Managing Product Management: Empowering Your Organization to Produce Competitive Products and Brands


Book Description

Create innovative, game-changing products with high-performance Product Management “A must-read for all business leaders driving their organizations to develop winning products and solutions. The book’s insight and thought-provoking scenarios help crystallize actions needed to achieve growth and marketplace success!” —Jerry Rose, VP Product Management, United Technologies Corporation, Fire & Security “An indispensable guide for any executive looking to develop a world-class Product Management organization. Haines outlines a 360-degree view of the practice and offers practical, accessible guidance to implement positive change.” —David Desharnais, Group Director, Product Management, Cadence Design Systems “Excellent Product Management is critical to the success of any business. This [is] an indispensable guide to realizing the true value of Product Management in any business.” —Nick Hallwood, VP Product Management, SHL Group, Ltd. “Haines’s diverse industry experience is clearly evident in this well-written guide to creating a high-performance Product Management function.” —George Coulston, VP Global R&D, Kennametal, Inc. “This easy-to-read, practical book is a natural extension of Steven Haines’s passion for enabling businesses to make sustainable improvements to their products, services, and organizations. It is an essential resource for any leader wishing to develop, cultivate, and sustain a world-class Product Management organization.” —C. Melissa Connolly, Director, Six Sigma Programs, Baker Hughes “There is perhaps no more important job in the modern enterprise than Product Management—and none harder to get right. Haines offers up wise, practical, and indispensable advice on how to do just that.” —Richard Bravman, Chairman, Intelleflex Corporation, and former CEO, Symbol Technologies, Inc. “Managing Product Management is the icing on the cake in helping us design, integrate, and elevate the Product Management function.” —Paul Eichenberg, VP Corporate Development and Strategic Planning, Magna Powertrain, Inc. About the Book: The well-being of any high‑performance organization is tied to its ability to align business functions and to produce and manage profitable products—and Product Management is the function most suited to meeting that imperative. When Product Management takes root in a company and thrives, the entire organization succeeds and everyone wins. Does your company use Product Management to its fullest potential? In Managing Product Management, Steven Haines, one of the world’s top authorities in the field, lays the groundwork for moving Product Management out of a supporting role and establishing it as a vital, strategic partner with other business functions. He provides a solid, implementable framework that takes you step-by-step through a process that will transform your company in profound ways. Learn how to: Better situate Product Management organizationally for more consistent operations that generate predictable results Defeat the “city of silos” mentality and create cross-functional engagement models Utilize a stable reference model for the planning, execution, and management of products and services Clearly define the role of product manager, hire the right people for the job, and institute effective job-development plans for those product managers Design and support cross-functional product teams to steer a product line and deliver agreed-upon business results Institute a governing model that sustains Product Management in its dynamic role Steven Haines sees an answer to business challenges in a place where few people have even thought of looking. Product Management done right has worked wonders for companies around the world—and it can do the same for yours. Managing Product Management is the one and only resource you need to start thinking of Product Management in a whole new way, utilizing it to its utmost capabilities, and making it a dynamic, ongoing structure in your organization.




Managing Product Management: Empowering Your Organization to Produce Competitive Products and Brands


Book Description

Build better products by expanding the role of Product Management Managing Product Management argues that product management should be reinstituted as a key source of innovative ideas that solve broad market problems. It illustrates how to organize the product management function of a company to create, build, and produce innovative and game-changing products and services. Steven Haines is the founder and president of Sequent Learning Networks, a training and advisory services firm with an international client base. He held leadership roles for AT&T and Oracle and was adjunct professor at Rutgers University's business school.




EMPOWERED


Book Description

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--




Product Leadership


Book Description

In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource. In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore: Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics Best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company’s evolution Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders




The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development


Book Description

New Product Development is one of the most important challenges facing organizations today. The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Handbook of New Product Development 3rd Edition provides an exceptional review of cutting edge topics for both new and experienced product development leaders. It offers a comprehensive and updated guide to the practices, processes and tools critical to achieving and sustaining new product/service development success in today’s world, delivering valuable information about the fundamentals as well as emerging practices such as venturing, virtual product development and the use of social media in NPD. As the premier global advocate for professionals and organizations working in the fields of new product/service development, PDMA has assembled in the Handbook unique content on the critical aspects of product development success including its 2012 Best Practices Research, Lessons Learned from its Outstanding Corporate Innovator Award Winners and keys to success from organizations with proven innovation track records. The 3rd Edition is an essential reference for anyone with responsibility for product development activities, from novices looking for fundamentals to experts seeking insights on emerging concepts, and is relevant for all functions and all product/service industries.




Building Products for the Enterprise


Book Description

If you’re new to software product management or just want to learn more about it, there’s plenty of advice available—but most of it is geared toward consumer products. Creating high-quality software for the enterprise involves a much different set of challenges. In this practical book, two expert product managers provide straightforward guidance for people looking to join the thriving enterprise market. Authors Blair Reeves and Benjamin Gaines explain critical differences between enterprise and consumer products, and deliver strategies for overcoming challenges when building for the enterprise. You’ll learn how to cultivate knowledge of your organization, the products you build, and the industry you serve. Explore why: Identifying customer vs user problems is an enterprise project manager’s main challenge Effective collaboration requires in-depth knowledge of the organization Analyzing data is key to understanding why users buy and retain your product Having experience in the industry you’re building products for is valuable Product longevity depends on knowing where the industry is headed




The Product Manager's Desk Reference, Third Edition


Book Description

The definitive guide to product management—updated for a more digital, more global, more competitive business landscape The digital age is here to stay. That means the pace of business change will only increase and competitive forces will challenge you, and your role as a product manager. This is the book that provides the only definitive body of knowledge of product management that you and your product teams can use to optimize your product’s business. The Product Manager’s Desk Reference has long been the go-to resource for product managers who seek to deliver quantifiable benefits to their company. In this fully revised edition of this bestseller, veteran product management thought leader Steven Haines lays out a repeatable process for product management organizational transformation, providing a clear roadmap you can follow to become the entrepreneurial strategic thinker who can drive your organization (and your career) into the future! Packed with important updates and revisions, The Product Manager’s Desk Reference, Third Edition provides essential advice on: Companies with portfolio of digital and traditional products Utilization of various development methods (waterfall and agile) Product design methods to deliver better user experiences Strategic thinking and business analysis Cross-functional product team collaboration Product portfolio management and product discontinuation Room for error in today’s fast-paced business environment shrinks by the minute. Packed with an array of new tools, techniques, and best practices—along with an explicit emphasis on data, analytics, and product performance—this new edition of the definitive product management resource is a timely and actionable guide to kicking your product management strategies into high gear.




High Growth Handbook


Book Description

High Growth Handbook is the playbook for growing your startup into a global brand. Global technology executive, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high-growth tech companies including Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Stripe, and Square as they’ve grown from small companies into global enterprises. Across all of these breakout companies, Gil has identified a set of common patterns and created an accessible playbook for scaling high-growth startups, which he has now codified in High Growth Handbook. In this definitive guide, Gil covers key topics, including: · The role of the CEO · Managing a board · Recruiting and overseeing an executive team · Mergers and acquisitions · Initial public offerings · Late-stage funding. Informed by interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal-clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups.




Escaping the Build Trap


Book Description

To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs




Continuous Discovery Habits


Book Description

"If you haven't had the good fortune to be coached by a strong leader or product coach, this book can help fill that gap and set you on the path to success." - Marty Cagan How do you know that you are making a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you guarantee that your team is creating value for your customers in a way that creates value for your business? In this book, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help you answer each of these questions, giving you the confidence to act while also preparing you to be wrong. You'll learn to balance action with doubt so that you can get started without being blindsided by what you don't get right. If you want to discover products that customers love-that also deliver business results-this book is for you.