This winter and early spring has been a fun writing exercise for me, as I was able to capture some of the most prevalent topics arising whenever I speak with organizations about their respective product endeavours. For those who have read every post, thank you! For those getting started, please find this suggested reading order:... Continue Reading →

The aforementioned is one of my absolute favorite quotes from the cult 1983 movie War Games. There are few quotes that I think of that apply more to product leadership, as it is widely agreed that the art of product management is identifying what doesn’t get done… When defining long-term roadmap as outlined in the... Continue Reading →

In my conversations with many companies, two key questions that one would expect product teams to have the answers for, but most do not are: How do you *authoritatively win in your category? If you were given $100 million of incremental investment tomorrow, how would you spend it? *Authoritatively Win is defined as having a... Continue Reading →

Many of the organizations I have spoken to define their product metrics entirely within the realm of user activity and adoption. Yet, at the same time, there is an inherent desire for product leaders to act as General Managers or CEOs of their product lines. In the current market/economy the best path forward is no... Continue Reading →

Time and again, one of the largest challenges I see affecting companies with their product teams is having unclear and/or incomplete definitions of what constitutes the product. My rule of thumb is that if it touches the product, it is within the scope of product management. The rationale behind this is simple – if it... Continue Reading →

Most product organizations have varying degrees of alignment with their various Go-to-Market (GTM) organizations. Best-in-class organizations have a systematic, organized process whereupon: Product systematically enables the GTM organization, such that the product value and differentiation is clearly aligned with and baked into all stages of the GTM process beginning with demand generation and flowing all... Continue Reading →

I have found that it is the belief of many executives that investing in product analytics and measuring product adoption (including identifying up-sell opportunities, or growth loops) is something exclusive to B2C, consumer, and/or product-led-growth (PLG) businesses only. I would argue the counterpoint that these are for everyone, regardless of business type – and will... Continue Reading →

I can’t name any organization that doesn’t conduct some form of qualitative user research. However, very few do so on a systematic, end-to-end basis. This results in deep understanding within pockets, but no clear picture of how things fit together end-to-end from the customer perspective. My suggested alternative is to leverage the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) methodology.... Continue Reading →