Product Feedback
Obtaining User Feedback With so many questions going unanswered, Product Feedback is an uphill task, but one that can be done with expertise if the company is well-equipped and ready to do the job. The
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Product Specs
What Are Product Specs? Product specification (Also called Product brief) refers to a product document that outlines the requirements for a new product feature or functionality. It is a sort of blueprint containing vital information
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Product Requirements
What are Product Requirements? A product requirement is something that Product Management typically creates, providing the outline of acceptable criterial to the design and development team, so they can determine an appropriate solution to the
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Empowered Product Teams
What is an Empowered Product Team? Empowered Product Teams put product managers front-and-center, to guide their respective teams and initiatives. In traditional companies, it is common for strategy and vision, and roadmap to come entirely
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GAME Framework
GAME Product Analytics Framework Success metrics provide a quantified measure of a product is doing; They are a lens into the health of your product and its performance. Defining these metrics is therefore intrinsic to
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Product Council
What is a Product Council? A Product Council is a forum or group of key stakeholders existing to set the direction for and review the product. It helps in making better and well-timed decisions on
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Theme-Based Roadmap
What is a Theme-Based Roadmap? A theme-based roadmap, simply put, is one that is organized into strategic themes. It is similar to an outcome-driven roadmap, except that themes are more descriptive of focus areas than
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Opportunity Space
Opportunity Space Product teams are familiar with the terms, problem space and solution space. One relates to the needs of customers while the other is finding a solution to the identified problems. But there is
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Outcome vs. output
Outcome vs. output Product Teams In the dynamic field of product management, a crucial challenge lies in the dichotomy between the role’s strategic nature and the prevalent organizational tendency to dictate what Product Managers should
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Balanced Portfolio
What is the Balanced Portfolio? A balanced portfolio is an investment strategy that is aimed at ensuring the right mix of investments. In a product sense, it is a portfolio that balances new, growing, and
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Product Requirements
What are Product Requirements? A Product Requirement defined an aspect of a product or feature that must be satisfied in the solution that is created. It is a guide for the design and development teams
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Stakeholder Requests
Stakeholder Requests Stakeholders are representatives within the organization that have a vested interest in the success of a product. They typically come from proximal executive ranks, or functional group’s whose KPIs are directly impacted such
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Story Mapping
What is Story Mapping A story map is a helpful tool when planning a release. It is based on user stories of what needs to be built. With user story mapping, product teams can describe
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Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager
Good Product Manager Bad Product Manager, Revisited Any Job post for a Product Manager usually has a long list of responsibilities attached to it. These are what make a good Product Manager according to the
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History of Product Management
History of Product Management Product Management can be traced back to the 20th Century through a chain of events that happened through a young and enterprising economist who dared to ask, “How can I sell
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What is a Product Manager?
What is a Product Manager? A Product manager is a key organizational function that guides each step of a product’s lifecycle beginning from development until it gets to the market. To build top-notch products, product
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Product Development Stages
What are the States of Product Development? Product development, in simple terms, could be described as the creation or manufacturing of a product. In this sense, it refers to what takes place in a factory
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Northstar Framework
What is the NorthStar Framework? The North Star Framework emphasizes a single metric, on which success hugely depends. This model centers on the aptly-named North Star Metric (NSM) that captures the key value that your
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Competitive Analysis Frameworks
Competitive Analysis Frameworks C A competitive analysis framework is a structured approach used by businesses to evaluate and understand their competitive landscape. It involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of both direct and indirect competitors
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Product vs Feature
What is a Product vs. a Feature? In the simplest terms, a product can be described as something that customers consider valuable enough to pay for. It is an item, tool, environment, or even a
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Agile Scrum Team
What is an Agile Scrum Team? Scrum is an agile framework where teams work collectively in order to achieve a specific goal and is majorly used by software development teams. Borrowing its name from a
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Product Manager vs Business Analyst
Product Manager vs Business Analyst A Product Manager (PM) and a Business Analyst (BA) are two separate roles united by a mutual goal which is to build the right systems and products. However, there are
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Product Manager vs Product Owner
Product Manager vs Product Owner The role product owner is often associated with Scrum which is an agile framework that aids in the design, building and sustaining of complex products. According to the Scrum Guide
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Product Manager vs UX Designer
Product Manager vs User Experience The best products are created by multi-disciplinary teams which are able to deliver the best experience for clients. A Product Manager + UX designer collaboration is vital in any endeavor
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Product Manager vs Program Manager
Who is a Product Manager? Product managers are tasked with the role of strategically driving the development of products until they get into the market as well as ensuring products are constantly improved to effectively
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Product Manager vs Product Marketer
Product Manager vs Product Marketer There is often confusion distinguishing between a product manager and a product marketing manager abbreviated as PMs and PMMs especially in organizations which have multiple product lines and business units
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Product Manager vs Product Designer
Product Manager vs Product Designer A good product should provide an excellent user experience which requires close collaboration between product management and design. A product designer should work closely with a product manager to get
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Wireframes
What is a Wireframe? A wireframe is generally a low-fidelity representation of the major features and function of a web page or app screen. The idea is to start with a ‘blue print’ to ensure
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Use Case
What is a Use Case? A use case is a description of a scenario in which a user will engage with a product or system. It serves as the basis for analysis how the system
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User Experience
What is User Experience (UX)? User experience (UX) describes the quality of interaction that a user has with a system and their resulting perceptions. It is how useful and usable the system is, and consequently
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The User Is Drunk
What is The User Is Drunk? The ” User is Drunk” concept in Product design stresses the need to make things as simple as possible when designing products or websites. It underscores the importance of
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Product Architecture
What is Product Architecture? Product architecture relates to how a system’s or product’s function is organized into physical parts or components. It is the chunking or organization of functional elements as well as how these
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Design Ops
What Is Design Ops? Design Operations or Design Ops – describes an alignment of the design process across products and disciplines. The Nielsen Norman Group defines it as “the orchestration and optimization of people, processes,
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Product Mission
What is a Product Mission? Product mission is a short statement that spells out the ultimate goal of a product. It makes clear the purpose(s) that what you’re offering serves and for whom. Succinctly, it
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Product Operations
What Is Product Operations? In the dynamic realm of product management, a relatively recent yet pivotal player has emerged to streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and ensure strategic alignment – Product Operations, affectionately known as Product
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Weighted Shortest Job First
What is Weighted Shortest Job First? Weighted Shortest Job First, abbreviated as WSJF, is an ostensibly easy Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) technique for prioritizing items on a backlog. It seeks to identify the most economically
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Opportunity Solution Tree
What is an Opportunity Solution Tree ? Opportunity Scoring Tree (OST) is a diagram that aims to help the product discovery process to run smoothly. The visual aid provides clarity on how you intend to
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Large-Scale Scrum
What is Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)? One of the popular frameworks in Agile software development for applying Agile in the enterprise context, Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) is a lightweight way of scaling Scrum in large organizations. It
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Product Positioning
What is Product Positioning? Product positioning is an attempt at creating in the minds of customers the right perceptions about your product, including showing how it differs from rival offerings. You could think of it
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Feature-Driven Development
What Is Feature-Driven Development? Feature-Driven Development, also known as FDD, is an Agile model for software development that involves short iterations. It refers to a lightweight, incremental process in which development work (and progress) revolves
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Feature Bloat
What is Feature Bloat? Feature bloat describes a phenomenon in which too many features are built into a product, and a team focuses more on output than outcome and often leads to adding features for
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Feature Factory
What is a Feature Factory? Feature factory is a term that is used to describe a company that is more interested in pushing out features while caring less about solving real problems. This term is
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PERT Chart
What is a PERT Chart? PERT stands for Program (or Project) Evaluation and Review Technique, an approach for analyzing and presenting the tasks involved in a project. The PERT chart is a diagram displaying the
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Product Brief
What is a Product Brief? A product brief is a document that defines a problem to be solved and generally includes goals and/or some set of high-level requirements. It provides a starting point for the
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Value vs Complexity
Value vs Complexity Prioritization Matrix In simple terms, value vs. complexity is a framework that enables you to prioritize initiatives by considering their inherent value and complexity of execution. It is a tool that you
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Featureless Roadmap
What is a Featureless Roadmap? A feature-less roadmap is a departure from traditional roadmaps in that it places less emphasis on features and more on outcomes (outcome vs output). The idea may sound like a
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Minimal Lovable Product (MLP)
What Is a Minimum Lovable Product? The minimum lovable product (MLP) is a relatively new concept that provides a seemingly better alternative to the more popular minimum viable product (MVP). First coined by Brian Haaff
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Customer-Focused Product Teams
Customer-Focused Product Teams Almost all product managers and CEOs will say they care about their customers when asked. But we all know that actions speak louder than words. If the culture of the company is
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Continuous Delivery
What Is Continuous Delivery? Continuous Development (CD) is an approach in software development that involves teams working in short cycles. It entails pushing out code to production as they become ready, rather than waiting until
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Action Priority Matrix
What is the Action Priority Matrix? An Action Priority Matrix (APM) is a simple diagram that classifies activities based on the amount of effort required and the impact expected. It is a tool for choosing
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A/B Testing
What Is A/B Testing? A/B test is a test that compares variations of something (e.g. a web page) to determine which works better. It is a randomized experiment that involves the comparison of two or
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Digital Transformation
What is Digital Transformation? Digital Transformation (DT) refers to the adoption of digital technology in the processes and culture of an organization to meet changing requirements and improve customer experiences. CIO’s Clint Boulton describes it
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Working Backwards
What is Amazon’s Working Backwards? Working backwards is an approach that defines how the world’s leading online retailer Amazon does business. It entails starting from the customer or their needs and problems when doing any
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Shape Up Method
What is the Shape Up Method? The Shape Up Method from 37 Signals describes how they approach product opportunity discovery and development. It captures processes that are used by development teams to shape ideas into
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Product Metrics
What Are Product Metrics? A product metric is a quantifiable measure or data point that enables a business to define, check on, and analyze how its product is faring. There are many metrics that businesses
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Product Analytics
What Is Product Analytics? Product analytics may be described as the process of capturing and analyzing data for insights that help in making informed product decisions. Typical information that analytics can provide include a customer’s
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Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What is the Net Promoter Score? Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an indicator of how likely customers are to recommend your company, products, or services to others. It shows how pleased, or otherwise, customers are
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Product Design
What is Product Design? There is a lot of overlap between these two roles, though Product Design inherently rooted in User Experience and Product Management more rooted in business. Both roles focus on creating value
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Usability Testing
Usability testing is a technique for evaluating a product with real users to understand ease of use and where difficulty exists. It is a customer-centered practice that involves asking users to complete tasks while being observed.
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User Research
What is User Research? User research refers to the practice of trying to understand the user, their needs, and thought processes. It is about taking in user behaviors, motivations, and experiences through observation or data-driven
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Customer Empathy
Customer empathy is putting yourself into the customer’s shoes to know where they pinch. It is an effort to become more conscious of the motivations, needs, and emotions of users, in order to better serve them.
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Customer Experience
What is Customer Experience? Customer experience is an outcome of interactions between an organization and its customers. It is the perceptions or impressions that customers have from their interactions or throughout their journey with your
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Circles Method
What is the Circles Method? Created by Lewis C. Lin, the CIRCLES method is a framework that aims at helping product managers to provide well-thought-out responses to product design questions. It enables you to provide
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Cross-Functional Teams
What is a Cross-Functional Team? A cross-functional team is one with members from different departments within an organization. It boasts people of diverse functional expertise working collaboratively to achieve a common goal. For example, a
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Scrum Methodology
What is Scrum? Scrum is an Agile project management framework particularly suited for product development and has become the de facto framework agile companies today. Many people think of Scrum as the same thing as
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Agile Transformation
What is Agile Transformation? Agile transformation refers to the process of making everyone in an organization undergo a shift in mindset that makes it possible to get the maximum benefits of being agile. Agility has
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Product Squads
The Benefits and Basics of Product Squads A product squad is a small, cross-functional team that is self-organized. Its members plan and work together for long-term goals and have end-to-end responsibilities. Product squads are a
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Product Management Certification
The Best Product Management Certification Programs Education is not only helpful to aspiring product managers but also the practicing ones. It offers an avenue to get a better knowledge of the role and so improves
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Product Vision
What is a Product Vision? A product vision is a description of what you hope to achieve with your product. It is a product’s targeted overall mission in the long term or its intended future
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Product Prioritization
Product Prioritization Techniques Prioritization refers to a thoughtful process of carefully assessing ideas and work to deliver the greatest value and ensure efficient resource use. Prioritizing is something that every product manager must be good
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Product Portfolio Management
A Guide Product Portfolio Management A product portfolio is the collection of all items, products, or services that are offered by a business or need to be managed collectively. Product portfolio management, therefore, describes the
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Customer Churn
What is Customer Churn? Customer churn, often referred to as attrition, stands as a pivotal metric in the business landscape, representing the number of customers who cease using a product or service within a specific
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Agile Roadmap
What is an Agile Roadmap? To many people, the idea of a roadmap in Agile is rather counterintuitive. Agile after all, is about keeping things flexible and that document seems to be a hindrance. This
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Gantt Chart
What is a Gantt Chart? A Gantt chart is a form of bar chart – a horizontal bar chart – that shows the tasks and schedule of a project. It presents the plan for a
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Kanban Roadmap
What is a Kanban Roadmap? Kanban roadmaps, also known as Agile Roadmaps, involve organizing cards relating to tasks into columns across boards. It presents quick insights into items and the stage you are in development
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Definition of Done
Definition of Done in Agile The Definition of Done (DoD) is a description of what must happen for a project or user story to be declared complete. What are those things that must be done
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The Product Backlog
Understanding the Product Backlog A product backlog is a prioritized list of items that the team plans to work on to achieve a particular outcome. It is a list of everything that the development team
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Product Roadmap
A product roadmap is a high-level summary that presents the product vision and strategy. It not only describes your product strategy but also the plans you have for executing it.
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Technical Debt
What is Technical Debt? Technical debt has many definitions. One of the better definitions comes from the Information and Software Technology Journal where it is described as the “consequences of software development actions that intentionally
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Fibonacci Estimation
What is Fibonacci Agile Estimation? Fibonacci agile estimation is a combination of two concepts: the Fibonacci sequence and Agile estimation. Let’s quickly define these two things before putting them back together: Agile estimation – is
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Scrumban
What is Scrumban? Scrumban is a hybrid Agile project management framework that combines elements of two popular Agile methodologies – Scrum and Kanban. It has gained considerable popularity over the last decade as a result
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Backlog Grooming
What is Backlog Grooming? Backlog Grooming, also known as backlog refinement, pre-planning, or story time – is a session in which items for the backlog are discussed, analyzed, and estimated. It is a recurring event
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Agile Retrospective
What is a Retrospective? Retrospective, in a general sense, means looking back on or directed to the past or past events, according to Collins English Dictionary. But, when talking about product development, it refers to
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Program Manager
What is a Program Manager? A program manager oversees the successful execution initiatives and/or operations of an organization. There is a natural overlap of Product and Program Management insofar as they both organize details that
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General Availability
What is General Availability? General availability, abbreviated as GA, refers to when a product is made widely available to users. It is the phase when all activities necessary to make the solution accessible to the
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Beta Testing
A beta test is the last limited release that may be implemented for a major new piece of software, before entering General Availability for the broader market. It is the second or final testing that
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What is Stakeholder Analysis?
A stakeholder analysis can be described as the process of assessing a system, program, or project and determining relevant parties. It entails identifying persons or groups that have interests or play a part in a
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What is a Stakeholder?
The success of a Product Manager in creating winning solutions isn’t an individual feat; Stakeholders too have an important role to play. There are a number of frameworks and methods for identifying stakeholders, and stakeholder
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The Basics of Roadmapping
A product roadmap is a high-level, strategic plan that presents the product vision and direction. It visually shows the steps to take toward achieving a desired outcome or goal. The document gives a hint of
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Key Responsibilities of Product Managers
Product managers have the duty of ensuring that products have a great market fit. The achievement of this goal requires involvement in many activities and sometimes those things are outside the core responsibilities of Product
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The Value Creation Plane
Creating and Identifying Differentiated Value Businesses exist for one major reason: the creation of value. This usually means having needs met for the customer and getting a good ROI for the company. Product management is
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Business Model Archetypes
In simple terms, a business model may be described as the plan that you have in place for your business. It is a conceptual framework that captures how you intend to create and deliver value
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Product Opportunity Heuristics
How to Recognize Great Ideas Worth Working On Businesses thrive on identifying opportunities and making the most of them. A good entrepreneur or product manager must have rules for an effective evaluation of opportunities to
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Product Team Competencies
What product management entails, depends on who you are asking. People have different ideas about what it is about due to the seeming lack of a formal definition. This is problematic because it imbues confusion
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Feature Gap Analysis
Prioritization is something that every good product manager knows how to do. With limited resources available, a Product Manager but must pay more attention to features that offer the most value to both the company
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B2C vs. B2B Product Management
B2B Product Management is largely similar to B2C Product management – what differs is the product strategy for determining what to build, and the techniques behind gaining those insights.
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Product Working With Sales Teams
Effective product planning should ideally involve representatives from different teams in the organization, sales especially.
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KPI-Driven Reporting
Key performance indicators, also referred to as KPIs, offer a useful means for companies to assess how well they are doing concerning set goals. Investopedia defines it as “a set of quantifiable measures that a
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What is a Digital Product?
What is a Digital Product? A digital product refers to a product or service that is primarily based on digital technology, existing in a non-physical or intangible form. Unlike traditional physical products, which are tangible
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Customer Interviews
Customer Interviews for Product Managers The likelihood of your product being considered a success is a function of its ability to address the customer’s pain point. Customer interviews can help you to make out what
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