TL;DR — Folks, it’s a zoo out there, especially when it comes to feature prioritization. Below is yet another O’Rly bookshelf to prove my point … … so BEHOLD! 5 more ‘wild beasties’ that graze upon our prioritization process. Only this time, the creatures listed below are more about situations we find ourselves in rather than the various…
Tag: Popular
WTF is ProdOps, and why should I care?
The new buzz word in #prodMgmt is #prodOps. It’s a real thing. I want to share my views before it gets overly commoditized. ProdOps is short for Product Operations. But what does that actually mean? Is it some re-packaged and monetized mishmash of DevOps + MarTech + RevOps + SalesOps + Pragmatic Marketing? Is it…
JIRA-Slinging Ticket Monkey
I first penned JIRA-Slinging Ticket Monkey in a 2015 humor post. Little did I know how much it would resonate. Its intent was to reflect — in a very smart aleck way — the frustrations I was hearing from product owners who felt they were dancing to the monotonous tune of some organizational organ grinder. Over the past three-and-a-half-years…
The 4-isms of Agile Failures
There are three anti-patterns Agile hates, a fourth that is detestable. Below I describe each, and their telltale signs. I’ve observed no small amount of digital ink this past year fuming with frustration about the failure of Agile. 18 part Twitter threads, ranting podcasts, and War & Peace sized blog posts lead me to hypothesize…
When Consistency becomes Tyranny
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Let me ask you a question: As a product manager or scrum master, do you feel there is a tipping point where consistency devolves into tyranny? I posed this question to some poor unsuspecting peeps at…
Product Managers, do you know how much your bugs cost?
TL;DR — Not knowing the cost of bugs is about as wise as learning to juggle using chainsaws. Sure, you learn from your mistakes, but at what cost? Counting the Cost Yesterday I wrote why it’s important to know how much your teams cost per sprint. Today I’d like to build on that conversation by offering thoughts on…
Behold, the Product Management Prioritization Menagerie
TL;DR — Folks, it’s a zoo out there, especially when it comes to feature prioritization. Below is my own O’Rly bookshelf to prove my point … … each followed by at least one related blog post or news article on each of these 5 beasts that graze upon our prioritization process. QUICK UPDATE 01Dec20 — Thanks for the folks at…
The Orange Quarrel: A Product Manager’s tale of Compromise over Collaboration
Photo Credit of Nick Jr. and Yorgos probably not wrestling over an orange: Wikipedia As product managers, we are sometimes confronted with “feature hostage negotiations.” Here are some conflict resolution tips for such times. You know what I’m talking about, those emotional instances where the tug between sales needing shiny objects and stakeholders seeking strategic…
Product Manager Exercise: Design a better Automated Teller Machine
Clearly, some ATM designs are better than others. Into the course of every product manager’s life falls a “design a better <whatever>” exercise. In fact, I recently stumbled on a site solely dedicated to this appropriately titled ‘Product Management Exercises.’ It was this site, along with a recent news story related ‘You no longer need a…
Making Ubuntu Studio 16.04 Work for Me.
So you’ve installed Ubuntu Studio 16.04 on one of your aging laptops in hopes of realizing your long-lost dream of becoming a rock musician given up some years back to wrack up significant student loan debt earning a Bachelor’s degree in early 20th Century Russian Theater. Congrats on the bold move there Konstantin Sergeyevich. Now…