Product Roadmap First Principles

It’s Product Roadmap Building Time Again!

The end of 2020 is nearing, and it’s product roadmap building time again—at least for those companies that are still dedicated to the old command-and-control model. In the next few weeks, executives and (key) stakeholders will come together and define new functionality that they believe will meet business demands in 2021.

While investing in product roadmaps can yield a reasonable return by creating a shared understanding between the “the business” and product teams, I also believe that product roadmaps need to be living artifacts requiring continuous attention by everyone involved. To make that process as worthwhile as possible, adhering to the following seven product roadmap first principles has proven beneficial in my experience.

Product Roadmap First Principles — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading Product Roadmap First Principles

11 Proven Stakeholder Communication Tactics during an Agile Transition

TL; DR: 11 Proven Stakeholder Communication Tactics

Stakeholder communication: It is simply not enough for an agile product development organization to create great code and ship the resulting product like a clockwork. It would help if you also talked about it, particularly at the beginning of your endeavor to becoming a learning organization. Marketing your journey to the rest of the organization—and thus securing their support, collaboration, and buy-in—is a critical success factor to step up the transformation game: You want to become agile, not “do agile.”

Learn more about eleven proven stakeholder communications tactics that contribute to making this happen.

11 Proven Stakeholder Communication Tactics during an Agile Transition — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading 11 Proven Stakeholder Communication Tactics during an Agile Transition

Create Personas with the Help of the Engineers

TL; DR: Create Personas with the Help of the Engineers

Creating valuable software requires knowing the customer—we all agree on that, right? The first question that then comes to mind is how to support this product discovery process in a meaningful manner in an agile environment? And the second question follows swiftly: who shall participate in the process—designers and business analysts or the engineers, too?

Read on and learn why personas are useful for product discovery purposes, how to create personas, and why the complete team—including the engineers—needs to participate in their creation.

Create Personas with the Help of the Engineers — Age of Product
Continue reading Create Personas with the Help of the Engineers

Lean User Tests, Part 5 of 7: Best Interview Practices and the Course of the Interview

TL;DR—Lean User Tests Part 5

The fifth part of the Lean User Tests series deals with how to interview the participants and what the course of the conversation most likely will be.

How are your preparations progressing? If anything is impeding you from reaching this goal, please do not hesitate to contact me by commenting on this post, and I will gladly help you.

Lean User Tests: Best Interview Practices
Continue reading Lean User Tests, Part 5 of 7: Best Interview Practices and the Course of the Interview

Lean User Tests – Equipment and Location (Part 4 of 7)

TL; DR: Lean User Tests – Equipment and Location

This fourth part of the Lean User Tests series focuses on equipment and location: What hard- and software do you need to run your user tests, and where to run them? (Spoiler alert: It’s preferably not your office.)

How are your preparations progressing? If anything is impeding you from reaching this goal, please do not hesitate to contact me by commenting on this post, and I will gladly help you.

Continue reading Lean User Tests – Equipment and Location (Part 4 of 7)