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by
Marty Cagan
Started reading
August 9, 2022
But the way most companies do them at this stage to come up with a prioritized roadmap is truly ridiculous and here's why. Remember those two key inputs to every business case? How much money you'll make, and how much it will cost?
It's what I call the two inconvenient truths about product.
The first truth is that at least half of our ideas are just not going to work. There are many reasons for an idea to not work out. The most common is that customers just aren't as excited about this idea as we are.
If that's not bad enough, the second inconvenient truth is that even with the ideas that do prove to have potential, it typically takes several iterations to get the implementation of this idea to the point where it delivers the necessary business value. We call that time to money.
In modern teams, we tackle these risks prior to deciding to build anything. These risks include value risk (whether customers will buy it), usability risk (whether users can figure out how to use it), feasibility risk (whether our engineers can build what we need with the time, skills, and technology we have), and business viability risk (whether this solution also works for the various aspects of our business—sales, marketing, finance, legal, etc.).
Products are defined and designed collaboratively, rather than sequentially.
Finally, it's all about solving problems, not implementing features.
That is, there are two essential high‐level activities in all product teams. We need to discover the product to be built, and we need to deliver that product to market.
Discovery is very much about the intense collaboration of product management, user experience design, and engineering. In discovery, we are tackling the various risks before we write even one line of production software.
Just because we've invested the time and effort to create a robust product does not mean anyone will want to buy it. So, in the product world, we strive to achieve product/market fit.
Every product begins with the people on the cross‐functional product team. How you define the roles, and the people you select to staff the team, will very likely prove to be a determining factor in its success or failure.
Qestion tp Roshan Gupta
It's all about the product team.
“We need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.”
A big part of the concept of product teams is that they are there to solve hard problems for the business. They are given clear objectives, and they own delivering on those objectives.
First, collaboration is built on relationships, and product teams—especially co‐located teams—are designed to nurture these relationships.
Every business depends on customers. And what customers buy—or choose to use—is your product. The product is the result of what the product team builds, and the product manager is responsible for what the product team will build.
Deep Knowledge of the Customer
First and foremost is deep knowledge of the actual users and customers. To make this explicit, you need to become an acknowledged expert on the customer: their issues, pains, desires, how they think—and for business products, how they work, and how they decide to buy.
Deep Knowledge of Your Market and Industry
Further, your industry is constantly moving, and we must create products for where the market will be tomorrow, not where it was yesterday.
To summarize, these are the four critical contributions you need to bring to your team: deep knowledge (1) of your customer, (2) of the data, (3) of your business and its stakeholders, and (4) of your market and industry.
The successful product manager must be the very best versions of smart, creative, and persistent.
Work to establish a strong relationship with your key stakeholders and business partners. Convince them of two things: (1) You understand the constraints they operate under. (2) You will only bring to them solutions that you believe will work within those constraints.
No matter what your title or level may be, if you aspire to be great, don't be afraid to lead.
product companies, it is critical that the product manager also be the product owner.
Introduction to Computer Programming
Courses that a PM should take
Introduction to Business Accounting/Finance
including, but not limited to, lifetime value of customers, average revenue per user/customer, customer acquisition cost, cost of sales, and contribution margins, among others.
Rather than being measured on the output of their design work, the product designer is measured on the success of the product.
will customers first learn about the product? How will we onboard a first‐time user and (perhaps gradually) reveal new functionality? How might users interact at different times during their day? What other things are competing for the user's attention? How might things be different for a one‐month‐old customer versus a one‐year‐old customer? How will we motivate a user to a higher level of commitment to the product? How will we create moments of gratification? How will a user share his experience with others? How will customers receive an offline service? What is the perceived responsiveness
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We need design—not just as a service to make our product beautiful—but to discover the right product.
If that's the way we needed to work, we'd probably continue to use external agencies. But it's not. We need design—not just as a service to make our product beautiful—but to discover the right product.
One last thing to keep in mind: the morale of the engineers is very much a function of you as the product manager.
As you'll soon see, coming up with winning products is never easy. We need a product that our customers love, yet also works for our business.
However, a very large component of what is meant by works for our business is that there is a real market there (large enough to sustain a business), we can successfully differentiate from the many competitors out there, we can cost‐effectively
discovery, and product development process, but execution also means that they know how to work effectively as part of an organization of your size.
The product leader must be able to inspire and motivate the company and get everyone moving in the same direction.
Good product organizations have a strong team, a solid vision, and consistent execution.
A strong product culture means that the team understands the importance of continuous and rapid testing and learning.
Para o handds
They understand that they need to make mistakes in order to learn, but they need to make them quickly and mitigate the risks. They understand the need for continuous innovation. They know that great products are the result of true collaboration. They respect and value their designers and engineers. They understand the power of a motivated product team.
Para o all hands
Even with the greatest product ideas, if you can't build and launch your product, it remains just an idea.
One of the absolute hardest assignments in our industry is to try to cause dramatic change in a large and financially successful company.
Realize that typical product roadmaps are all about output. Yet, good teams are asked to deliver business results.
Most of the product world has the same definition for product roadmap, but there are a few variations. I define product roadmap as a prioritized list of features and projects your team has been asked to work on.
There are a few product teams out there that have modified their product roadmaps so that each item is stated as a business problem to solve rather than the feature or project that may or may not solve it. These are called outcome‐based roadmaps.
Its primary purpose is to communicate this vision and inspire the teams (and stakeholders, investors, partners—and, in many cases, prospective customers) to want to help make this vision a reality.
What is the product vision
When done well, the product vision is one of our most effective recruiting tools, and it serves to motivate the people on your teams to come to work every day.
Strong technology people are drawn to an inspiring vision—they want to work on something meaningful.
The product strategy is our sequence of products or releases we plan to deliver on the path to realizing the product vision.
