As the software industry has developed from its infancy, companies have learned to provide very specific services around the core software product. They have gradually come to understand that these services - such as project management, implementation consulting, training, and software customization - are essential to the product's success. Companies that have pushed the envelope ...
"Product positioning" is the high fallutin' term for deciding how your product is unique and how it compares to the competition. Companies embark on a product positioning effort in order to be able make the product appeal to the specific type of customer the company has selected as the best prospect. This target customer may ...
Socrates, the founding father of Greek and Western philosophy and self-styled gadfly who got under the skin of ancient Athenian society, pioneered a way of teaching that he called the Socratic Method. It consisted of asking a series of questions that challenged his students to drill down into the deepest logic of their arguments, and ...
One thing that gets clearer with every new discussion I have with a Product Manager is that there may be nothing more important than your soft skills. You may find they're the only tool you can rely on to create change, improve coordination between Marketing and Engineering, prepare the sales force to effectively sell the ...
Alyssa Dver is the author of the book Software Product Management Essentials Today's issue is devoted to an interview with Alyssa S. Dver, author of the newly published "Software Product Management Essentials, A Practical Guide for Small and Mid-Sized Companies." "Often, we Product Managers get so caught up in what we have to do, that we don't ...
At some of the software companies where I used to work, I remember the silence that would fall -- not to mention the faces -- every time some disgruntled bearer of bad tidings let it be known that yet another software release date had slipped. Sometimes there was a reason, like our biggest new customer ...
One of the conundrums for Product Managers is that in many ways, their area of expertise is product management of a software application, yet companies increasingly require them to have experience in the industry that uses the software. There are good arguments for doing it this way, and equally strong ones for having Product Managers whose ...
One thing I associate with product management is the need to keep marching through the many efforts required to design and build software, then launch it in the market -- no matter how difficult the times. And so we have this week's issue, as scheduled. Respectfully, Jacques Murphy, Feeling sad for the people of Iraq, Grieving for the ...
Today's issue is the first of two topics covering product requirements. Requirements, as the fuel that powers your company's software development engine, are an essential part of product management. Without this fuel, development doesn't happen. Too little or too much, too sparse or too rich -- all lead to a poorly running engine. It is essential ...
We're all familiar with the problems that come from not documenting requirements, designs, plans, and expectations. You wind up with slipped deadlines and disappointment. Most of us have learned the hard way that we're better off writing down important agreements and plans. In fact, so much of product management depends upon written documents to spell out ...
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