Magnus Billgren of Tolpagorni Product Management talks with Rich Mironov about the importance of roadmaps as part of a coherent product strategy. How do we handle customer requests that are not in plan?
Video: Importance of Roadmapping
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Tag Archives: requirements
Santa Clara MBA Lecture on PM and NPD
Prof. Kumar Sarangee of Santa Clara’s Leavey School of Business invited Rich Mironov to be a guest lecturer for his Product Market Planning and Strategy class. SCU’s Evening MBA program attracts some of the brightest students from the Valley, with a tradition of providing leadership back to technology companies. Continue reading
A Journey of 1000 Miles is Still 1000 Miles Long
It’s easy to confuse actual progress with intentions to make progress.
Why point out the obvious? I’ve just come out of another agile conversation where prospective clients confused “we want to build better software faster” with “we hope that some new processes will instantly catch us up on years of slipped deadlines and missing features.”
So paraphrasing Confucius, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but is still a thousand miles long. Even at twice your normal walking speed, be prepared for a very long slog.”
For context, nearly every software development team would like to be more productive, ship better product, and be innovative. Almost by definition, though, those with the biggest productivity issues are the furthest behind – with months (years) of unmet customer requirements and technical debt. Continue reading
“What If Dev Doesn’t Think Prod Mgmt Represents Customers?”
Recently, I put up a small assessment tool for product management teams. This tool is intended to generate discussion and highlight areas for team improvement. Several PMs had follow-up comments and questions along the lines of “what should we do if we’re scored ourselves poorly on a specific item?”
There are no generic prescriptions for improvement, especially in product management. It’s worth drilling into an individual item or two, though, and imagining how we might analyze the situation and take corrective action. Continue reading
Very simple customer savings/ROI template
One of the first things I ask about with a new product team is “how will a customer justify paying for your product?”
An apparently simple question, but I often get blank stares. Here’s a thumbnail of the problem and the process, along with a tiny spreadsheet template. Continue reading
Profitably Pairing Software and Professional Services
Wearing our software product management hats, it’s easy to think that all problems should be solved with software. (To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.) Software PMs need to be looking for opportunities to combine professional services with software – because services can be highly profitable, meet customer needs more quickly, and market-test ideas for future products. Continue reading
Understanding the Opportunities of Buy-Side Economics
As CEOs of our products, we product managers have a lot to do. Traditionally, this has included “build-versus-buy” decisions. The debate often hinged on whether technical tasks were “core” or just “context”. Over the last decade, this has shifted from “build-versus-buy” to “buy-versus-buy” as we balance more kinds of internal and external resources. Here are some thoughts on sizing various “buying” opportunities to keep products shipping and revenue flowing. Continue reading
Customer Input and Planning Horizons (Haas Executive Education)
Rich Mironov returned to the Haas School’s Product Management Executive Education series, “Product Management: Translating Market Opportunities into Profitability,” for a lecture on product management titled “Customer Input Approaches and the Product Planning Horizon”. This session included an in-person version of the Innovation Game “Buy A Feature.” In a program primarily taught by Haas’ distinguished faculty, Rich was (at the time) the only product management practitioner on the program’s teaching staff.
Where: Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, CA
When: Tuesday, November 4, 2008 (the full program runs Nov 3 through 7)
The Berkeley Center for Executive Development draws on the rich resources, 
talent and perspectives of top-level business educators and researchers from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and elsewhere to provide top-level executive education courses and custom programs to executives and companies around the world. This includes specific programs in Leadership, Finance, Marketing, and General Management – including Product Management. The 2008 Product Management program draws on The Haas School’s own professors as well as expert practitioners in the field. Rich Mironov is honored to be part of this distinguished group.
Grocers and Chefs: Software Service Models
This article captured an April 2007 talk I did at SVPMA. The original slide deck is here.
I’m talking with more and more with companies considering a shift from traditional licensing models to hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS). It’s important to recognize the radical changes such a move may force within your entire company. This column serves up a metaphor for the mental and organizational adjustments needed to move from a “product” model to a service business. Continue reading
Avoiding the Post-Course Correction
As early as 1961, Soviet and American space scientists planned for mid-course corrections: those tiny bursts of rocket power designed to keep spacecraft on their trajectories to the Moon, Mars and beyond. With such long voyages, mid-course corrections are crucial to keeping space flights on track with the minimum of effort – and reserving fuel for later adjustments.
The high-tech opposite of this is something I’ve come to think of as the “post-course correction.” This is the panicky “oops” moment when your startup realizes – much too late – that its core strategy and assumptions are flawed. In space terms, you’ve missed the moon and don’t have enough resources left for dramatic course changes. There’s still air in the cabin (money in the bank), but little hope of a soft landing. Continue reading