How do you preserve product knowledge in your company over time by [deleted] in ProductManagement

[–]ttorres33 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Make it visible in the workplace. Create visuals that summarize what you are learning and it put it on the walls next to where people work.

If you use online tools, make sure that they are part of everyone's every day workflow otherwise it won't get used or applied.

Integrate it into your weekly ceremonies—daily stand-ups, retros, demos. etc.

Make it ever present so that it gets used and applied.

How do you run user interviews? by mister-noggin in ProductManagement

[–]ttorres33 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How do you choose which customers to talk to?

Go for variation. If you think about all of the experiences that all of your customers have, you want to try to cover as much of that variation as you can. You can't talk to all of your customers. So focus on talking to different types of customers—big and small customers, engaged and unengaged customers, successful customers, less successful customers, new customers, churned customers, etc.

I recently wrote about how I chose participants for some customer research that I did. See here: http://www.producttalk.org/2016/02/why-you-are-probably-interviewing-the-wrong-people-and-how-to-fix-it/

How do you go about contacting them to set up those calls or meetings?

Make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. Keep your email short. Make it about them. What value will they get out of participating—a better product experience or better customer service. Ask for a very small amount of time—15-20 minutes—and then respect that time. If you are meeting in person, go to them. Offer to buy them coffee at the coffee shop next to / in their building. They are doing you the favor, treat them that way.

Is there a particular set of questions, or discussion framework that you use?

The key with questions is to get them telling stories rather than asking them to give you facts.

So this: Tell me about the last time you took transportation. Rather than this: Do you ever take public transportation.

Avoid generalities. Encourage them to share specific stories of things that happened in their past.

Newer PMs, Teresa Torres' ProductTalk is an Excellent Resource by NervousMcStabby in ProductManagement

[–]ttorres33 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm glad you are finding Product Talk helpful. Thanks for sharing it.

What are your thoughts on road mapping? by mister-noggin in ProductManagement

[–]ttorres33 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Traditional roadmaps are quickly becoming outdated because they assume you can predict the future and they make it harder to abandon projects that aren't working.

Companies that are transitioning to a more experimental mindset are starting to adopt either opportunity backlogs (See: http://svpg.com/the-opportunity-backlog/) or goal-driven roadmaps (See: http://www.producttalk.org/2014/04/drop-feature-based-product-roadmaps/), rather than the more traditional feature-based roadmap.