If you haven’t been reading Steve Blank’s Blog you are missing out on some of the best entrepreneurial gold around and his recent series of posts on the Customer Development Manifesto are a great place to start
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One challenge that I’ve had over the years has been passing and receiving product knowledge. It isn’t uncommon to be handed a set of requirements and the complementary good luck smile. The expectation is that you can somehow reverse engineer the business case. While there are a number of great tools and processes out there it is just hard. Check out this great article from the folks at Brainmates for some good insights.
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In product development you can generally find a number of ways to solve a problem but the right solution depends on successfully defining the problem and hopefully not deriving it from a solution. In web systems development its especially easy to have our armchair ‘experts’ help define solutions before trying to define the problem.
We use the web in almost all aspects of our lives today. In fact I can’t remember when the last time I needed driving directions and didn’t turn to a browser. This ubiquity gives everyone a frame of reference to suggest ‘How’ something should be instead of defining the problem. You’ll know your in a ‘How-Wow’ party when the ideas and examples are flowing but you don’t have a solid problem statement. And while brainstorms are great it can be distracting and take you off target.
Keep things on target by grounding your team in problem statements and measures. Saying, “Let’s focus on the what not the how” and using open ended statements such as “This program will be successful when…” can be helpful. When all else fails ask for discrete numbers. Nothing is as sobering as numbers, especially these days.
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Great quote from Steve Blank “Startups were not just smaller versions of a large company, they were about invention, innovation and iteration - of business model, product, customers and on and on. Startups were doing discovery of the problem and solution in real-time.”
Make it the present tense and that’s what we do daily.
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Once again it is time for Product Camp Austin and if you haven’t been, you’ve been missing out. A fantastic mix of product folks from a variety of different backgrounds under one roof. No matter who you are there are great people to meet and things to learn.
Here is the info:
ProductCamp Austin is a free, collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Marketing and Management topics. At ProductCamp everyone participates: by presenting, leading a roundtable discussion, helping with logistics, securing sponsorship, or volunteering. Details for the next ProductCamp Austin are set for 8/15/2009 at McCombs School of Business at UT Austin – http://pcaustin.eventbrite.com/
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NextScreen Labs, a new agile product shop will be making its appearance in the next few weeks. Here is the NextScreen Labs logo as designed by good old MagazineDesign.
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5 Things I’d Tell My 21 Year Old Entrepreneurial Self
10 Books To Make You A Better Product Manager
Berkun Top ten reasons managers become great
The Unintended Consequences of Startups
Why Iteration is a Powerful Way to Build a Startup
Calculating Customer Lifetime Value – the Quick and Dirty Method
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