An Introduction to Product Management

1. Agile + Lean Product Management Graham Siener Product Manager @ Pivotal Labs @gsiener #pmga
2. About Me (aka why should I listen?) Software Consulting Sustainability in The Bahamas (?!) Cust Dev and PM at Startups PM coach at Pivotal Labs
3. What does PM mean? Discovering a product that is valuable by listening to customers and collaborating with designers/developers.
4. What does PM mean? People Problems Priorities
5. People Know WHO you are building for
6. People Know WHAT they need
7. Problem A Product exists to SOLVE someone’s problem
8. Problem Focus FIRST on problem definition
9. Problem I need a faster site. Why? It’s too slow. When do you notice? When I’m entering data. Where is the data coming from? Excel. I copy it. *Credit: Jess Martin
10. Problem Manually copying data into the website from Excel
11. Problem Don’t jump to SOLUTIONS too early
12. Priority You can’t build it all.
13. Priority WHEN to build is as important as WHAT.
14. Priority Sometimes that means saying NO to features.
15. Priority User behavior (usable) Business value (viable) Tech constraints (feasible)
16. Priority Create a shared metric for picking the most important features.
17. Discovering a product that is valuable by listening to customers and collaborating with designers/developers.
18. But How? Build Measure Learn (Repeat)
19. Customer Development Figure out what to build
20. Exercise: Inception
21. Lean Metrics Prove that you made your product better
22. Example: Planning Wizard
23. Example: Auto-Login Emails
24. Exercise: Interviews
25. Interview #1 A: Speaker B: Interviewer C: Observer
26. Interview #1 You’re trying to build an app that helps you plan a vacation. Ask your speaker about a recent vacation.
27. Interview #1 A: Speaker B: Interviewer C: Observer
28. Interview #2 B: Speaker C: Interviewer A: Observer
29. Interview #2 You’re trying to build an app that helps you decorate your house. Ask your speaker about a recent home improvement.
30. Interview #2 Interviewers: You can only ask clarifying questions after the first statement. E.g., “Tell me more about X”
31. Interview #2 B: Speaker C: Interviewer A: Observer
32. Interview #3 C: Speaker A: Interviewer B: Observer
33. Interview #3 You’re trying to build an app that organizes your todos. Ask your speaker about how they manage their task list.
34. Interview #3 Interviewers: You can’t say anything after the first question. E.g., silence!
35. Interview #3 C: Speaker A: Interviewer B: Observer
36. Exercise: Interviews Wrap up
37. Thanks! @gsiener #pmga pivotallabs.com/author/gsiener