This topic of the week episode is on Product Management Survival Metrics. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by Domonique Signorel, Leah Campbell, Dutch DeVries, May Wong, Eva Beasley, Paul Hatala, Cory Bryan, Adam Thomas, DJ Dailey, and Karen Bell-DeWitt.   Monday Question: What is your approach to evolving your product strategy when facing challenges and/or changes in the market?​ Poll: What is the hardest pillar to build on when changing product strategy? Lightning Round: What...

This topic of the week episode is on Making Product Success Repeatable. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by Dutch DeVries, Jason Weber, Jason Vincelette, Brenda Blazek, Leah Campbell, Joy McCaffrey, Richard Samela, Dominique Signorel, Cory Bryan, DJ Dailey, and May Wong.   Monday Question: How can you make delivering product success repeatable?​ Poll: Which part of product success is hardest to make repeatable? Friday Question: What role should product management play in making...

This topic of the week episode is on Keeping Product Management on Course when Dealing with Cuts. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by Dominique Signorel, Leah Campbell, Calvin Marshall, Richard Samela, Cory Bryan, May Wong, Eva Beasley, Joy McCaffrey, and Paul Hatala.   Monday Question: How do you keep product management on course when dealing with downsizing and budget cuts? Poll: What is the hardest impact of downsizing and budget cuts to overcome? Friday Question: As a product...

This topic of the week episode is on Measuring the Impact of Good Product Management. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by May Wong, Karen Bell-DeWitt, Cory Bryan, Richard Samela, Zach Harris, Leah Campbell, and Dutch DeVries.   Monday Question: How do you measure the impact of good product management? Poll: What metric should senior leadership look at first when assessing the impact of product management? Friday Question: What positive impact from product management is the hardest...

This topic of the week episode is on Health Product Management. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by May Wong, Cory Bryan, Calvin Marshall, Charles Topping, and Joy McCaffrey.   Monday Question: What does healthy product management look like?​ Poll Question: What is the barrier to healthy product management that is the HARDEST to find (or create)? Friday Question 1: As a product leader, what would your approach be to attain healthy product management?​ Friday Question 2: Are you...

This topic of the week episode is on Senior Leadership Support for Product Management. In this episode, Grant and Steve are joined by May Wong, Cory Bryan, Joy McCaffrey, Eva Beasley, Karen Bell-Dewitt, and Zach Harris.   First Question: If you were talking to your senior leadership team on the value of product management, what would be the most important thing to include? Second Question: What is the biggest barrier to Senior Leadership understanding the value of product management? Third...

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by regular panelists Jason Vincelette and  Joy McCaffrey, and first-time panelist Stephen Feldman.  Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "Is there such a thing as agile product management?"  Listen to our conversation on the poll question "How agile is product management in your organization?" Get our take on the following questions: Are agile product management and product management for an agile development team the same or...

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by a great panel including Jason Vincelette,  Paul Hurwitz, Calvin Marshall , Brian Weber, Glenn Pride, and May Wong. Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "Where and how do product and brand overlap?"  Listen to our conversation on the poll question "Can product and brands be successful on their own?" Where "It Depends was the clear winner" Get our take on the following question: "How should product management think about...

This week Steve Johnson and I are joined by one of our largest panels ever with Jason Vincelette, Calvin Marshall, Paul Hurwitz, May Wong, Brian Weber, Glenn Pride, and enjoying the conversation Tracy Hollister. Hear us discuss Monday's question "How do you manage the whole product?" See the results and our thoughts on Wednesday's poll question "What is the hardest part of managing a whole product?" where Managing internal parts of the whole product was the winner. Get our takes on this...

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by regular panelists Dharma Subramanian, Joy McCaffrey, and Calvin Marshall, as well as new panelist Paul Hatala. Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "Why does an organization need product management?" where doing the right things emerged as the leading reason. Listen to our conversation on the poll question "What is the biggest performance impact a company gains by focusing on doing the right things?" Where it depends was the...

The questions we covered are: How do you manage the stress of product management? Poll: What is the leading product management cause of stress and anxiety? As product leaders, what should we be doing to help reduce the levels of stress and anxiety in our product managers? And the lightning round: What would you warn someone new to product about the mental health impacts of being a product manager?  

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "Where does bad product management impact the company the most?" And see Jason, Paul and I discuss that product management may be the most important role in the company, and lack of product management (or good product management) is bad product management. Listen to our conversation on the poll question "What is the leading cause of bad product management?" Where Poor Leadership was the overwhelming winner with 50% of the vote, and...

After Steve and I discuss my poor "Seinfeld" deliver on the question, hear our panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What is the deal with roadmaps? Why do so many teams want them? Listen to the panel discuss why Development was the overwhelming winner in our poll about the most important use case for roadmaps. Get our two-cents on the following questions: What is the strategic role of the roadmap? What is more valuable, the roadmap or the roadmapping process? And get...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "What are the most important business and strategy skills for a product manager to have?" including reviewing a laundry list of skills, including: being a curious empath basic financial literacy maturity discernment impartiality patience ability to ask critical questions in an open and unbiased way understand the market the product serves customer discovery basic financial literacy the ability to speak truth to...

Hear our panel discuss when is the best time to have retrospectives, the difference between post mortems and retrospectives (and how like Win-Loss analysis we need to look at successes and failures), and join Gregg Fenton as he defends his dissertation on retrospectives. Listen to us discuss when we do have retrospectives, the desire for an "all of the above" choice, and how different the answers would have been if we asked, "How often should you do retrospectives?" Get our two-cents on...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "With the Facebook product manager whistleblower in the news, what is a product manager's ethical responsibility with respect to their product(s)?" And her Joy expands on her answer of "Absolute" and her experience with a toxic company. Listen to our conversation on the poll question "Where do you see the biggest opportunity for ethical issues in product?" Where for the first time ever we do a live follow-up poll adding Data,...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What is the value you get from your product management peer network? Where we discuss the differences between networking, having a peer (or peers) to go to one-on-one, and having a networking group of peers (or 3 or 4 dudes in a Slack channel). Hear us discuss the poll on "Where do you go to network with product professionals?" where we acknowledge the great product management community in Atlanta, GA, and Jon discusses the level...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What do senior leaders need to know about product management? Including Anita and Jason teaming for a great answer on the role senior leaders can play as mentors/coaches for product management, and the senior leaders need to know that product management's number one goal is to create great products that customers and users love. Hear why there was pretty much consensus on Finance needing the most predictability, with good...