For folks who don’t read a lot of blogs – there’s a meme going on right now where people list five things that most people don’t know about them. This spreads virally, like the old email chain letters. After you share your five things, you tag five more people. Read on to see my five things…
Product Management
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Product Manager Staffing Levels – More Survey Results
One of our readers is working on determining product manager staffing levels for her company. While every company is different, it always helps to understand where our peers are. We do some in-depth analysis of the 2006 Pragmatic Marketing product management and marketing survey to see how other companies set their staffing levels.
Lists / Marketing
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Marketing Truths – Don’t Tell the Developers
Marketing is as foreign to most software developers as swimming is to fish. We’ve found a list of ten truths of marketing, and we’re secretly sharing them with the developers who hang out here. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone in marketing.
Flashback
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Flashback: A Year Ago This Week on Tyner Blain [2006-01-13]
A look back at the best from a year ago
Agile / Process Improvement / Software development
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Code Debt: Neither A Borrower…
Code Debt is the debt we incur when we write sloppy code. We might do this to rush something out the door, with the plan to refactor later. Agile methodologies focus on delivering functionality quickly. They also invoke a mantra of refactoring – “make it better next release.” This can create pressure to “get it done” that overwhelms the objective of “get it done right.” Taking on code debt like this is about as smart as using one credit card to pay off another one.
Design / Prioritization / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering
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The Wisdom of Crowds Prevents People’s Passions
The wisdom of crowds helps us avoid stupid decisions. Unfortunately, it also prevents innovative, passionate, fantastic decisions. Collective Intelligence is collective insipidness. We need to keep the inputs of individuals in the mix.
Marketing / Usability
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Usability Sells Software – Word of Mouth Marketing
There are three main models for selling software. You can hire a direct sales force. You can spend a lot on marketing and advertising. You can let your users sell the software for you, a technique commonly known as viral marketing. There’s a catch with viral marketing – users have to like your software.
Business Analysis / Requirements
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Why Requirements Approval Matters and How To Make It Easier
Getting requirements documents approved can be a pain in the butt. Why do we need to do it in the first place? The approval process is more than just reaching concensus or creating a contract. Done correctly, it presents an opportunity to get more inputs from stakeholders.
Business Analysis / Business Process Modeling / IIBA / Organizations / Requirements management software
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2007 – The Year of the Business Analyst
Outsourcing is gaining momentum not only as a way to reduce costs, but as a way to create global teams. This trend is driving an increase in demand for business analysts. The change in perspective is driving companies to think about how they manage their business in new ways, and driving interest in new tools for business analysts to achieve these goals.