Tag Archives: teamwork

Establishing an Effective Product Strategy Process

| October 2, 2018

Developing a successful product is not down to luck or trying hard enough. Instead, product success starts with making the right strategic decisions. But as product people, we are often so preoccupied with the tactics—be it dealing with an urgent support request or writing new user stories—that we sometimes no longer see the wood for the trees. In the worst case, we neglect the strategic work and end up with an unsuccessful product. To avoid this pitfall, you should establish an effective product strategy process, as I discuss in this article.

Be a Balanced Product Leader, Not a Feature Broker or Product Dictator

| March 12, 2018

Being an effective product leader is not easy: It requires embracing people’s ideas as well as saying no, being neither too accommodating, nor too assertive. This post helps you recognise and overcome two common, ineffective leadership styles, feature broker and product dictator, and develop a balanced, successful leadership approach.

Leading Through Shared Goals

| February 6, 2018

Ensuring that development teams and stakeholders are moving in the same direction is crucial to achieving product success. But aligning people can sometimes feel like herding cats. In the worst case, they go off in different directions and create work results that don’t fit together. In this article, I describe my framework for setting effective goals to help you guide and align the stakeholders and the development teams.

Product Strategizing Tips

| January 9, 2018

Product strategizing refers to the activities required to determine if and why a product should be developed. Carrying out this work makes it more likely to create a product that users want and need. In this article, I share my recommendations to help you improve your product strategy work.

Do Product Owners Need Technical Skills?

| August 9, 2017

As a product owner, you look after a digital product and work with a development team. Does this mean that you require technical skills? Should you be able to program and write code? Or is it sufficient that you take an interest in software technology and leave the rest to the team? This post shares my answers and recommendations.

Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders and Team Members

| July 3, 2017

Experiencing disagreement and conflict is part of our job as product managers and product owners. We work with a broad range of people from different departments, and it’s only natural that we don’t always agree and sometimes clash. But constructively navigating conflict can be challenging. This article shares my recommendations for dealing with difficult people and successfully addressing conflict.

4 Daily Scrum Tips for Product Owners

| June 20, 2017

The Daily Scrum is an important meeting for agile development teams: It facilitates self-organisation and helps maximise the chances of reaching the sprint goal. Despite its importance, the meeting is not always effective. This articles share my recommendations on how you as the product owner can help make the Daily Scrum a success.

Making Unanimous Product Decisions

| February 24, 2017

Unanimity is a powerful approach to take advantage of the collective wisdom of the stakeholders and development team members and generate strong buy-in and shared ownership of a decision. But it can be challenging to apply, and if used incorrectly, it can create mediocre results. This post helps you leverage unanimity to make successful product decisions. It explains when and how to use it, and it discusses common traps and how to avoid them.

User Story Reflections

| February 1, 2017

User stories are a simple, straightforward tool. But successfully applying them can be surprisingly hard. This post offers four refections to help you improve your user story practice.

Use Decision Rules to Make Better Product Decisions

| December 5, 2016

As product managers and product owners, we make a myriad of decisions—from shaping the product strategy and determining the product roadmap to deciding the detailed functionality of our products. But do we make all these decisions effectively? And do we always secure the necessary buy-in? This post helps you make better decisions. It discusses five common decision rules and explains when to apply them.