Global Product Management Talk

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 020 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Eric P. Rose, NPDP, MBA, has developed new products in many sectors including consumer, healthcare, and industrial safety. He is an inventor with over 80 patents, teaches innovation at Pepperdine, and is certified as a New Product Development Professional – the NPDP certification.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 020 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Gayle Laakmann McDowell is an experienced software engineer, having worked at Google, Microsoft, and Apple. In 2008 she founded CareerCup, a company to help people get tech jobs and assist tech companies with their interviewing process. She also authored “Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology.” Highlights from the discussion include: The 4 Framework: Employers what product managers with skills in four areas: Technology: the technology related to the work the company does. For example, a product manager should understand software development if they work for a company that creates software applications. Business: knowledge of marketing, sales, production, etc.,  practices, managing and motivating others, and aligning product management objectives to business objectives. Industry: specific domain knowledge of the industry. For example, if you’re creating software applications for the finance industry, financial skills and knowledge of the industry. Product: the ability to think like the user, develop solutions to their problem, and manage the process and people for creating a product. The priorities of the four skill areas do differ based on company. For example, Amazon emphasizes business skills first while Google emphasizes technology skills first. Determine what is important for the companies you wish to interview with before you get into the interview.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 020 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Gayle Laakmann McDowell is an experienced software engineer, having worked at Google, Microsoft, and Apple. In 2008 she founded CareerCup, a company to help people get tech jobs and assist tech companies with their interviewing process. She also authored “Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology.” Highlights from the discussion include: The 4 Framework: Employers what product managers with skills in four areas: Technology: the technology related to the work the company does. For example, a product manager should understand software development if they work for a company that creates software applications. Business: knowledge of marketing, sales, production, etc.,  practices, managing and motivating others, and aligning product management objectives to business objectives. Industry: specific domain knowledge of the industry. For example, if you’re creating software applications for the finance industry, financial skills and knowledge of the industry. Product: the ability to think like the user, develop solutions to their problem, and manage the process and people for creating a product. The priorities of the four skill areas do differ based on company. For example, Amazon emphasizes business skills first while Google emphasizes technology skills first. Determine what is important for the companies you wish to interview with before you get into the interview.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 019 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Ethan Appleby is a Design Thinking practitioner and coach. He used Design Thinking to create the last company he founded, Vango, which makes it easy for anyone to select and purchase original art. In the interview he shares the 5 steps of Design Thinking. Empathy: learning about the audience you are designing for. Be curious instead of leading the conversation to a conclusion you already formed. Definition: constructing a point of view organized by needs and insights, based on your results from step 1. Ideation: a group brainstorming process to generate ideas using the “yes and…” technique to build upon each others’ ideas and create as many as possible in short sprints. Another tool is to ask “how might we…” focused on specific constraints. A sprint is a few minutes of individual ideation followed by sharing of ideas, then using “yes and” to build on ideas. Additional sprints are conducted on other needs and insights and to further explore specific ideas. Constrain ideation to 3 hours. Prototype: building a representation of one of your ideas to show others. When you build something you discover more about the problem. Keep it simple – playdough, clay, tape, etc. Testing: Show prototype to potential users and customers to get their feedback. The goal is to continue learning about the customers’ core problem and solutions that provide them value.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 019 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Ethan Appleby is a Design Thinking practitioner and coach. He used Design Thinking to create the last company he founded, Vango, which makes it easy for anyone to select and purchase original art. In the interview he shares the 5 steps of Design Thinking. Empathy: learning about the audience you are designing for. Be curious instead of leading the conversation to a conclusion you already formed. Definition: constructing a point of view organized by needs and insights, based on your results from step 1. Ideation: a group brainstorming process to generate ideas using the “yes and…” technique to build upon each others’ ideas and create as many as possible in short sprints. Another tool is to ask “how might we…” focused on specific constraints. A sprint is a few minutes of individual ideation followed by sharing of ideas, then using “yes and” to build on ideas. Additional sprints are conducted on other needs and insights and to further explore specific ideas. Constrain ideation to 3 hours. Prototype: building a representation of one of your ideas to show others. When you build something you discover more about the problem. Keep it simple – playdough, clay, tape, etc. Testing: Show prototype to potential users and customers to get their feedback. The goal is to continue learning about the customers’ core problem and solutions that provide them value.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 018 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Kriti Vichare writes about the life of  innovators and entrepreneurs as a doodler/cartoonist at #Entrepreneur Fail. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Under30CEO, and Business2Community, plus many more. She also serves as the Director of Innovation for the United States Postal Service and previously worked for PepsiCo as a Senior Marketing Manager and Kraft Foods as an Associate Brand Manager. Highlights from the discussion include: Kriti describes her career path as a cartoonist would – started in statistics, moved to selling juice, and now sells mail for a living. At Kraft, Kriti managed the Tang product (originally an orange drink made from powder popularized when NASA astronauts drank it in space), and learned through market research that a trend among Tang drinkers had changed. Reformulating Tang to use real sugar brought customers back. Kriti learned the most about innovation and product management when she left the corporate world and founded her own startup.  She skipped validating her product idea with potential customers and plummeted into creating it. After floundering for a bit, she read the Lean Startup and started applying concepts she was already familiar with, such as the Minimum Viable Product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 018 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Kriti Vichare writes about the life of  innovators and entrepreneurs as a doodler/cartoonist at #Entrepreneur Fail. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Under30CEO, and Business2Community, plus many more. She also serves as the Director of Innovation for the United States Postal Service and previously worked for PepsiCo as a Senior Marketing Manager and Kraft Foods as an Associate Brand Manager. Highlights from the discussion include: Kriti describes her career path as a cartoonist would – started in statistics, moved to selling juice, and now sells mail for a living. At Kraft, Kriti managed the Tang product (originally an orange drink made from powder popularized when NASA astronauts drank it in space), and learned through market research that a trend among Tang drinkers had changed. Reformulating Tang to use real sugar brought customers back. Kriti learned the most about innovation and product management when she left the corporate world and founded her own startup.  She skipped validating her product idea with potential customers and plummeted into creating it. After floundering for a bit, she read the Lean Startup and started applying concepts she was already familiar with, such as the Minimum Viable Product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 017 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Greg Geracie is an experienced product manager, author of the best selling book “Take Charge Product Management,” as well as editor and chief of the “ProdBOK – The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge.”   Highlights from the discussion include: Product Managers in the past did not have a guide or reference book that summarized the product management body of knowledge, not until Greg led the creation of the “ProdBOK – The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge.” The ProdBOK, created by 60 industry and thought leaders and co-edited by MIT professor Steven D. Eppinger, provides a foundation for the product management profession, standardizing terminology, processes, and tools, much as the PMBOK has done for project managers. The Association of International Product Marketers and Managers (AIPMM) sponsored the creation of the ProdBOK. The ProdBOK is organized in three primary sections: History of product management, spanning the last 70 years. The section also includes terms the practitioner should know as well as fundamental concepts. Product management processes from the conception of product ideas through product launch and finally to product retirement. Key product management tools most product managers should apply.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 017 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Greg Geracie is an experienced product manager, author of the best selling book “Take Charge Product Management,” as well as editor and chief of the “ProdBOK – The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge.”   Highlights from the discussion include: Product Managers in the past did not have a guide or reference book that summarized the product management body of knowledge, not until Greg led the creation of the “ProdBOK – The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge.” The ProdBOK, created by 60 industry and thought leaders and co-edited by MIT professor Steven D. Eppinger, provides a foundation for the product management profession, standardizing terminology, processes, and tools, much as the PMBOK has done for project managers. The Association of International Product Marketers and Managers (AIPMM) sponsored the creation of the ProdBOK. The ProdBOK is organized in three primary sections: History of product management, spanning the last 70 years. The section also includes terms the practitioner should know as well as fundamental concepts. Product management processes from the conception of product ideas through product launch and finally to product retirement. Key product management tools most product managers should apply.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 016 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Nis Frome is the producer of a new podcast for product managers and developers called, “This is Product Management,” which is sponsored by Alpha UX. He is also the Director of Demand Generation at Alpha UX, a software validation platform that provides real-time user insights.  Highlights from the discussion include: The importance of storytelling is learning the story of the customer – making sense of the customer’s problem and the best solution that provides the most value. The podcast, “This is Product Management,” that Nis produces emphasizes digital products, but the content is applicable to anyone working on products in companies, regardless if you are a product manager or not. Instead of MVPs, large organizations should think in terms of minimal viable experiments – quickly running low-cost experiments to test hypotheses and learn what the customer needs. Of the topics covered so far on the This is Product Management Podcast, demand validation is one Nis explored further during our interview. Demand validation occurs before optimizing a product and involves a single type of experiment that demonstrates at least one customer is interested in the product concept – getting from zero customers to one customer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 016 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Nis Frome is the producer of a new podcast for product managers and developers called, “This is Product Management,” which is sponsored by Alpha UX. He is also the Director of Demand Generation at Alpha UX, a software validation platform that provides real-time user insights.  Highlights from the discussion include: The importance of storytelling is learning the story of the customer – making sense of the customer’s problem and the best solution that provides the most value. The podcast, “This is Product Management,” that Nis produces emphasizes digital products, but the content is applicable to anyone working on products in companies, regardless if you are a product manager or not. Instead of MVPs, large organizations should think in terms of minimal viable experiments – quickly running low-cost experiments to test hypotheses and learn what the customer needs. Of the topics covered so far on the This is Product Management Podcast, demand validation is one Nis explored further during our interview. Demand validation occurs before optimizing a product and involves a single type of experiment that demonstrates at least one customer is interested in the product concept – getting from zero customers to one customer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 015 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Rowan Gibson is a best-selling author and sought after speaker. His latest book is “The Four Lenses of Innovation.”  Earlier this year he received the 2015 Global Leader of Innovation Award. Highlights from the discussion include:  How do we come up with the important insights that lead to breakthrough ideas? That is the purpose of the “4 Lenses” – a focus on the front end of the fuzzy front end. First Lens.  Challenging Orthodoxies, which is questioning entrenched beliefs and assumptions and then exploring new and unconventional answers. These are people who don’t want to just play the game, they want to reinvent the game. Second Lens. Harnessing Trends – recognizing the future potential of emerging developments and leveraging those trends to open new opportunities. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is a good example of “harnessing trends” by seeing how the growth of internet usage would impact commerce. Third Lens. Leveraging Resources, which involves understanding our limitless capacity for redeploying skills and assets in new ways, combinations, or contexts. Rowan shared that Walt Disney, the person and the company, are good examples of leveraging resources. Fourth Lens. Understanding Needs – paying attention to issues and frustrations others have ignored and experimenting with new solutions to problems. A way to identify unmet needs is to ask what is wrong with a product or service from the perspective of a customer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 015 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Rowan Gibson is a best-selling author and sought after speaker. His latest book is “The Four Lenses of Innovation.”  Earlier this year he received the 2015 Global Leader of Innovation Award. Highlights from the discussion include:  How do we come up with the important insights that lead to breakthrough ideas? That is the purpose of the “4 Lenses” – a focus on the front end of the fuzzy front end. First Lens.  Challenging Orthodoxies, which is questioning entrenched beliefs and assumptions and then exploring new and unconventional answers. These are people who don’t want to just play the game, they want to reinvent the game. Second Lens. Harnessing Trends – recognizing the future potential of emerging developments and leveraging those trends to open new opportunities. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is a good example of “harnessing trends” by seeing how the growth of internet usage would impact commerce. Third Lens. Leveraging Resources, which involves understanding our limitless capacity for redeploying skills and assets in new ways, combinations, or contexts. Rowan shared that Walt Disney, the person and the company, are good examples of leveraging resources. Fourth Lens. Understanding Needs – paying attention to issues and frustrations others have ignored and experimenting with new solutions to problems. A way to identify unmet needs is to ask what is wrong with a product or service from the perspective of a customer.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 014 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Lee Martucci is a marketing professional and certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) with over 25 years of experience with numerous roles in product management, from telecommunications and cell phone services to building materials. He is currently helping GAF. You likely know this company if you have been involved in building, repairing your roof, or walking through Home Depot or Lowes, where their roofing shingles and sealants are sold. Highlights from the discussion include: How to get your start in product management and overcome the classic catch-22 – job descriptions require prior experience as a product manager. A job description is a wish-list and you need to learn how to position your experience to best meet the job description. One way to switch industries as a product manager. How to frame the lack of industry experience as a real benefit to a future employer by having fresh eyes that lead to valuable innovations. Learn product management from others, experts who author credible books and provide training, and professional organizations, such as PDMA, AIPMM, and meetups. Observing customers and interviews are important tools for understanding customers’ preferences and finding new insights about problems. Partners have keen customer insights that can lead to successful new products. Recognizing growing trends in an industry and market and timing trends correctly can position new products for great success.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 013 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Paul Freed. Paul knows a lot about what companies are looking for when they hire people for product management. He has been a recruiter for 20 years, helping companies from startups to global organizations hire product managers and developers, as well as other professionals.  Highlights from the discussion include: Product managers are needed to build the right product – one customers value. If you are dissatisfied with your current work as a product manager, here are Paul’s three steps to making a change: Fix your attitude – are you giving the job the effort it deserves? Fix your role – does it allow you to play to your strengths? Fix your business card logo – look for an organization with the culture you want. When it comes time to make the move to another company, keep these points in mind: Know yourself – tools like StrengthFinder 2.0 and  temperament assessments are helpful. Broaden your perspective – consider options beyond the usual companies. Narrow your focus – create a target list. Involve your friends and professional network Tell your story in a compelling way – make yourself stand out from the crowd.