Can You Manage Requirements Using Bug Trackers Like Bugzilla and JIRA? The Surprising Answer!

I often get the following question when chatting with friends and acquaintances who work at high-tech startups here in Silicon Valley:

Why can’t we manage requirements using bug trackers like Bugzilla and JIRA?

This is a great question, and my answer may surprise you – knowing that I work for Accompa, a company that makes a popular requirements management software!

Here’s my answer to this question… [Read more…]

What Product Management Teams Can Learn from Apple Stores

I read a nice blog post on the Harvard Business Review website by Rob Johnson who worked with Steve Jobs to create the wildly successful Apple Stores. The following quote caught my eye:

So the challenge for retailers isn’t “how do we mimic the Apple Store” or any other store that seems like a good model. It’s a very different problem, one that’s conceptually similar to what Steve Jobs faced with the iPhone. He didn’t ask, “How do we build a phone that can achieve a two percent market share?” He asked, “How do we reinvent the telephone?” In the same way, retailers shouldn’t be asking, “How do we create a store that’s going to do $15 million a year?” They should be asking, “How do we reinvent the store to enrich our customers’ lives?” (emphasis mine)

This is a great point, and is especially important for product managers building high-tech products to embrace.

Here’s why… [Read more…]

Why Product Managers Should Avoid Product Complexity

I recently came across a blog post by The Cranky Product Manager about product-line complexity. It’s an entertaining post. More importantly, it makes good points regarding the pitfalls of complexity. In this post, I will share my thoughts on this.

Product and product line complexity happens when we add too many features or when we add overly complex features. Often this happens over time as a product “matures”. It can also happen because of lack of rigor when writing requirements. When it happens, both your customers and your company suffer.

Here is a short list of… [Read more…]

Product Management vs. Product Marketing: Who is Responsible for “In-Product” Messaging?

Recently I saw a question on LinkedIn:

Product Management or Product Marketing, who is responsible for messaging in the product to convert trial users to paying customers?

This is a great question, and is especially important for companies building SaaS applications.

Here is my opinion… [Read more…]

How a Director/VP of Product Management Can Develop His/Her Team

Just saw a nice blog post by Marty Cagan. If you are a:

  • Director of Product Management
  • VP of Product Management
  • Or aspire to be one of the above (I think that should cover just about everybody in product management, don’t you think?!)

, then check out Marty’s post.

Having said that, there is one point about which I don’t fully agree with Marty. That point is… [Read more…]