Archives of all product management tips
- Speak in the customer’s language
- Satisfy customers first, then delight them
- Take the blame for product problems
- Get involved in all aspects of your product
- Protect yourself against future competition
- Understand your customers’ buying process
- Minimize switching costs to maximize value
- Realize your product is not the center of your customers’ worlds
- Save some features for later
- Product management is more than prioritizing features
- Learn from the mistakes of the iPhone 3G S
- Consider your market window as part of your product strategy
- Define the problem before solving it
- Decide go / no-go before buy vs. build
- Differentiate to avoid being a “me too”
- Reinforce your product-related communication
- Reconsider your Jack of All Trades strategy
- Consider all details of add-on features
- Lack of complaints does not equal success
- Adapt your product management practice
- Technology is not better if it does not add value
- Choose your strategic alliances carefully
- Take a cautious approach to problem-solving
- Measure the impact of product changes
- Deliver customer value, not product features
- Stop gathering requirements
- Delegate tactical responsibilities
- Be comfortable being uncomfortable
- Plan for the present and likely future
- Work effectively with sales
- Ask a good product manager
- Do not be afraid to remove features
- Choose promotions for effectiveness, not coolness
- Understand qualitative vs. quantitative research
- Avoid excuses for not conducting customer visits
- Look for customer problems outside of your product
- Accept and address competing products
- Get agreement on goals, not features
- Sweat the small stuff
- Dealing with “irrational” stakeholders
- Good product managers are not born, they are made
- Develop and maintain a consistent product strategy
- Understand your product’s domain
- Consider more than just customer needs
- Product management vs. Project management
- Say thank you
- Pick the right name for your projects
- Follow up on requests to learn more
- Address the most important problems
- Product development is not a democracy
- Find solutions that address multiple problems
- Share the credit for a successful product
- Do not be afraid to argue
- Remember the forgotten stakeholders
- Revisit past ideas
- Communicate in person whenever possible
- Manage existing products differently than new ones
- Never answer the same question twice
- What can the iPhone teach you?
- Admit you do not know the answer
- Low cost is not a strategy
- Worry about future competition
- Improve your product management performance
- Use conferences to learn, not to sell
- Keep your mind open to agile product development
- Solve customer needs, not business ones
- Fight against complacency
- Learn how to escalate issues
- Learn from your support staff
- Manage issues and risks
- Learn why customers hate you
- Plan for misuse
- Answer questions before they are asked
- Inspiring features are not “nice to have”
- Be careful about promoting your launch date
- Inform stakeholders of the State of the Product
- Include differentiators, not just the most-requested features
- Encourage bad ideas
- Help out in areas outside of product management
- Find tools to support your product management practice
- Celebrate milestones along the way
- Streamline your product support
- Get the right kind of publicity
- Balance your innovation efforts
- Separate your platform from your product
- Look forward and backward
- Monitor all influences on customer perception
- Sell your requirements to development
- Make it easy to give feedback
- Vary your strategy for making decisions
- Make project kickoffs a big deal
- Involve others in creating product plans
- Explore your curiosity
- Make sure to have fun
- Use customer visits to understand, not to sell
- Do not react to every customer complaint
- Nothing wrong with being a big fish in a small pond
- Make your product part of a system
- Set the right release date
- Use market research properly
- Don’t do it all or do it all yourself
- Clearly communicate your product’s purpose
- Experiment and learn
- Plan ahead for product positioning
- Product management is about flexibility
- Take responsibility for what, not how
- Manage your relationship with your boss
- Track customer requests appropriately
- Ask dumb questions
- Discover new uses your product
- Ignore fads; watch trends
- Continuous improvement
- Spend your time in the right places
- Create solutions for many customers, not just one
- Customers and users are both important
- Use caution with cannibalization
- Let go of your past
- Use advice appropriately
- Involve sales in product development
- Requirements are never done
- Find the problem behind the question
- Making free products or freemiums
- Courageous product management
- Do you need to make it customizable?
- Prioritize high-value features
- Make your benefits have focus
- Should you compare yourself to Google?
- Look beyond focus groups
- Choose the right name for brand extensions
- Focus on the right features
- Understanding leadership and authority
- Use the right language
- Knowing when to say no
- Don’t provide answers, ask questions
- Requirements, stakeholders, and product management — oh my!
- Have tenacity inside your organization
- Providing the right number of options
- Informing customers about upcoming changes
- Taking time off
- The difference between right and right now
- The importance of decision-making
- Knowing when to throw in the towel
- Who should talk with customers?
- Creating a competitive strategy
- Communicating problems and creating solutions
- How can I buy your product? Let me count the ways
- How you listen to customers
- Reacting to customers
- Short-term vs. long-term thinking
- The scope of your product
- Sharing knowledge
