Product managers are a unique breed of business professional – a unique breed that requires unique tools in order to succeed. Product managers have to coordinate all the moving parts that go into a successful product launch like research, development, marketing, accounting and quality assurance. Actuation Consulting is a professional business consulting firm that specializes […]

Last week I wrote a blog post entitled “Return on Investment: Less Important Than Many Think?” As is turns out, less organizations than you might think actively use return on investment (ROI). (Click here to see the table.) Most of the dialog from those who commented upon last week’s post centered upon ROI’s use as a measure […]

Many people aspire to become product managers. However, individuals can find it difficult to make the initial jump into the role. Unlike, project management or finance, the actual skills of a product manager are not well understood by employers and hiring managers. As a result, companies tend to make hiring decisions based upon domain experience […]

Four Points to Consider. Several months ago we conducted an informal survey of product management toolkits. Hardly scientific, we were very interested in understanding perceptions of their value. Why? Because as authors Steven and I commonly get requests for “workable” templates from our books. Up until that point we tended to respond by sending a PDF […]

Steven and I are very actively engaged in the product management community. We conduct product manager and product team training’s for individuals and organizations, I teach product management at DePaul University, and we regularly do webinars and public speaking. Most of these opportunities result from the success of our books. In fact, I’m pleased to say […]

This weeks blog post is written by our friend Lee R. Lambert. Lee is a PMI Fellow and has established the standard against which educators and practitioners in the field of Project Management are measured. In 1981 he was invited to join the team that created the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Program. Learn more […]

Why do we think that what worked on our last project will work on our current one? If the definition of a project revolves around it being unique, why do we try to standardize our approach so much? Checklists, templates, a PMO mantra of “this is how you should do project management” isn’t necessarily well […]

Earlier this year we conducted research into the dynamics of product team performance. As part of this research we asked a question about the mechanisms being used by executives to drive alignment across the core product team. For the purposes of the study we defined “core team” as being composed of product, project, and program […]

How do you keep your product and product team fresh and creative throughout the product development lifecycle? What differentiates those project managers who seem to have a successful team no matter what group of individuals they’re working with — versus those who seem to always have a dysfunctional team and troubled projects? The answer to […]

The word “innovation” can be interpreted in many ways. The image persists that innovation is some mind blowing new thing, which often produces high value, high return, and commercial success. Webster’s simply defines “innovation” as the “introduction of something new; a new idea, method, or device.” Strong product managers are market focused and are usually […]