Welcome to the New and Improved Product Management Blog!

I’m currently moving my Product Management blog from Blogger.com to WordPress so my apologies for the lack of content right now and sadly I’ve had to delete all the comments and discussions since they are not easily portable at this time. Hopefully before the end of the month or mid-April 2008 the transition will be complete and you’ll be able to browser the dozens of posts, graphs and articles from the last year and a half.

I’ve added a few of the older articles for now but I’m still working on importing the following articles:

• Market Segmentation
• Marketing Mix
• Scrum and Agile Methodologies
• Different Types of Product Road Maps
• Different Types of Requirement Documents
• Competitive Feature Matrix
• Grass Roots Marketing Strategies
• Achieving Results Through Strategic Partnerships
• Evangelism Time-lines
• Competitive Analysis
• Value Center Based Product Development and Schedule Drivers
• Drivers for Feature Improvements
• Effective Beta Programs
• Web 2.0 Strategy
• Performing Product Reviews
• Personalities in the Product Management World
• User Acceptance Testing
• Analyzing User Acceptance Tests
• Focus Groups
• Product Manager Traits
• Hiring Good Product Managers
• Launch Criteria
• Requirements Analysis

I’ll be porting over these and other recent Product Management blogs but probably none of the trading articles. I’m going to be on the sidelines for the next few months! I’d advise the same to you too! Check back soon!

In the meantime, Happy Surfing! – Matt.

Portfolio: Here
LinkedIn Profile: Here

Weighing Feature Priorities

As a follow-up to my previous article on “What to build and when” I thought I would share a more detailed view of how I often weigh different features to decide what should be built in relation to the overall time-line of a product. I use a simple Feature Prioritization Matrix that allows me to go beyond simple prioritization scoring and provides a way to formulate objective priorities based on pain points, impact on revenue, and other important factors and business criteria. Going beyond being able to score features using these factors/business criteria we can also weigh the overall factor which will provide further prioritization granularity and clarity to the decision making process.

In the Spreadsheet below you will see I’ve listed the a). the feature, b). provided details on why the feature is important and then c). created a number of columns which house the prioritization factor which allows me to score the factors on a scale of 0-5 — I sometimes use scales of 0-7 if there are more features to prioritize.

Weighing
I have also shown how these columns can be weighted. Your weights must add up to 100 across all columns -for obvious reasons. The weighting allows us to build consensus with the stakeholders as well as the executive team. This is an important step in assuring buy-in of the prioritization decisions.

The Patent Reform Act of 2007

The proposed Patent Reform Act of 2007 will be coming up for a vote in the Senate in a few months. A similar version of the bill has already past. Since many of us work closely with patent issues and submissions it’s important to pay close attention to these proposals as they may have broad implications on the products we work with.

The Patent Reform Act of 2007 is a proposal introduced in the 110th United States Congress for changes in United States patent law. Democratic Congressman Howard Berman introduced the House of Representatives bill on 18 April 2007. Democratic Party Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Senate bill on 18 April 2007. The bills broadly resemble the proposed Patent Reform Act of 2005 which would have enacted many of the proposals recommended by a 2003 report by the Federal Trade Commission and a 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences. – source Wikipedia.

Here are some of the revisions being proposed in this act:

• Defining “inventor” to include a joint inventor and co-inventor.

• Revising procedures for patent interference disputes.

• Revising requirements for an inventor’s oath or declaration to allow substitute statements in specified circumstances (e.g., death or disability) and supplemental and corrected statements.

• Allowing a third party assignee (other than the inventor) or a person with a proprietary interest to file a patent application.

• Modifying provisions relating to damages for patent infringement to:
  1. require a court to conduct an analysis of a patent’s specific contribution over prior art;
  2. allow increased damages for willfull patent infringement; and
  3. expand the prior user defense.

• Renaming the Board of Patent Appeals as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. (Also, revising provisions relating to the Board’s composition, duties, and authorities).

• Allowing a person who is not the patent owner to file a petition with the Board to cancel a patent as invalid (post-grant review). Would also set forth procedures for the consideration of such petitions, including provisions to prevent harassment of patent owners and abuse of process.

• Allowing third parties to submit documents relevant to the examination of a patent application.

• Revising venue requirements for civil patent actions against individuals and corporations to allow actions to be brought in the judicial district where either party resides (currently, where the defendant resides) or where the corporation has its principal place of business or was incorporated.

Issue Tracking and Feature Enhancement Logging

As a product hits the market it’s important to keep improving the offering for future builds, there’s a million ways of keeping track of enhancements.  To perform this job there are many approaches from specialized software to simple custom spreadsheets.  After using a multitude of solutions over the years I prefer to employ a flexible approach using a very simple spreadsheet.

I’m currently a big BIG fan of Google’s online office tools at google.com/a. These tools allow users to post a document and share it with the key stakeholders in a collaborative environment, allowing multiple users to view and edit, and even chat online about entries…. More on Google Apps later…. Here’s how I generally track issues and enhancement ideas using a simple spreadsheet format:

Each issue is given a date, short description, status (Open, Resolved, Closed), Location in the application/product, person logging the issue, issue priority (Urgent, High, Medium, Low), resolution (when resolved) and finally the name of the person who has tested the fix to determine whether the issue has been resolved correctly.

Knowing What to Build and When

Something that’s always challenging for product managers is to know what to spend time on building and when. What will provide the best user value at any given time? There are a number of ways to make a determination but there’s also the pit falls to avoid, for example many development teams love the complex projects that cause them the greatest challenges, however these projects often provide low value for the end user. So what must be done is to estimate complexity and value that the feature will deliver.

It seems pretty obvious at first on how to determine priority, obviously the upper left quadrant should always be developed first. Low in complexity and high in value… No brainer right? Right. The second priority is somewhat less easy to identify; I personally would argue that the lower left quadrant (2) should in most cases be pushed out second, then moving to the more complex but higher value projects/features (3). With the fourth quadrant (4) being avoided until an easier way to deploy can be realized, with changes in technology and manufacturing processes this may well happen so keep these features documented and on your radar. I’ve also marked a section that may lend itself to further discovery such as conducting focus groups or IDI’s to determine priority.

In the future I’ll write more on this topic and show how I use more in-depth analysis to determine priorities using a Feature Prioritization Matrix.

Doing the Most with the Least

I’ve been working on a grass roots marketing plan recently, putting together ideas and trying to construct a plan that gets me the best bang for my buck. I know my audience, I have a good idea (based on market research) as to their habits, where they visit online, what they read and how likely they are to spending their time with “junk mail”. But how can I best influence them into using my product? This quandary led me to creating the following line of thought, in principle it’s simple and in reality it’s been a success for me personally over the years but it wasn’t until now that I’ve actually illustrated it.

What I’ve constructed is a pyramid of influence of sorts. We’re all familiar with the food pyramid and this is somewhat similar but suggests that by correct execution the groups at the top of the pyramid can influence the groups below while the lower groups have leverage over those with influence above (If the user has a need the market will respond, etc).

Getting access to the media (the correct media) can possibly influence everyone below in a more cost effective manor than reaching out to those users with direct marketing. I’ve illustrated the group that may best be used for grass roots marketing.

I’ve illustrated on the chart above that targeting the consumer via traditional sources such as direct mail, etc. can often be cost prohibitive and reap poor results in return. While targeting tiers above can give you much better “bang for your buck”.

Mind Mapping

I’ve been preparing a new product for market launch and there are so many pieces of the puzzle to keep track of and sometimes a project plan can provide a little too much information and it’s also entirely possible to spend much more time with project plans than necessary when trying to get an overall view of tasks ahead or project components that need to be tracked daily.

A mind map is similar to a semantic network or cognitive map but there are no formal restrictions on the kinds of links used. I find using Mind Maps is a great way of getting a view of a project at a glance, to see what issues may be on the horizon or simply used as a advanced to-do list. Whatever the use — when it comes to tracking tasks Mind Maps can be a great tool to have in your arsenal as a Product Manager.

See the example below that I produced using MindMeister.com (I’ve listed a number of Mind Mapping services below). The example shows the project (Code Named “Zone), as you can see the project is positioned in the center with key project components linked on the first level, the second level breaks those component into component pieces that can be tracked with more detail. I also employ a number of easy to identify symbols that allow me to get a quick comprehension of the status of the component piece. For example, using MindMeister.com I employ the quarter square for almost every component showing in 4 stages the progress of that particular item. I also use to great success the collaboration features of MindMeister to share the maps and collaborate on them with team members.

Here’s a list of Mind Mapping tools that are worth a look:

The Brain – Online Mind Mapping application

MindMeister — Online mind mapping tool with real-time collaboration facility and offline mode

OpenMind — Mind mapping, brain storming, project planning, timelines, XML-support, interoperability with Microsoft Office

NovaMind — Flexible branch shapes, a branch proposal system, integrated screenplay support, OPML export

SmartDraw– Microsoft Word & PDF export, basic automation

MindManager — Integrates with Microsoft Office.

The Effective Simplicity of S.W.O.T. Analysis

SWOT analysis is a straightforward, basic operating model that if done right can provide direction and serves as a basis for the development of marketing plans. It achieves this by assessing an operations strengths (what an organization can do) and weaknesses (what an organization cannot do) in addition to opportunities (potential favorable conditions for an organization) and threats (potential unfavorable conditions for an organization). SWOT analysis is an important step in planning and its value is often underestimated despite its simplicity.

It’s a good idea for every business to perform a SWOT Analysis on occasion, especially if you are doing strategic planning, contemplating a change in direction or formulating new strategies for distribution, marketing and sales.

The purpose of SWOT analysis is to take the information from environmental analysis and segment it into internal issues (strengths and weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats). Once this is completed, SWOT analysis determines if the information indicates something that will assist the product team in accomplishing its objectives (a strength or opportunity), or if it indicates an obstacle that must be overcome or minimized to achieve desired results (weakness or threat)

SWOT analysis is no crystal ball but it will allow you to get a snapshot of where you stand that can help you guide important marketing and development plans.

Simple example:

In addition to the standard SWOT analysis is the more robust market opportunities model of the Six Forces Analysis. This model identifies the following to create an opportunities snapshot:

• Competition
• New entrants
• End users/Buyers
• Suppliers
• Substitutes
• Complementary products/ The government/ The public.

I look forward to illustrating the uses of this model in a future Blog.

Making Informed Decisions with Market Research

Since the right business decision can be the difference between success and failure. Lets discuss how to make informed decisions.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative research

If you have carried out market research then you will be familiar with common qualitative and quantitative research tools such as in-depth one-on-one interviews (qualitative) and mall intercepts (quantitative). Qualitative market research is generally confined to small groups of participants, often focus groups that are led by a moderator. The objective is to establish a discussion about product experience, features, user needs and user pain points, etc.

The type of research you choose to conduct may fall into either of these types of research depending on the information you are seeking. Both quantitative and qualitative market research have specific applications but at times using both can give a more complete picture.

A common use of quantitative research is to give hard evidence to support something uncovered in qualitative research. For example, the importance of qualitative market research is that it gives us an insight that the reason people don’t see value in a certain product feature. The reason being that is that the feature doesn’t perform the job correctly in terms of the audiences adopted standards. Quantitative research methods could substantiate this, giving enough hard facts for us to believe that this represents the feelings of the majority of the potential users.

Although there are clear differences between qualitative and quantitative market research the decision to choose a particular methodology and the associated qualitative and quantitative research tools, should have more to do with the end objective than favouring a particular method.

There is a school of thought which says that combining qualitative and quantitative market research is difficult, if not impossible, as they come from opposing viewpoints. Objective vs. subjective, numbers vs. words, prediction vs. interpretation. However, in terms of gaining information about your product and the market you operate in, a combination of qualitative and quantitative market research can give you the depth of information you require.

Using research to bring products to market

What else do we need to know if we are bringing a new product to market? This is where the importance of qualitative market research becomes clear.

Quantitative research can be used to uncover an insight and then qualitative will help you understand what and why is happening.

Humans complex and our decision making process is based on multiple factors. The importance of qualitative market research is drawing out those other factors that will influence buying decisions and product preference.

A Grass Roots Marketing Launch Campaign Timeline

Here’s a look at a rather simple and rough marketing campaign timeline for the acquisition of customers of an online application that’s just been launched. This kind of view is great to share with stakeholders to get buy-in and keep them in the loop with activities.

Often marketing time-lines impact multiple entities in cross-functional teams and not only just the marketing team. For example certain key marketing drivers need to be online such as key product features, funds need to be made available, executive buy-in will need to be gained. This is how I typically communicate campaigns at a high level.