I suspect if you asked a collection of people who work in IT, you’d get just as many people who say that designers aren’t necessary as you do people who say they are. I’d suggest the former group is wrong. I’ve always had the impression that internal products can gain a great deal from the…
When organizations go through some form of transformation, they inevitably end up with people who they aren’t sure how they fit in the organizational structure. In other words… Move out or move over Sometimes, especially when organizations get transformation help from accounting firms turned consultancies, they get rid of just about everyone in a particular…
When you read an article on software product management, do you immediately think “that’s a great idea, I’m going to try it out right away!” Or do you think “that’s great for that type of product/company, but it will never work where I’m at?” If you frequently have the latter reaction, chances are you’re reading…
I’ve talked before about how helpful creating examples can be to build a shared understanding of how your product should behave – example mapping. This week I had another reminder about how helpful examples can be. This time it was getting things back on track when I didn’t put examples together earlier. I once worked…
Customers are the people who give your organization money in exchange for some product (or service). In order for that product to appeal to those people, it should satisfy a need they have. If the product you work on for your organization is the thing you’re selling to your customers, the importance of understanding those…
Last week, I explained you can use North Star Metrics to measure impact. During that discussion, I pointed out the North Star Metric is a leading indicator of revenue. As I was writing that letter, I heard this nagging voice in the back of my head. All this talk of revenue is great, but what…
If you’ve ever been part of an organization that has adopted agile approaches you’ve heard some variation of this phrase from your agile coach/scrum master/SAFe consultant: “You must prioritize based on business value!” “Great!” you may have responded, but at least thought, “I’ll do that. Just as soon as you tell me what the heck…
When I meet folks who work on internal products, I often ask “What product do you work on?” I’ve also used that question in workshops to get a feel for the backgrounds and experience of the participants. I frequently get puzzled looks in response to that question and thanks to some feedback from Adrian Reed,…
When I decided InsideProduct should focus on the trials and tribulations that come from working on internal products, I figured I should probably try to get into the heads of the people most directly affected. One group of those people are CIO’s those sometime members of the C- Suite who have struggled over the last…
A couple of weeks ago, I shared my favorite decision making guide – the decision filter. That tool is particularly helpful when you’re trying to decide what to build, and how to build it. It’s not so helpful when you’re deep in the throes of developing and delivering part of your solution and the crap…