When I tell people I’m a Product Management Consultant, it sometimes throws them. “Product Management Consultant? I haven’t heard of that,” they say. Then, “how does one use a consultant to help with product management? Isn’t product…
Posts on My Profession
A collection of 76 posts
Quora: What are the disadvantages of being a female in a male-dominated CS/engineering university?
My answer, originally published on Quora Q: What are the disadvantages of being a female in a male-dominated CS/engineering university? ##My Answer The other answers to this question are all spot-on and great. I will just add one more.…
Product Managers and the Fear of Selling
Most product managers and product marketers I know have a fear of — or at least a strong dislike of — selling. They find selling unpleasant and often think they are bad at it. Especially the closing the deal part. Alas, this…
"Freemium" Business Models - How to Decide What's Free and What's Not
A colleague asked me this the other day: *If a company is pursuing a “freemium” business model, how should they determine the optimal mix of features to offer in free vs. paid software? * It’s a good question. Freemium – where…
Analogies that Demystify NoSQL
I love it when a gnarly technical concept can be elegantly explained via a good analogy. In fact, I have found myself searching for these perfect analogies throughout my career. I’ve been working on NoSQL projects of late, and…
What to Do When an Employee Dies
This post is about a serious topic - how a DECENT company deals with the death of one of its employees. My husband and I have both had some first-hand experience with this. Both incidents were long ago, but the…
Quora: What is the best way to visually present a product roadmap to executive stakeholders?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Q: What is the best way to visually present a product roadmap to executive stakeholders? What are some effectively ways to communicate a product roadmap to executives clearly and concisely? My Answer My facetious…
Quora: Should I finish a degree in CS if I don't really want to be a software engineer?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Q: Should I finish a degree in CS if I don't really want to be a software engineer? Some context: I started a degree in engineering, did well in it academically (marks wise, I…
Quora: Is there a market for fractional or part-time product management?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Q: Is there a market for fractional or part-time product management? Thesis: Early stage startups could use dedicated product managers, but often can't afford one or don't have the resources to support a full-time…
The Content Manager Product Pattern
Content Management is huge in enterprise software, and thus the Content Manager Pattern is one of the most important high-level Product Patterns. Content management is the primary function of most software described as a platform, server, or online service. It’…
Product Patterns: What is Content?
In my posts about Product Patterns, I’ve mentioned the word “content” a lot. I’ve even mentioned a few high-level product patterns called the “Content Manager” and “Content Authoring Tool.” This is an important product pattern because basically every…
Product Patterns: The big ones you see over and over in Enterprise Software
Since I’ve become attuned to Product Patterns (buckets of software functionality that appear in product after product), I’ve noticed dozens of them. Some are big, top-level patterns. And some are really sub-patterns, that exist in the context of…
Product Patterns Everywhere
Over the past 10 years, I’ve probably done hands-on analysis the functionality and usability of over 300 software products and online services (not including mobile apps). Why so many? Because playing with software is not just my job, but…
Why Sales bitches about Product Management & what to do about it
You've heard that old chestnut. You've seen it in a million articles. The big advice Sales Reps offer to Product Management is "Don't just talk about features. Tie the features to benefits." And whenever I see Yet Another…
Quora: What are some must-read books for product managers?
My answer, originally published on Quora. My Answer The Must-Read Books for Product Managers For product managers working on business-to-business high tech products and early technologies, the following are absolute must-reads: Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to…
Quora: Does Apple get too much credit for its UI design?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Q: Does Apple get too much credit for its UI design? Why does everyone treat Apple UI like god? My Answer Apple deserves the credit. First they discovered UI metaphors that are so intuitive…
Quora: Is a PMP certification good for a software engineer looking to transition into product management?
My answer, originally published on Quora. My Answer I've worked with dozens of software / online service companies and helped them recruit product management candidates. None of them care about the PMI certification, and in fact it might be seen as…
The 5 Types of Beta Testing Programs and Why 4 of Them Suck
We all know the supposed purpose of Beta testing programs: to get customers to actually use about-to-be-released software, in order to find and fix problems that would not have been found by internal-only testing. So why (why?!?!) do so many…
Pros and Cons of Pre-Announcing Upcoming Features
In general, I advise against pre-announcing upcoming product features until you are so close to releasing it that you can practically taste it. But your circumstances might differ, so here are the The Cons: Reasons to NOT pre-announce upcoming features…
Quora: What Kellogg MBA classes have students found to be the most useful and why?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Q: What Kellogg MBA classes have students found to be the most useful and why? My Answer From the vantage point of someone who has been out of Kellogg for over a decade, here…
Your Business Case: Go Big or Go Home
Product managers create business cases and business plans all the time. I've created and seen a bazillion of them in my day. Lots. But, alas, so many of them are weak. In particular, many use a device that is one…
Why the unique selling proposition (USP) of every technical product sounds the same
Almost every time I read about a new B2B startup or product, I get a sense of déjà vu. Alas, it's not a glitch in the Matrix. It's because pretty much every product pitch sounds exactly the same. Watered down,…
Q&A About Agile Product Management
Below is an online Q&A from a presentation I gave on Agile Product Management. Just wanted to share…. Q: How do you deal with a management team that is entrenched in the Waterfall method and a development team…
Quora: Should I remove my wedding band before a VC pitch?
My answer, originally published on Quora. Answer: Don't hide that you are married. And if you are a guy, don't hide that you have kids. But if you are a mother, the answer is more complicated. Unfortunately, there is a…
Guest Post: The Five Stages of Debugging
We Product Manager sometimes can't understand why the product bugs we complain about so vociferously take so long for Engineering to fix. Well, here is the developer's point of view when faced with a nasty bug. It's an extremely well-written…