Product Managers must balance four very different and sometimes conflicting mindsets when approaching ideation, creation, and delivery of high-value products. These are Exploration, Analysis, Critique and Evangelism. No matter what stage in the product lifecycle, simultaneously and deliberately viewing your product through these perspectives will help avoid common pitfalls and help deliver a superior solution.
Former VP of Product at Lynda.com, Ken Sandy, talked about the relative advantages of each of the four mindsets: how Exploration drives innovation, Analysis drives understanding, Critique identifies risks, and Evangelism provides a path to delivery.
He also talked about how to execution in context: your role is to build the right product, not to build the product right, and how to know what questions to ask yourself at each stage of the lifecycle and strategies to bring stakeholders along with you.
20. Five Common Ideation Pitfalls
1. Playing only to your strengths: practice using all mindsets and
complement the “go-to” styles of stakeholders and your team
2. Applying the mindsets, but not objectively: avoid one of many
cognitive biases
3. Ambiguity vs. Certainty, and Analysis Paralysis: continue to
collect information and defer decisions, in the hope to become more
certain
4. Conflict avoidance: not embracing healthy conflict as part of
bringing diverse points-of-view together for better ideas and decisions
5. Not trusting your instincts and dismissing an idea too
easily: even in the face of challenge and doubt, listen to your intuition
26. Thinking Like a Product Manager
ANALYSTEXPLORER CHALLENGER EVANGELIST
Many product cycles follow a more linear process…
27. Developing Product Best Practices
Example: 1981 Kodak report on the
future of digital
• The quality of prints from electronic
images will not be generally acceptable to
consumers as replacement for prints
based on the science of photography.
• The consumer’s desire to handle, display,
and distribute prints cannot be replaced
by electronic display devices.
• Electronic systems (camera and viewing
input device for TV) will not be low
enough in price to have widespread
appeal.
28. Part-time Product Management Courses in
San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles
and New York
www.productschool.com