3 Things Missing From Your Product Requirements

Product requirements are there to help the team understand what you want to build. Whether you write them in detailed documents or share them briefly and verbally with the team, it’s easy to go directly to the bottom line and give clear instructions. However, there are many more important things to include if you want the team to succeed. Here are three things that if you include in your product requirements would make your life easier and help your developers deliver on what you really intended, not on what you told them to build.

How To Help Your Team Make Better Decisions

Managing smart people is a privilege, but can also be confusing at times. When is it time for you to step in, and where should you let them lead without interference? When it comes to decision making, especially with important decisions, there is a lot you can do to help this balance feel natural and beneficial for everyone involved. That’s true even if your people are more experienced than you are.

How To Manage People Who Are More Experienced Than You Are

Product management requires so many diverse skills that most likely your people are more experienced than you at least in some of them. When these skills are core to what your team needs to achieve, it can become confusing. If the people reporting to you know better how to do their job, what is your role as a manager? Don’t worry, you are still needed. Here’s why and how.

Your Problem Isn’t the Leaky Bucket, It’s the Clogged Pipe

The leaky bucket is a known metaphor in sales. If your funnel isn’t converting well, there is no point in adding more leads into it, since they will not convert and there is no gain here. But the truth is, that not only will it not result in a positive impact, it can also actually cause you harm. To understand why, we need to switch to another water-related metaphor: the clogged pipe.

Educating the Market Starts With a Need

Educating the market is hard enough as is, but there is one thing without which you cannot succeed. There has to be an unmet need that you can answer. And yes, even Facebook had one.

The Four Components of Product Success

Strategic product thinking is hard. Especially when done as an afterthought – when the product is already in the market – it is nearly impossible to rise above specific features and metrics. Here is a framework that will help you do just that.

The Product Cannot Be Your Only Tool

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As a product leader, other people, and maybe you as well, will lead every conversation with you towards features and product capabilities. While this is where your direct ownership is, as a product leader you don’t have the luxury to focus only on that.

3 Ways Your Metrics Can Help You Even if You Never Use Them

Fully applying a data-driven approach to your product is hard. You need to invest a lot in building the infrastructure that will allow you to measure everything you want, see it clearly in a dashboard, and take action based on it. But metrics are a very powerful tool that you don’t want to give up on, even if you will never measure anything.

How To Be Strategic Even if You Can’t Set the Tone

When the CEO sets the strategy, what is your role as a product leader? How can you be strategic when the strategy is set by someone else? Surprisingly, there is no contradiction there, and in most cases, there is more room for you than you think. You just have to know where to look for it.

Who Owns the Technical Debt?

Technical debt is always a hot discussion topic between product managers and engineers. It is not always clear how to handle it right, and who is the decision-maker. My recommendation is that product managers own it like they own any other feature. But beware – with great power comes great responsibility. Are you ready for it?

The Sales Funnel Isn’t Really a Funnel

A good product strategy helps you to acquire happy customers and retain them over time. On your way there, there are many potential weak links that can prevent it from happening. Here is how product strategy helps you overcome them.

The Magical Tool You Are Not Using Enough

How well can you tell your product’s story? Is it a great one to tell? Make sure you use this very powerful tool correctly, to get the most out of it.