It is with some apprehension that I launch myself upon a discussion of product quality and QA testing. While product quality is promoted by Marketing and management, people rarely want to see and touch the distasteful details of the QA testing that helps improve software quality. I suppose an outstanding quality effort flows like a stream, ...

At technology companies, Engineering and Development is the motor that keeps the product moving forward. Unlike real motors made out of metal, this one depends upon a lot of moving parts that are all-too-human, so it stalls a lot. A Development effort that sputters and stalls too often can lead to a product that falls ...

Product Managers are in the unique position of having dual citizenship, with passports for both Marketing land and Development land. In fact, you find you can’t predict whether a company will have its Product Manager positions reporting into Marketing or Development.
It’s a sign that companies have a difficult time figuring out where product management fits. The truth is that a fully mature product management function is independent of both, while being knee-deep in both Marketing and Development activities.
Regardless of where Product Managers are placed in the organization, they can provide vital assistance to Development in its goal of building a great software product. They provide an outside, business-focused perspective, but in a level of detail that reflects an interest in and understanding of the technology that is used to build the product.
Read below for some ideas on how a Product Manager can help Development do the best job it can.

Reams of advice have been written about how to design a highly usable user interface for software products. There are experts who have devoted their entire careers to this subject. Far be it from me to try to compete with this body of knowledge. However, as a Product Manager, I have usually found myself in a ...

Implementing new technology in the product is a task that often stymies software companies. Because the change frequently goes to the very core of how the software works, and developers are on unfamiliar ground, there is lots of potential for your company to get stuck delaying the use of new technology year after year. The key ...

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 ...

Does anybody have a really great QA testing program for their software? I'd love to learn about it, because I think I have yet to see a top-notch one in 14 years in the industry. In this period of severe contraction in the software industry, which started in early 2000 when all the Y2K QA testers ...

The services you deliver with your software -- implementation consulting, installation, and training -- aren't accessories to your product, they are an integral part of the product and its success. Software plus services plus customer effort equals success. Because of this, it's critical to take steps to make each service you deliver predictable, complete, and consistent ...

Nothing can be better for your software than to have a new release go through a beta program where customers (even prospects) put the software through its paces in a real-world environment. When the release is announced, not only are you confident that most major problems have been identified and rectified, but you have case ...