Focus on Reconciliation Rather Than Resolution

Tags

conflict, reconciliation, relationships, stakeholder

One of the truths about being in product management is that conflicts arise.  Across the many stakeholders within the organization and the many personalities, simultaneous projects, and sometimes conflicting priorities it is bound to happen.  For example, maybe it is …

• Disagreement with Development/Engineering on the approach to solving a problem
• Situations with Sales in dealing with prospective customers and not overselling the roadmap
• Misalignment with Marketing when plans simply aren’t aligning
• Frustrations with Finance when numbers simply don’t make sense or are misconstrued

There are countless examples that I am sure we could all recite from the past month, couple of weeks, week, or maybe even the past day! But when it comes to these types of conflicts, a couple of principles come to mind that I have found helpful … hopefully you find them useful as well.

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‘Master Storyteller’ Is Part of Your Job Description

Tags

messaging, positioning, Product Management, product marketing, story telling, value proposition

There have been several instances throughout my career where the essence of this article titled The Product Needs To Be The Story has come to light. The bottom line is whether or not it is a new innovation, or an existing portfolio of solutions, having the right “story” is absolutely essential!

Assessing the Minimal Viable Product Manager … Wait, What?!

Tags

analytic, business acumen, creative, domain expertise, MVP, Product Management, strategic, tactical, technical

Assuming you operate in an environment that has adopted Agile, you likely have come across the Minimum Viable Product concept. For those not familiar with it, I’ll let you do you own research … but at the risk of over simplifying, it is the balance of introducing the right capabilities (meets customer needs) at the right time (iterating quickly).

But really, this post has nothing to do with the MVP itself … if you will indulge me with a few minutes of your time and the remainder of this post, you will see how it may provide a sound approach to looking at skill-sets within Product Management.

Key Agile Metrics for Product Managers

Just sat down over coffee this morning and read the most recent edition of Pragmatic Marketer’s Magazine titled ‘Death by Plan‘. In particular, I found the article on the 9 metrics to keep the team on track helpful given that I am on the middle of planning exercises as we look toward 2015. Definitely recommend reading the article itself, but here is a summary of the points with a few thoughts:

End of Year Reviews, Self-Awareness & Competencies

Tags

Blind-Spots, Competency, Goals, leadership, Product Management, Rating, Review

I once heard an expression that essentially stated you should pay attention when coincidences converge because generally there is something bigger at play that you should be considering.  Admittedly, this post seems a bit earlier than normal … but then again that is just one of the converging points of this article.

So in an attempt to set up the rest of the discussion, let me simply ask you two relatively easy questions followed by a more challenging one:

1. How did you do against your goals for this past year?
2. More importantly, what activities and actions within your role positively contributed to the business?
3. What are your blind-spots or areas for improvement (your weaknesses)?