Category: Fundamentals
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The Utility and Context-Dependence of MVP’s
Eric Ries popularized the concept of the minimum viable product, often referred to as MVP, in his 2011 book The Lean Startup. In listening to a recent conversation with him on Lenny’s Podcast, Ries noted that the concept of the MVP has been heavily misconstrued over the years. It seems that many founders and entrepreneurs…
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Navigating Biases to Enhance Product Development
With human beings so susceptible to various cognitive biases, it’s useful to proactively consider some common biases that could impact product development. I composed a brief, non-exhaustive list including quick explanations and relevance. Hopefully, by keeping these biases top of mind, product builders can avoid falling prey to them. Selection Bias – A sub-group of…
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Issues with Consensus-Driven Product Development
In listening to Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast with Sanchan Saxena (linked here), Sanchan briefly touches upon the perils of consensus-driven decision making in the context of building great products. He describes how closely listening to all of the relevant internal stakeholders and then working to please them by incorporating their feedback into the product or feature…
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Design Principles
For PM’s without a formal background in design, there are a few core principles that are helpful to keep in mind. Simplicity. One of the most fundamental design principles is simplicity. Product teams sometimes lose sight of the goal of delivering value to users in an intuitive way. Flashy or more complex features may be…
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Outcomes Orientation
A common pitfall for product development teams is to churn out features that do not end up moving the needle on key outcomes in any discernible way. While this may be unavoidable in certain scenarios, it should be relatively infrequent in well-functioning product development teams. So, why does this scenario play out so often? The…
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Defining Product Strategy
Product strategy is often considered the domain of senior product leaders and executives, but it’s important for junior product managers and other cross-functional partners to be aware of the product strategy and to understand how that strategy is shaping their work. Let’s define product strategy. Jackie Bavaro is one of the best product leaders at…
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Defining Product Management
Product management tends to vary greatly by company due to factors including lifecycle stage, structure, and culture, among others. My general definition of product management is as follows: Product management (PM) is deeply understanding a problem space, prioritizing based on evidence, and aligning internal stakeholders to develop and implement solutions that drive user and business…
Growth Mindset 