Global Product Management Talk

Previously, we've talked about the heirarchical list of information: product level, device level, feature level which just captures one aspect of the fixed things in the product (that don't change with time). Its an incomplete picture - so then we have to take each feature/functionality "name" and treat it as a systems and signals block. Then determine how they're related to each other and what flows between each block - how the information flows from internal, to external, and displaying how that works. In this episode, Cindy and Malcolm discuss systems thinking as applied to product development.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: A book caught my attention recently, and when I investigated the author, I was even more intrigued. The book is “Building Insanely Great Products,” written by David Fradin.

David has trained thousands of managers throughout the world. He infuses his workshops with insights and experiences gained as a product leader at companies like Apple & HP.

In our discussion you will learn the six keys to building insanely great products, that is remembered using the acronym SPICES, which is for:

strategy,process,information,customers,employees, andsystems & tools

In this 12th discussion of the series, Anca Mosoiu, Founder, Tech Liminal & Software Engineer, Joins The Discussion with Cindy F. Solomon, Founder, SUPA Product Academy and Malcolm Knapp, Founder, The Engineering Accelerator.

Anca Mosoiu is a programmer and consultant who loves complex, large-scale technology projects, where her curiosity and ability to translate between technical and non-technical helps teams get things done. Her past and current clients include the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Cisco Systems, Nike and Sony.

She has professional nerd credentials, as a Computer Science graduate from MIT. Subsequently, she worked as a programmer for a 3D startup in the 1990’s and helped design and develop some of the earliest websites and online stores while working for Razorfish. Her experience in the corporate and startup world was followed by a focus on local community, as a volunteer and an entrepreneur.

Listeners are invited to join the discussion, ask questions and provide your own perspectives and approaches for what process and tools you currently employ to arrive at a cross functional and validated vision of the product prior to build.

In this 11th discussion of the series,Anca Mosoiu, Founder, Tech Liminal & Software Engineer, Joins The Discussion with Cindy F. Solomon, Founder, SUPA Product Academy and Malcolm Knapp, Founder, The Engineering Accelerator.

Anca Mosoiu is a programmer and consultant who loves complex, large-scale technology projects, where her curiosity and ability to translate between technical and non-technical helps teams get things done. Her past and current clients include the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Cisco Systems, Nike and Sony.

She has professional nerd credentials, as a Computer Science graduate from MIT. Subsequently, she worked as a programmer for a 3D startup in the 1990’s and helped design and develop some of the earliest websites and online stores while working for Razorfish. Her experience in the corporate and startup world was followed by a focus on local community, as a volunteer and an entrepreneur.

Listeners are invited to join the discussion, ask questions and provide your own perspectives and approaches for what process and tools you currently employ to arrive at a cross functional and validated vision of the product prior to build.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: We have seen significant increases in large companies creating some type of innovation lab or starting a partnership with an innovation lab. One benefit is that the innovation lab can run at a different pace than the organization. The lab has more freedom to try quick experiments and explore new areas that may be deemed too risky for the large organization. One lab that caught my attention when I first learned of it a few years ago was FirstBuild, which describes itself as the “place where ideas come to life.” FirstBuild is a creation of GE Appliances. They have created an open community with access to world-class engineering and design talent for exploring ideas and creating home appliances.

I plan to visit FirstBuild in a few months to learn more, but for now, I spoke with Taylor Dawson, their Product Evangelist. Taylor’s background is in mechanical design engineering, having spent time at Lexmark International and then GE Appliances. In our discussion, you will learn:

Why FirstBuild was created and how it helps GE,How they identify product ideas and potential market segments,Why they use crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, andWhy a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: Product managers have unique experiences and competencies that equip them for senior leadership roles. Many CEOs come from a product management background, including the last 8 CEOs of Proctor & Gamble.

But, what should the product manager turned senior leader (or one who is planning on being a leader in the future) do to help his or her organization be more successful, and just as importantly, be the type of organization where people are motivated and want to work?

Well, that is the topic of this episode. My guest is John Latham who is sharing insights from his latest book, [Re]Create the Organization You Really Want. This is a book I have been encouraging John to write for several years, and I am delighted he has. You see, John has a rare combination of having performed research with leaders of world-renown organizations that moved from being good organizations to being the very best in their industry. He also has decades of experience helping organizations reach higher levels of performance. In the discussion, you’ll hear why product managers are suited to be organizational designers — treating the organization as a product to improve.

Cindy F. Solomon of SUPA Product Academy chats with Malcolm Knapp of the Engineer Accelerator to implement the process that Malcolm teaches for creating the vision for a product prior to building it and the value to product managers of being trained to implement this process to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the product development phase and excellent product outcomes.

In this 10th discussion of the series, the first in 2017, Cindy and Malcolm discuss how specific you need to be at that moment in the product process. Many people speak about the product in a vague way and there is a necessary level of specificity required to determine actionable items. There's a skill to knowing how far/deep to go at this moment in the process - it is a challenge to not jump to (for engineers) coding or identifying materials - we don't want to spend time designing what we already know before we uncover what we don't know - the Lean Spec guarantees integration with other parts of the process aligning across functions. System thinking, the proper hierarchical organization of knowledge of what is known about the product (product experience is the gestalt of the hardware, software and the design - part of what you're trying to do is talk about "experience" but not only the end-user perspective, but the objective creation of the product).

Listeners are invited to join the discussion, ask questions and provide your own perspectives and approaches for what process and tools you currently employ to arrive at a cross functional and validated vision of the product prior to build.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: The role of product management is encompassing more design and the need to integrate design capabilities into the product team. It is a topic that Latif Nanji is passionate about, along with designing products customers love. Latif is the CEO of Roadmunk, which creates road mapping software for the enterprise.  Roadmunk was built out of Latif’s frustration to create well-designed roadmaps quickly for stakeholders.

Latif shares that product managers’ ever-changing roles now involve understanding and leveraging UX and UI. The challenge is how product managers properly align design principles into their work and what values product management needs to champion.

In this interview you will learn a 5 element framework for communicating design in product management:

empathy in product management and design,language of design,data around design,executive buy-in, anddesigning the MSP.

Cindy F. Solomon of SUPA Product Academy chats with Malcolm Knapp of the Engineer Accelerator to implement the process that Malcolm teaches for creating the vision for a product prior to building it and the value to product managers of being trained to implement this process to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the product development phase and excellent product outcomes.

In this 9th discussion of the series, the first in 2017, Cindy and Malcolm discuss what cohorts will learn in the Lean Spec training, consider how to map over domain expertise from across different functions and how is this relevant to other domains and product types.

Listeners are invited to join the discussion, ask questions and provide your own perspectives and approaches for what process and tools you currently employ to arrive at a cross functional and validated vision of the product prior to build.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: I’m very interested in how innovation can be made better and one category of tools is related to team performance – higher performing teams can create products that produce higher value.

One particular tool is Group Flow, which was the topic of a paper published by The International Council on Systems Engineering titled “Group Flow: the Genesis of Innovation.” Its author is Laurie Buss, who I interviewed to learn how teams can create group flow. When I discovered Laurie’s work, I felt like I found a kindred spirit based on how she describes innovation, which is, that …

Innovation is key to the continued growth of established economies, not only for the creation of new designs, products, services, and markets but also for the development and retention of top-performing employees.

She has a degree from UCLA in Aerospace Engineering and is highly regarded in the international satellite industry, working with numerous large organizations in spacecraft design and test, launch, operations, and many other aspects that require innovative thinking. She also has a new book coming out in the second quarter of 2017 with a working title of “Brainpower Redemption.”

In this interview Laurie shares concrete steps to facilitate group flow, which includes 4 elements that are easily remembered using FLOW as an acronym:

Focus,Location,O (for round table), andWork tools.