Global Product Management Talk

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.  

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 012 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:  David Paulson has over 20 years of product development experience and still remembers his first day at work. That’s when he found out how inefficient the product development process was. He’s been working to fix that ever since. Highlights from the discussion include: Apply Lean product development to cut time to market in half and create successful products – something all innovators want to know how to accomplish! Lean has many different definitions, but in the product development context, it has three specific characteristics: (1) focus on value to the customer, (2) rapidly learn, and (3) maximize desired results while minimizing effort. In addition to the benefits of creating more profitable products, applying Lean product development also impacts the organizational culture, resulting in happier and more effective employees. First time David applied Lean product development to a project, the time-to-market decreased from the expected 30 months to 12 months, finished 20% under budget, and generated an additional $3 million profit by being early to market. Good books on the topic of Lean product development are from Don Reinersten, including “Managing the Design Factory” and “The Principles of Product Development Flow.” Read “Managing the Design Factory” first.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 012 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:  David Paulson has over 20 years of product development experience and still remembers his first day at work. That’s when he found out how inefficient the product development process was. He’s been working to fix that ever since. Highlights from the discussion include: Apply Lean product development to cut time to market in half and create successful products – something all innovators want to know how to accomplish! Lean has many different definitions, but in the product development context, it has three specific characteristics: (1) focus on value to the customer, (2) rapidly learn, and (3) maximize desired results while minimizing effort. In addition to the benefits of creating more profitable products, applying Lean product development also impacts the organizational culture, resulting in happier and more effective employees. First time David applied Lean product development to a project, the time-to-market decreased from the expected 30 months to 12 months, finished 20% under budget, and generated an additional $3 million profit by being early to market. Good books on the topic of Lean product development are from Don Reinersten, including “Managing the Design Factory” and “The Principles of Product Development Flow.” Read “Managing the Design Factory” first.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Cindy F Solomon, the founder of Global Product Management, is also the founder of the Startup Product Academy and other product manage Organizations and events Cindy has created: Global Product Management Talk: This podcast!  The Product Summit: Conference bringing together the community of passionate product professionals, developers, designers, managers and marketers over 4 interactive days of events. Startup Product: Creates and nurtures inclusive local communities for passionate product professionals across disciplines, provides a sandbox for product and skill experimentation, and enables a launch pad forwarding product people, product ideas, product teams, and product success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Cindy F Solomon, the founder of Global Product Management, is also the founder of the Startup Product Academy and other product manage Organizations and events Cindy has created: Global Product Management Talk: This podcast!  The Product Summit: Conference bringing together the community of passionate product professionals, developers, designers, managers and marketers over 4 interactive days of events. Startup Product: Creates and nurtures inclusive local communities for passionate product professionals across disciplines, provides a sandbox for product and skill experimentation, and enables a launch pad forwarding product people, product ideas, product teams, and product success.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Ash Maurya is the author of “Running Lean: How to Iterate from Plan A to a Plan that Works.” Educated as an electrical engineer, he worked in software development before founding his first company, WiredReach. He is now the founder and CEO of Spark59, which equips entrepreneurs to succeed by providing tools, content and coaching. Highlights from the discussion include: The seed for the book “Running Lean” started after exploring the early works of Steve Blank and Eric Ries and the desire to test product concepts more quickly. A “Lean” approach is defined by Ash as one that maximizes quickly learning about the riskiest aspects in product concepts. The core issue in product management is not “Can we build the product” but “Will customers care” if the product is built. The Lean approach involves running small fast experiments to test what customers want and what creates value. The Lean Canvas provides a one-page business model that works as well for startups as it does product managers. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Ash Maurya is the author of “Running Lean: How to Iterate from Plan A to a Plan that Works.” Educated as an electrical engineer, he worked in software development before founding his first company, WiredReach. He is now the founder and CEO of Spark59, which equips entrepreneurs to succeed by providing tools, content and coaching. Highlights from the discussion include: The seed for the book “Running Lean” started after exploring the early works of Steve Blank and Eric Ries and the desire to test product concepts more quickly. A “Lean” approach is defined by Ash as one that maximizes quickly learning about the riskiest aspects in product concepts. The core issue in product management is not “Can we build the product” but “Will customers care” if the product is built. The Lean approach involves running small fast experiments to test what customers want and what creates value. The Lean Canvas provides a one-page business model that works as well for startups as it does product managers. 

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Geoff Peters is one of the nicest and most professional product managers you could meet. I met him at a product management meeting where he described how a faith-based nonprofit, Compassion International, created their first new product in several decades, called Water of Life. To begin creating an innovation capability, Compassion did three things: Implement a phase-gate methodology for managing new product development. Train key employees on the principles of new product development using the NPDP certification process. Create an ideation event that started with a 2-day innovation retreat. Geoff developed the concept of providing safe drinking water, resulting in the Water of Life product, a simple and effective way equipping impoverished families to have clean water.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode 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:  Geoff Peters is one of the nicest and most professional product managers you could meet. I met him at a product management meeting where he described how a faith-based nonprofit, Compassion International, created their first new product in several decades, called Water of Life. To begin creating an innovation capability, Compassion did three things: Implement a phase-gate methodology for managing new product development. Train key employees on the principles of new product development using the NPDP certification process. Create an ideation event that started with a 2-day innovation retreat. Geoff developed the concept of providing safe drinking water, resulting in the Water of Life product, a simple and effective way equipping impoverished families to have clean water.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of... The Everyday Innovator 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:  Brian Ottum is a market research specialist with 30 years experience in new product development. He started as a chemical engineer and joined Procter Gamble, contributing to Charmin, Pampers, and other products you know. He went on to earn a PhD in Market Research. Today, he helps Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Thomson Reuters and other companies with product development. BTW, he also is an amateur astronomer, star gazing since he was 12 years old – and he is serious – while he lives in Michigan, last year he built a remotely controlled telescope station in New Mexico to take advantage of clear skies. Highlights from the discussion include: Qualitative and quantitative approaches to customer research. New product development projects can take on a life of their own and be difficult to make adjustments to once they get rolling – hard to stop the train. If you have customer data that suggests a product will not be successful, it is much better to kill the project quickly than to continue wasting resources on it. The earlier the better. However, this can be a challenge and requires courage. Choose metrics wisely – too often they can be used in unintended ways. Test everything. Never carry ideas into development without first testing them with consumers. Best qualitative research tool is ethnography – observing customers. Best quantitative research tool is conjoint analysis.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of... The Everyday Innovator 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:  Brian Ottum is a market research specialist with 30 years experience in new product development. He started as a chemical engineer and joined Procter Gamble, contributing to Charmin, Pampers, and other products you know. He went on to earn a PhD in Market Research. Today, he helps Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Thomson Reuters and other companies with product development. BTW, he also is an amateur astronomer, star gazing since he was 12 years old – and he is serious – while he lives in Michigan, last year he built a remotely controlled telescope station in New Mexico to take advantage of clear skies. Highlights from the discussion include: Qualitative and quantitative approaches to customer research. New product development projects can take on a life of their own and be difficult to make adjustments to once they get rolling – hard to stop the train. If you have customer data that suggests a product will not be successful, it is much better to kill the project quickly than to continue wasting resources on it. The earlier the better. However, this can be a challenge and requires courage. Choose metrics wisely – too often they can be used in unintended ways. Test everything. Never carry ideas into development without first testing them with consumers. Best qualitative research tool is ethnography – observing customers. Best quantitative research tool is conjoint analysis.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of The Everyday Innovator. 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:  Andrew Warner is the master of learning from entrepreneurs. As the founder of Mixergy, he has interviewed over 1000 entrepreneurs, sharing what they did to become successful. Prior to Mixergy, he was an accomplished entrepreneur with an internet business selling greeting cards that generated over $30M/year in revenue. However, his path was not always paved with successes – he learned from his costly failures and mistakes – and eventually created Mixergy to discover how successful products and companies are created. Highlights from the discussion include: Product innovators and entrepreneurs struggle with the “counter-mind” that tells us our plans will not work An example of the “counter-mind” is wanting to go for a run but your counter-mind telling you that you don’t have time, or knowing that you need to contact customers but your counter-mind telling you that they won’t be interested After spending $300,000 developing an invitation system for events, Andrew realized it was a failure. He had not asked for feedback on the product concept before developing it Talk with potential customers about the product concept to learn about their real problems and how your product can provide value Use an iterative approach to develop and refine product concepts, learning from customers as you go Andrew shared his minimal viable product (MVP) approach he used for creating a training product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of The Everyday Innovator. 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:  Andrew Warner is the master of learning from entrepreneurs. As the founder of Mixergy, he has interviewed over 1000 entrepreneurs, sharing what they did to become successful. Prior to Mixergy, he was an accomplished entrepreneur with an internet business selling greeting cards that generated over $30M/year in revenue. However, his path was not always paved with successes – he learned from his costly failures and mistakes – and eventually created Mixergy to discover how successful products and companies are created. Highlights from the discussion include: Product innovators and entrepreneurs struggle with the “counter-mind” that tells us our plans will not work An example of the “counter-mind” is wanting to go for a run but your counter-mind telling you that you don’t have time, or knowing that you need to contact customers but your counter-mind telling you that they won’t be interested After spending $300,000 developing an invitation system for events, Andrew realized it was a failure. He had not asked for feedback on the product concept before developing it Talk with potential customers about the product concept to learn about their real problems and how your product can provide value Use an iterative approach to develop and refine product concepts, learning from customers as you go Andrew shared his minimal viable product (MVP) approach he used for creating a training product.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of The Everyday Innovator. 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:  Karla Phlypo is an avid dreamer, builder, artist, and scholar. She holds a Ph.D. combining research in social innovation, knowledge management, and decision science. Her background is in automotive product engineering. Although she has many interests, the common thread is contributing to a culture of sharing and innovation through collaboration. Highlights from the discussion include: Karla studied how people participate in innovation environments (open, crowdsourcing, and collaborative communities) Key contributors needed in innovation environments are solution providers that tend to be quiet (may not offer ideas until asked to do so), non-political, and boundary-less with a systems view Organizational innovation is improved by knowledge managers who aid the flow of knowledge in an organization and identification of best practices “Hardy perennials” are not flowers, but problems that keep showing up in product efforts that need to be pruned Idea management systems that collect suggestions for employees can destroy trust when they don’t understand how their ideas are used – they can be counter-productive when not managed properly

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of The Everyday Innovator. 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:  Karla Phlypo is an avid dreamer, builder, artist, and scholar. She holds a Ph.D. combining research in social innovation, knowledge management, and decision science. Her background is in automotive product engineering. Although she has many interests, the common thread is contributing to a culture of sharing and innovation through collaboration. Highlights from the discussion include: Karla studied how people participate in innovation environments (open, crowdsourcing, and collaborative communities) Key contributors needed in innovation environments are solution providers that tend to be quiet (may not offer ideas until asked to do so), non-political, and boundary-less with a systems view Organizational innovation is improved by knowledge managers who aid the flow of knowledge in an organization and identification of best practices “Hardy perennials” are not flowers, but problems that keep showing up in product efforts that need to be pruned Idea management systems that collect suggestions for employees can destroy trust when they don’t understand how their ideas are used – they can be counter-productive when not managed properly