Sending an expensive B2B sales team out to discover what we should build isn’t a great strategy. We should do less expensive, unemotional, non-commissioned validation and learning before scaling up our selling effort.
There are no generic or universal KPIs, since every business has unique aspects. So if we want KPIs for a B2B/enterprise company, where would we start? And how do we avoid committing to improvements in metrics/KPIs before understanding our current scores (or situation)?
As product folks, we should be responsible for reasonably anticipating misuses of our products, as well as harm that flows from fundamental product/economic goals. It’s not clear how we step up to this, though.
Restructuring product management teams is challenging: there’s no universal “best practice” or generic org chart, and people issues are the tough ones. We step through two examples of redefining what product folks do…
Product managers working with data science teams on production applications have more challenges than with more deterministic (traditional) applications. These include providing more business/user context, not assuming that data will be predictive, and discussing accuracy requirements at the very start of a project.
Product leaders look after teams of products managers, and sometimes designers or developers. What do they do, and how is it different from the individual product managers on their team?
I talk with lots of senior individual contributors about the risks and challenges of moving “up the ladder” into product leadership roles. Here’s a survey I fielded to capture their top questions and concerns about getting promoted. What do product leaders do? How do product managers signal their interest in becoming one?
Industrial hardware and enterprise software are both great business, but have very economics, scorekeeping, and development models. To run a strong software business, we may need to retool some operating processes as well as executive assumptions.
My team says that my stories are too short, insufficient. Except when they say I’m long-winded, overspecifying HOW instead of WHAT. What’s really happening? Thoughts on engaging with our teams to unpack issues and work better together.
It’s easy for CEOs to think that they personally are the best-informed people within their companies about what customers need and what markets want. In reality, product and design teams have the time, focus, expertise, and large numbers of non-selling interviews to do more objective validation of product ideas.