Product Management Tools; Three Questions to Improve Product Management; Happy Holidays 2014

SiriusDecisions Field Guide Product Management Tools

I’m pleased to announce the release of the SiriusDecisions Field Guide “Product Planning, Prioritization and Roadmapping 2015.” This is a project that I have been involved in for the past several months with several colleagues at SiriusDecisions. The Field Guide covers 11 vendors whose offerings are designed to assist product managers with developing product plans, prioritizing features and enhancements, and maintaining and communicating product roadmaps.

We’ve been hearing about the current state of technologies used by product management through our regular conversations with b-to-b product management teams, but part of the research we conducted for this field guide gave a large amount of data to confirm and add color to what we’ve been hearing. Few product managers are using tools designed specifically for product management. Most are using tools designed for other purposes (e.g. general business use, product development / engineering), and satisfaction with those options for product management purposes is generally low.

Many product managers are looking for tools and technologies that can help make them more productive and effective, but there is little awareness of the different vendors, much less their capabilities and relative strengths. Until now there has been no resource to provide analysis on the overall landscape of technologies for product managers to use for planning, prioritizing, and roadmapping.

Normally this research would be available only to clients of the SiriusDecisions Product Management advisory service, but we have made a version of this report available to non-clients. You can learn more about the field guide, the 11 vendors covered, and the research behind it in this blog post announcing the Field Guide.

Three Questions to Ask to Improve Product Management

I recently published my first post on LinkedIn “Pulse.” It outlines three questions that product management leaders can ask themselves to help clarify product strategy, drive their portfolio strategy and improve their ability to achieve growth objectives. Read the post: Three Questions to Ask to Improve Product Management

Happy Holidays
It’s hard to believe it’s December already and holiday season is upon us. There’s a few fun resources I wanted to pass along — think of this as my early holiday gift to you.

  • Last year I unveiled the SiriusDecisions Holiday Model, my tongue-in-cheek guide for helping you to navigate the holidays. Align your celebrations around themes like happiness, joy, peace and presents. Track your journey through holiday stages, from excitement to shopping panic and family celebration anxiety, all the way through to credit card bill shock and email inbox overload denial. And Never miss an important holiday, from Christmas to Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day to Boxing Day, and Festivus to National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day (December 16, if you’re wondering). Enjoy this soon-to-be holiday classic!
  • Back in 2011, I published The Twelve Days of Product Management, my take on the classic song, designed for product managers and those who work with product managers.
  • And, for something completely unrelated to product management (yes, I have other interest), here’s some holiday music I recorded a while ago with my jazz trio. The Jeff Lash Trio: Happy Holidays features our versions of some of our favorites, and there’s hopefully something for everyone — Christmas songs, Hanukkah songs, New Years songs, and some fun secular songs too.

Have a great rest of 2014 and see you again soon in 2015!