Category Archives: Product Management

Cursing Your Vision Statement

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I was coaching someone a while back and asked them to tell me what their vision statement: what motivated him? When I heard the answer, I was not moved. What I heard was boring. I knew this person had passion for what he did. What happened to it?

If I ask you to tell me why you do what you do, and you are not jumping up and down a bit, getting a bit fired up, I don’t buy your passion!  Here are some ideas to find the passion in your vision statement.  They may not be for everyone, but I know they have helped some people already, so I wanted to share. Continue reading →

Agile Alliance Analysis & Product Management Program

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The Agile Alliance approved a new program – Analysis and Product Management in Agile!  I included the full announcement below.

Based on this, we have a great group who we are going to be running an Agile Open Jam at the BBC Conference in Las Vegas in a few weeks.  If you are heading that way – check it out!

Agile Open Jam - Analysis and Product Management in Agile

A bit of the Background

Kent McDonald has a great summary how things happened on his blog as well – beat me to the punch! I’m glad you mentioned the comic sans discussion!

My recollection… and some links to Twitter for any of these fine people you may want to follow (HINT HINT).

There has been a lot of things happening over the last 6 months – including an unconference organized earlier in the year in New York by Gojko Adzic (@gojkoadzi).  There were a number of great folks who attended.  Lots of learning and exploring in the product space.

From there things have moved in a few directions and I’m 100% sure I do not know all of them!  A few of us found ourselves up late one evening at the Agile 2013 Conference in Nashville – and the topic of what is next came up.  That group was Kent McDonald, Jeffrey Davidson, Inger Dickson, Kupe Kupersmith, and myself.  Then more conversations went on with Chris Matts (highly recommend his book Commitment BTW) and Leslie Morse.

Kent and Ellen Gottesdiener (update: Read Ellen’s Post on the Agile Open Jam at #BBCCon) really got this nailed down and finalized – so thank them if you run across them in your travels or tweeting.  I’m sure I am missing others as well.

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Lean Business Analysis – Free Webinar

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On February 8th (2011), I will be presenting Lean Business Analysis.

We will discuss the fundamentals of lean software development, review common software ‘wastes’, and look at what lean means to business analysis and product management! It starts at 12PM EST.

Update: If you are interested in this webinar/presentation please email or call at 720-663-8044.

UPDATE: We will be scheduling another Lean Business Analysis Webinar soon. Email us if you are interested and we will notify you when we do the next one.

Learning from Washington, the Inauguration, and the Constitution

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Read This If: You’re looking for some interesting observations on scope, change management, and iterations as well as willing to consider that maybe some projects are not that tough, in perspective.

2009 seems to be moving right along! Was 2008 tough or not so much? Will 2009 be better or worse? Are things sometimes LESS challenging than they appear?

The recent inauguration and oath of office that the US President takes has me considering just how small some project problems actually are. I was listening to a NPR story about the oath, and a few things jumped out (note that LISTENING to the podcast provides more than reading the article summary).

So where is the oath found? It is the last paragraph in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. It reads “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

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Stopping the Fake Subject Matter Expert (SME) from Derailing Your Project

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Read This If: You want to ensure you are basing your projects value on input from true subject matter expert (for any type of project).

A fake subject matter expert or SME can derail a project. Improvements to your business should be based on the best information you have access to, not outdated or incorrect information. The acronym “SME” seems to pop-up everywhere. I agree that saying “subject matter expert” does not flow as well as SME, but the phrase drives home that the person should be an expert (and in the right subject)!

Subject matter experts are used on projects from IT Strategy, to business process improvement, to software development, to organizational change . . . to name a few. They are supposed to impart the wisdom of what is actually happening, and often, what is needed. But if they are NOT an expert, then what? Are you basing the success of your project on poor information?

So what exactly is a fake SME? The basic premise is that they are someone who appears or pretends to be a subject matter expert, but is not. There are many types, but let me outline some of the more common ones:
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