world…”

What you call your requirements is less important than how you communicate them.

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

March 1st, 2010

Measuring Great Design – Mad Libs Input Form

image of mad libs pads

I came across a really interesting article LukeW.com, showing how making changes to the way an input form on a website increased interaction by 25 to 40%. The changes reflect the value of thinking outside-in, investing in user experience, and performance measurement.

Bonus: the idea is cool.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

February 23rd, 2010

Complete Requirements

big ten rules of writing requirements logo #5

You give your requirements to the engineering team, and they look complete.  The team builds your product, you launch it and the market soundly rejects it.  Why?  Because your requirements weren’t complete – they didn’t actually solve the problem that needed to be solved.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

January 5th, 2010

Most Engaging Articles of 2009

Engagement – that’s what this whole product management blogging thing is about.  Check out what Tyner Blain readers found to be the most engaging articles in 2009.

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

December 16th, 2009

Why Cross-Selling Works

Why does cross-selling, the process of selling something additional to someone who is already making a purchase, work?  This article explores some of the theory and rationale behind cross-selling – from qualification to motivation and profitability.

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

December 7th, 2009

Foundation Series: Substitutes and Complements

Do you know about substitute goods and complementary goods?  If you’re doing any eCommerce, and are thinking about cross-sell and upsell, you should understand the basics about substitutes and complements.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook

November 30th, 2009

Attainable Requirements

Unless you live in a world filled with unicorns and rainbows, writing realistic requirements is critical.  When you set unattainable goals, the best result you can hope for is a frustrated engineering team.  Write requirements that are attainable, and your team will surprise you with what they can achieve.

Read the rest of the article…

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook