product management

Sometimes you need a disguise…

by
Picture
Image by Nancy Sticke from Pixabay
I know, we’re a day early. But since many of you are already eating the candy, and I thought I could use one more pumpkin-and-costume graphic, with puppies, we’re posting a day early. This week I had a lovely time with connections and colleagues from the Toronto Product Management Association, where I was sharing a facilitator’s-eye view of meetings and how to make them work for you. My first rule: treat your colleagues like you would treat your customers – give them and their ideas the same level of respect and consideration.  No one likes meetings, for sure, but there are some key things that make them run more smoothly:
  1. Curate who needs to be in the room.
  2. Make sure you hold only one kind of meeting, per meeting (status update/info sharing, decision making/problem solving, ideation/creation, team building). 
  3. Set an agenda and communicate the 5Ws of the meeting in advance.
  4. Respect people’s time and contribution by ensuring they are heard, using their time wisely, and doing what you promised (and only that). 
  5. Make space for what doesn’t fit by using a parking lot.
  6. Use a tool like the Ivory Taboo Tower* to let people mention the unmentionable.
  7. Leave with actions.
  8. Follow up with notes that parallel the agenda, summarize discoveries, and give a who, when, what to the actions.

I was thrilled with the enthusiastic response, and I really empathized with some of the questions afterward. These included:

  1. How do I keep from getting stuck always being the one taking notes at the meeting? Note that this question almost always comes from women. (Check this out). 
  2. What if my boss brings someone along who isn’t on my curated list of who should be in the room?  (Give them an assignment like managing the parking lot or taking notes – another reason not to always be the person above). 
  3. How do I get someone to do a task that really is their responsibility, but I’m getting measured for it? (This is where those attractive costumed pups come in at the top of the page – disguise it as something they want to do. And also, if you’re being measured on the actions of people who don’t work for you…that’s a whole nother discussion).
  4. What can you do about a boardroom bully? (We talked about that here). 

What meeting challenges do you have? Steve and I are happy to try and address those in future posts. Let us know in the comments below, or email us with your questions. Product management (brand management, marketing management, roadmap management)…is people management. People are our specialty.

*The Ivory Taboo Tower is a “secret parking lot” out of the room, or on a discreet wall, where people can note topics that are taboo to talk about, and yet are having an impact on getting things done, agreeing, or moving forward. 

I’m Megann Willson and I’m one of the partners here at PANOPTIKA, along with Steve Willson. We help you and your company to see everything you need to know to make better decisions, so you can find, understand, and keep customers. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook, and if you’d like more news you can use, delivered straight to your inbox, click the handy button below to sign up. 

Send me news I can use!

Put your problems into perspective

by
Gum on shoe
This post has been updated since its original publication.
 
Everywhere we turned this week we encountered problems.  That’s not a bad thing, because if there weren’t problems the world wouldn’t need problem solvers like us.

There are, however, a couple of problems with problems; the first is that we often feel compelled to try and solve problems which aren’t ours to solve. The second is that we offer solutions before we really understand what the true nature of the problem.

Two people we respect deeply talked about problems, among other things, this week.

Steve Johnson, a highly experienced Product Management expert, started his article by wondering whether Product Managers should be called Problem Managers in an interview he did with Revulytics. I suggest you read it.

His belief, which we share, is that Product Managers need to focus on the customer problem and not the problems faced by others in the organization.  He also states that you should allow others to develop the solutions. There are many other big brains in the building who can offer solutions that you couldn’t even dream of, but they need you to define the problem to be solved and the outcome the customer is expecting.  Once you do that, step back and go find more problems that your customers need you to address.

“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” Robert Schuller

The second article that reinforced this was from Ash Maurya, one of the sparks for the Lean Startup movement.  First he reminded us that it’s been 10 years since he and Eric Ries started blogging about a better way to look at start-ups. You can read it on Medium

The point which struck me is his focus on developing the right mindset to successfully navigate the Lean Startup process.  Unless you and your team are ready to jump in with both feet, you’ll wind up with some other outcome.  One of those key articles of faith is to Love the Problem and spend quality time with your potential customers to develop a deep understanding of their problems, from their perspective.

Like Steve Johnson, Ash Maurya reminds us that it is vital for us to become Problem Managers in order to develop products and services which customers will adopt.
​
When you are ready to take the leap and become a Problem Manager, PANOPTIKA is here to lend a hand.

I’m Steve Willson, and I’m one of the Partners here at PANOPTIKA. We work with clients to help them use customer-centricity to focus their efforts and their strategy where they can make the most difference. You can also find us on Twitter and on Facebook, and for ongoing news about topics like this one, click the button below.

Send me news I can use!

Which came first – was it really the customer?

by
Picture
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
We’ve said many times, that the best way to market is to find a customer, create a solution to a problem or a need for them, and sell it to them. We stand by that. While you’re busy creating that solution or figuring out how to fill the need (the job to be done, to paraphrase Clay Christensen), someone else may show them the next best option. Also, if you want other people to sell your product or service for you, by describing it to their networks, you need to know what it is that you sell. So which comes first? Customer, or product?

The first truth is this: knowing your customer is absolutely critical. The second truth is this: you need money to have a viable, ongoing business. And the third: sooner or later, to get money, you’re going to have to sell something – whether that something is a product or a service. Revenue is how you pay the bills, pay yourself, fund the work, even if you’re a social enterprise or not-for-profit. Remember: not-for-profit doesn’t mean, “doesn’t bring in money”.

So how do you figure out what it is that you sell? If it’s a widget, a chicken, or an egg, you’ve got the beginning of a description. If it’s more complicated, you need to be able to distill your product (or service) description down to something even your grandma or your five-year-old nephew could explain. Why? Simple: because the more people who know how to describe what you sell and why it’s great, the more unofficial salespeople you can have out there in the world, for free, generating leads for you. So go ahead. Break all those rules we’ve told you about customer focus, and take some time to figure out the easiest way to describe what it is you sell. You’ll be glad you did.

Send me news I can use!

Time exposure can let you see things differently…

by
This post appeared back in March…so this year, instead of panicking two months from now, read this, and give yourself a head start…

This morning one of our connections posted a reminder that we are at the end of the quarter. Now we’re bracing for the inevitable. At least one client is bound to call or email today with a panicky-sounding voice, about how they need research or strategy work, because they’ve just realized we are at the end of the quarter, and they really, truly, meant to get started in January. 

Does this sound like someone you know? If you’re in the business of customer understanding or user insights, and this happens, it can be tempting to respond by taking your hard-won budget, and doing a study that answers all of their questions…at this point in time. Will that let you see everything you need to know?

Snapshots can be really helpful, it’s true. It’s worth considering, though, whether a time exposure might reveal something extra. Setting up a program that opens the aperture to your customers and lets data flow in over time, can reveal patterns in ways that a single study can’t do (no matter how powerful). And sometimes it can be inexpensive to do this, by giving a “camera” to each of your customer-facing colleagues.

Setting up a story bank where their pictures and observations can be gathered and shared is a really useful way to do this. (Don’t know how to start? Let’s talk. We can help.)

I’m Megann Willson, and I’m one of the Partners here at PANOPTIKA. We help our clients see everything they need to know, to make better business and career decisions. Our specialty is finding novel ways to get answers to tricky questions. You can also find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, and for weekly insights and offers, why not subscribe to our Friday news you can use? There’s a button just below to help you do that. Next issue drops around 3pm, so sign up before that and receive your first issue this week.

 
Send me news I can use!

What if we can’t come up with any ideas?

by
Wall with many post-it notes

 
Worse yet, what if we can? 

It’s a funny thing, idea generation. Once the first idea comes, it can sometimes feel like a floodgate has been opened – and it leads to another, and another. Before you know it, you’ve generated more ideas than you know what to do with. How will you ever rein them all in?

Next time, you might want to start by putting some constraints on your ideation process. Take time to frame the session with any limits that are non-negotiable:

1. We only have a thousand dollars to spend
2. There is a one-week timeline to complete the prototype
3. We have to be sure that students can complete the projects without parents’ help

Each constraint allows for a bit of sorting along the way and, surprisingly, often result in even more imaginative solutions.

That’s not the problem at hand, though, so how can you prioritize? This is where frameworks come in handy. Using something like Product Tree will let you use metaphors to narrow down that overwhelming pile of ideas. As an example, the trunk of the tree can represent the job to be done. Branches can stand for approaches, and leaves for ways of implementing that approach. Where the tree really becomes useful, is when you start looking at the roots – they’re the resources, effort, or infrastructure required to actually bring the ideas to fruition. We’ve found that getting people back down to ground level, looking at the roots, is one of the most effective ways we can think of to eliminate ideas that are not possible (or not possible for now).

Every great idea has limits – so the next time you’re planning for creativity, you may want to make life a little easier, by using a framework to establish some constraints.

We’re Megann and Steve Willson, the Partners behind PANOPTIKA. We help you see everything you need to know to make better decisions, so you can find, understand, and engage with your customers. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. If this blog was useful for you and you’d like more ideas like this, subscribe using the handy button, below.

Send me news I can use!