This article continues the series exploring the root causes of product failure. Even when you target the right users, and identify which of their problems are important to solve, you may still fail to solve the problems sufficiently.
Why Do Products Fail? – Picking the Wrong User Goals
Continuing the series on root causes of product failure, this article looks at the impact of focusing on the wrong user goals. Even if you have picked the right users, you may have picked the wrong goals – creating a product your customers don’t really need, or solving problems that […]
Why Do Products Fail? – Picking the Wrong Users
Exploring the reasons that a product might fail in the market is a useful way to triage and assess what you need to do to prevent the failure of your product. Instead of taking the “do these things” approach as a prescriptive recipe for product managers, I’m approaching the exact […]
Why Do Products Fail – Solving the Wrong Problems
There are many reasons that a product might fail in the market. One of those reasons is that your product solves the wrong problems. There are many ways to solve the wrong problems. This article continues the series on sources of product failure, exploring the idea that your product may […]
Why Do Products Fail?
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.
Failure To Launch (Your Product)
Jump forward in time to the day of your next big product launch (first release, new features, new market segment, etc). And your site/application crashes due to the “unexpected” demand. All you can do now is look for a bucket of water to put out the fire. What could you […]
Agile Product Management: Providing Context
Agile development methodologies succeed because they help development teams be as effective as possible. Development teams do not, however, work in complete isolation. The company they work for has a strategy. The company manages a portfolio of products, and targets a particular product at specific market problems. Within that context, […]
Defining Problems at ProductCamp Austin 1
Jun 14th was the first productcamp in Austin (and the second one anywhere). It was a great event, and here’s the presentation that I did on how to define the strategic problems that drive our products.
Defining Problems With Cause And Effect Diagrams
The Cause and Effect diagram is also known as a fish bone diagram, because it resembles the skeleton of a fish. Using a cause and effect diagram can be the most effective way to define the problems that you intend to solve with your product. Get your stakeholders engaged in […]