People love sharing their opinions. Customers and teammates are usually willing to tell you what they think you should do with your product if you ask. This is a good problem to have. The hard part is deciding which of those ideas will have the biggest impact. Ideas are plentiful — great product managers know exactly how to determine which ones customers really love. You make decisions every day that impact not just your product, but also the company as a whole. This is true always. But when we have global events that turn us upside down, decisions can seem more fraught and weighty. Now mor ..read more

Program manager vs. project manager. I recently wrote a blog post describing these roles. Several folks took the time to thank me for digging into the differences between the two. But many of you wanted more. Specifically, for me to go even deeper into what a program manager does and how the role functions in different scenarios. Program managers think strategically about how many different types of initiatives should be managed and coordinated. When you have many big strategic efforts, teams are also working on many products and projects simultaneously. So you need someone to pay ..read more

The last five years have gone fast. In a few months, I will celebrate that milestone at Aha! — in that time we have grown exponentially. We expanded our team to nearly 100 people, grown to serve over 5,000 customers, and delivered more than 250 major features or improvements. While I am looking forward to what is next, I am also reflecting on what was. Specifically, my very first role as a product manager more than a decade ago. I was working at a SaaS company that served human resources teams. I did not realize it at the time, but that early experience was foundational — I learned sk ..read more

What does “discipline” mean to you? I bet a few words come to mind — self-control, punishment, or a system of rules. You might also conjure a field of study or branch of knowledge. This is how I most often think of it. Especially in the context of how our team at Aha! serves customers working in the disciplines of product, program, and project management. Building breakthrough products, delivering successful initiatives, and overseeing cross-functional efforts requires deep knowledge and experience. It will be helpful to start with some basic definitions. Product management is ..read more

Have you ever tried to follow a complicated recipe? Exotic ingredients, specialty cookware, and professional techniques — it takes more than instructions to cook a delicious meal. Depending on culinary experience and access to tools, a dozen people following the same recipe could end up with dramatically different results. The same is true for building products. I think this is why a lot of teams focus on how they will get work done. For many, this means “going agile.” There is comfort in embracing a methodology like agile — if you can follow the rules, then you can deliver better wor ..read more

Mad Libs was invented in 1953. I bet you played this fill-in-the-blank game as a kid — maybe on a long car trip. And even though the concept is more than 60 years old, hearing someone read off a wacky story with random words stuffed into sentences still elicits a laugh. But there is an important truth here. Just because a word fits a category (such as an adjective or noun) does not mean that it will hold meaning if used incorrectly or out of context. This is especially true if you work in product or project management — where job titles are sometimes used interchangeably. I think th ..read more

Have you heard of cognitive dissonance theory? In psychology, it refers to the tension that results when you attempt to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. We all balance ideas that are often quite different. This is especially true for product managers and product marketing managers. Building and launching brilliant products requires that you can understand and harmonize an internal focus (the build) with an external focus (the launch). To do this well, you need to know the why behind the work — the product strategy and the go-to-market strategy. Let’s start with simple ..read more

Roadmaps are beautiful. Not just because they are aesthetically pleasing, but because of what they represent. Roadmaps clearly show what you want to achieve and how you will get there. You can create excitement for a big idea and package it in a way that others can understand. But a roadmap is still just a visualization. You need to have a vision and strategy behind the plan. Vision, strategy, and roadmapping — you need to deeply understand the purpose of each in order to build something lasting. You will find all three are clearly defined on successful product and project teams ..read more

Product vs. project. The amount of confusion these two words can cause never surprises me. If you are a product manager, you know where I am going with this. I bet you have been called a “project manager” more times than you can count. And the confusion only grows in companies where there is a product owner on the team too. But clarity about these roles is vital to effectively collaborating and bringing a product to market. To be sure, there is not one universally accepted definition for these roles. And companies may use each one in different ways. For example, the product manage ..read more

It creeps up on you and then it is over. The end of the year is in the distance, you achieve a major release, and then everyone looks ahead. What will 2020 bring? But wait. Pausing to consider the work you have done and the team’s accomplishments is a valuable exercise — especially if you are a product manager. The end of the year is an excellent time to showcase how the product team met goals and delivered new functionality. Of course, what it is you actually report back on will depend upon the maturity of the product management discipline at your organization. To glean anything m ..read more