"A well-designed system filled with ordinary—but well-trained—people can consistently achieve stunning performance levels."—Robert I. Sutton What’s the status of your product management team? It’s likely some team members have formal training; others don’t. Some have years of experience; some have just started. They’ve probably got some tools they’ve used in ...
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Pivot is one of those words that some Agile people like to throw around to sound hip and cool, but often use incorrectly. I have observed in many conversations where people use the word "pivot", they tend to mean any type of course correction in product strategy (hey...I've been guilty of ...
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I’m often asked to differentiate product marketing from marketing (or marketing communications, if you prefer). This effort gets confusing for most because of the term “marketing.” I’ve long been uncomfortable with the term “marketing.” For many of us, marketing is a philosophy. Marketing is looking at the business from the ...
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Pricing is all about value. "Must have" capabilities are more expensive than "nice to have." So what's the value to the client? A simple way to look at pricing is to use a 3 by 3 matrix (like a tic-tac-toe game). The vertical axis is cost of doing it myself; ...
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She analyzes synergies, or synergizes analogies... or some such thing.—Edward Norton (as "Father Brian Finn"), Keeping the Faith. Alas, most of us have fairly rudimentary tools. Try to get some help from someone with data mining experience but let’s see what we can do without assistance. Nobody knows the data ...
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My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.—Peter Drucker, American management consultant and author Interviewing is both an art and a science. Knowing when to speak and when to listen. Letting the client expand on an idea but also keeping to your agenda. ...
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Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.—Winston Churchill, British prime minister Every marketing person will tell you that customer interviews provide deep insights on the product, its promotion, your sales team effectiveness, and your company strategy. What they often fail to do is ...
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I was running a positioning exercise with a team of product managers and VPs. We were really getting into it when the VP of Marketing interrupted the process to say, “We need to use the word ‘power’ in our messaging. The president loves that word.” Maybe that’s why so much ...
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In marketing, positioning is the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.—Wikipedia Marketing dragged me into a meeting with a new agency. There, I was asked to talk about the people who buy ...
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"A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world."—John le Carré. It's so easy, isn't it? There's a meeting here, a phone call there; your email keeps filling up. The next thing you know... your calendar is loaded. But the ONE THING product marketing and management people ...
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