Earlier this week I spoke at ProjectSummit*BusinessAnalystWorld in Chicago, a conference for business analysts and project managers. Given the audience, I figured Backlog Refinement: “Writing user stories” is not the whole story would be an appropriate presentation. As happened last week, there were some great questions that I thought I’d share along with what I…

I had the opportunity to speak at Agile + DevOpsDays Des Moines today where I delivered Filters not Buckets, prioritization for product people. In the presentation I described a set of prioritization principles and described how to approach prioritization at different stages of the Internal Product Lifecycle. You can get the details from the presentation…

A couple years ago I worked as a freelance product manager at an industrial distributor that had been pieced together after a series of mergers and acquisitions. As a result, the information about their products were spread across multiple systems. The company was trying to follow the industry’s digital transformation trend and every team that…

Last week I was at INDUSTRY 2025 and took copious notes on all of the presentations. My main motivation for doing that was because I was the “official” note taker for the conference. I also take on that assignment because it forces motivates me to pay attention to all the sessions. I find that I…

Here’s a description of how a team I worked with approached testing and dealing with test issues, as well as an explanation as to why we approach testing in this fashion. As a starting point, it’s helpful to establish what outcomes you should expect from testing. Thanks for reading InsideProduct! Subscribe for free to receive…

A common question in product management circles is “what books should I read.” Resisting the urge to mention my own books, or those few books that get enough attention already, I’d like to suggest a book that is particularly well suited for organizations most likely to have internal products. Sense & Respond by Jeff Gothelf…

In honor of week 1 of the 2025 college football season here in the states, I thought I’d share a piece of work advice with a sports angle. I’ve heard it said that the main purpose of managing up is to make your boss’s life easier. Sometimes, making their life easier means making your own…

I came all the way to Ireland this week to see a college football game that I’d usually see in a freezing football stadium in November. It also provides an excuse to spend a week seeing this lovely country in the lead up to the game. To be honest, the game is really just an…

If you’ve been reading InsideProduct for a while, you’ve probably picked up by now that I focus on solving the right problem and ignoring everything else. I’ve found that one, or a small series of discovery sessions are an excellent way to identify what that problem is and also understand the constraints you have on…

One of the interesting (challenging?) aspects of product management is how every organization seems to have its own interpretation of what a product manager actually should do. It gets even more jumbled in those organizations that are trying to adopt product management for internal products and in their IT organizations. I don’t think you’re ever…