You’ve almost certainly heard of the book, the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It’s a fairly popular book in technology organizations and provides some great advice in identifying and addressing key issues found in ANY team. The 5 dysfunctions that Lencioni cites are: 1: Absence of Trust 2: Fear of Conflict 3: Lack of Commitment 4: Avoidance of Accountability 5: Inattention to Results

Actually, it’s not about saying “No”, it’s about defining and educating on the Why and What? — There’s a quote from Steve Jobs that goes something like this: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick…

Prioritize based on objectives and strategy, not spreadsheets and formulas — I sometimes get asked about product/feature prioritization frameworks. In particular, which one(s) do I suggest people use. Before getting into the answer to that question, let’s define what we mean by prioritization frameworks. These are framework like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), WSJF (Weighted Shorted Job First) etc. …

We need to get past bad metaphors and analogies for describing Product Management — This article was originally published in June 2009, on On Product Management, a personal blog that is no longer available. It was titled: So why do we undermine ourselves? I updated and republished it here because I saw an article talking about Product Ops — a relatively new Product role…

Being “agile” is not as revolutionary as some people might think. — This article was originally published October 30, 2008 on On Product Management, a personal blog that is no longer available. It was updated a bit in 2011. This is being republished in an effort to consolidate and preserve a number of older, but still relevant Product Management blog posts. Those…

A sarcastic take on some of our high tech terms and products — The Devil’s Dictionary is a book created in the early 20th century by American Ambrose Bierce containing sarcastic, ironic and witty re-definitions of words. e.g PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. I created a set of high-tech centric defintions…

Initial results from a survey of product managers describing what is working, not working and what should be changed in their Product Management roles — Late last year, I conducted a survey of Product Managers — The Good, the Bad, the Ugly of Product Management — to understand what was working, what wasn’t and what needed to change in their roles. Unfortunately, It’s taken me a little while to analyze the results, but I’m happy…

A slightly belated May 4th post for Product Managers — Yoda is full of wisdom. But did you realize that he was talking to Product Managers and dropping clear advice for them to follow? 1. Balance many opposing forces to achieve harmony you must Without question, being successful at Product Management can be viewed as a balancing act. This is true for any business function, but given the number of…

A easy and helpful way to think about and evaluate market problems. — You almost certainly have read or heard the famous Einstein quote: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein I often cite an analogous quote, though I’m not sure of the source: …