Sales people are known for having a short-attention span -- they are always focused on the needs of their in-progress deals. Many won't put in the time to learn all about the competition until they absolutely need to. So, you need a way to get them up-to-speed on the competition »
What do you do when you have an important customer who is experiencing serious issues with your software -- issues so serious that they can't successfully use the product? I'm not talking about customers who need a little hand-holding and training. Customer Support can handle them. I'm talking about situations »
You Should Use Frameworks & Templates When Developing Your Product Strategy To develop a product strategy, most PMs use two or more strategic frameworks to make sure they’ve considered the business environment and potential futures from all angles. Many PMs also use product strategy templates and checklists.(See footnote »
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 so-called Beta testing programs seem explicitly designed to PREVENT this »
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 You could stall the sales process. Instead of buying what »
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 of my pet peeves. It's the "one percent of the »
OK, you know you have to do Win-Loss Analysis. It’s one of the best ways to make sure you correctly understand the market and its problems—upon which you based, well, everything. But unfortunately, it is very difficult to get these customers/former prospects lined up for Win-Loss interviews, »
At most companies, everyone agrees that Win-Loss Analysis is very important. After all, without understanding why you are winning deals and why you are losing, how are you to know what you’re doing right and what you need to change? For example: Are your sales people blowing it by »
Earlier, I posted my thoughts on how to run an effective Customer Advisory Board (also called Customer Advisory Groups, CAGs, or CABs). Many readers of my post then contributed their own thoughts and advice... very good stuff. I've compiled their tips and tricks below. "Keep Customer Advisory Boards small if »
Two questions from readers triggered this post: "What is your opinion of the effectiveness of Client Advisory Groups, and do you think that PMs should organize and facilitate them?" and "Assuming you have an existing CAG, how do extract useful feedback and integrate it with the development process? A ‘rate »