Some New Tools
Well, there have definitely been some cool new Web-based apps and tools released. But, would a day really be a true day right now if a new Web-based app wasn’t released?
It’s true - they are everywhere.
And while some of them don’t in fact serve any purpose whatsoever, a large part of them do. I don’t know what that is attributed to, but there are some very interesting concepts out there and some very interesting solutions to different types of problems we are encountering day-to-day.
I wanted to post and draw some attention to Twitter and Pownce.
Now, I use both. I find I use Twitter more for boring, throughout the day style posts. Where I’m at, what I’m doing, that type of thing. Think old-school blogs. Like those very first blogs that started showing up on the ‘net back in the day when blogs first started gaining ground. Here’s an example:
“I burnt my toast this morning, so I ate Fruit Loops for breakfast.”
And that was a single entry of many throughout the day. Twitter is more a medium / application that lends itself to this style of posting, and everyone on there (even the cool kids) is doing it.
Since I’m the furthest thing from “a-list.,” I’m fine following that trend.
Pownce on the other hand I’m using entirely different. We are in the the thick of trying to get v1.0 of a new product out the door. It’s a hectic week, no matter how much work you put in up-front. Launch weeks are very stressful and exciting. Add the fact that you have never done a v1.0 launch together as a group, and it increases the complexity.
Now, I’m one of the lucky PM’s that have a solid Product Analyst to work with (you’re rockin’ Jenn!). She’s learning the ropes of product management, and doing a fantastic job.
She and I have been using Pownce to get through the last few weeks in terms of defect tracking. Yes, we have formal bug tracking software. But, on a v1.0 in a start-up, the name of the game is speed. I don’t want to be sitting around filling out CR entries, assigning them, forcing developers to read them, re-assign, etc, etc… It would kill our momentum.
So, each morning, we compile our list for the day for development to work through (in true “agile” like style) and that includes notes we have logged / passed back and forth to one another using Pownce. It’s been insanely helpful for speed and completeness.
This week, we have the added fun of leaving the office, going to a coffee shop at night to step through the days work and re-assess where we are at for tomorrow morning so we don’t hold-up dev.
Now, I realize this can’t go on for every release, and I hope to god I’m not so lazy it does. We are learning where our balance is between long, streched out waterfall-style docs and short, brief agile style docs. I want to keep things trim, but we are learning with our dev team what’s going to help for future releases; not only v1.0’s but other revs and upgrades as well.
So, I’d recommend trying it out. If you need invites, let me know. But, it’s helped me a great deal. Not only for bugs, but also if you can get your entire team on there, for updates throughout the day. Even though we’re a really small company, you can’t spend your entire day giving and collection status updates - then you’re wasting time.
But, spending 2 seconds to jump into Pownce, select your group of work friends and post a quick update like, “Steve is done with feature A - test it out and give feedback.” That rocks. It’s instant, immediate, folks know there’s progress and they can take part right away if they like. If not, the message is there for them later on to review at their leisure and give feedback on.
Product Management and Movie Making
I just bought 2 Kevin Smith DVDs. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but his humor kills me.
He brought up a funny point that I’ll paraphrase.
Essentially, he said he has the easy job as a writer / director. He gets to define the dialog, write out what people will do. In the director’s chair, he is able to say things like, “I want more from Actor A, and I think we need coverage over in spot B.”
He then essentially relies entirely on his producer to make it all happen. Under / within budget, and on time. A producer is essentially responsible for taking his vision, executing and delivering, or “shipping” the film.
Does anyone else see a relationship between a PM and CEO here? The CEO says, “we are going to do A, B, C.” Those points could be attacking a new market, creating a new product, or if they are an awful CEO, “we’re going to make money by getting 1 billion people to give us $1. We’ll be CRAZY RICH!” But, I digress.
I’ve posted before about being cautious as a PM with slipping in to thinking you are the CEO. You are not. There are just plain a lot of calls you don’t get to make. But, on the flip side, there are plenty of cool decisions, which are 100% critical, that you do get to make.
A director complete depends on his producer(s) to make sure that his vision comes to life, and what he sees in his mind’s eye is possible to get in the can.
PMs are the same way for CEOs. Delivering on their vision and making it happen.
Some people like sports analogies, I prefer movie-making. Maybe I’ve been living out in LA for too long already…hmm….
Getting Ready for v1.0
It has been way too long since my last post.
OK, so what have I been doing that’s kept me from writing my, usually way too long, posts? Well, my day job of course. But, with that being said, what’s this about?
Since I’ve been dealing a lot lately with getting new products out the door - both including brand new, and major revs to those that currently exist (v1.0 to v2.0 update type stuff), I wanted to write a little bit about paring down feature sets.
There’s a major temptation to fulfill and match-up to terms like, “compelling” and “value-add” - especially for v1.0. Everyone is excited and wants to see their efforts make an impact on the company.
The most important thing to not overlook is actually getting something out the door. Keep it as simple as possible.
That’s why defining your market & your product up-front is so important. It drives you to make decisions. Acting as the voice of the customer, PM’s out there (who are more than likely driving requirements) must be able to say, “no, not v1.0.”
Each and every requirement adds time to your go-to-market. Are you sure that each one of those is necessary for a solid v1.0 launch that your target market is going to want to use?
Remember, products typically don’t start to really come into their own until shipping the second / third revs. In today’s world - Web apps and software alike, there is nothing holding any PM back from turning around weekly revisions.
That being said, QA cycles are extremely important, but I’ll leave that aside for now.
Get something out the door. If you haven’t shipped something in 3-4 months, that’s a problem. Figure out what the roadblocks are, and focus.
Yes, feedback is 100% critical. But draw the line and commit. You can’t keep tweaking requirements during your v1.0 dev cycle unless you are absolutely sure you have just plain missed something that’s valuable to your market. Products can fail because they are just simply not compelling.
But there comes a time when you MUST commit, and believe that what you have locked in is going to rock. This lands in agile territory to a degree. Locking in to a sprint / iteration, and not changing it until it’s done and released.
Same goes for v1.0. There is a high temptation to listen to everyone, because nothing is yet out in the market. Yes, listen. But do more logging than listening, especially if you have what you feel is a well-crafted product definition and requirements that are tied to that definition.
Everyone will always want to add everything. That’s why PMs must always be stripping things down to their core for the customer / user - especially during those critical months / weeks leading up to putting v1.0 out to market.
Scratch That Previous Post
Yeah, I make mistakes. Time to come clean. But, I’m now decided.
As opposed to the project manager posting I originally had (see previous post), I’m actually hunting for a product manager to come in and help me out. Own some cool products (from conception/design through to go-to-market), work within our small team, and capable of getting revs out the door and into the hands of users. Gathering their feedback. Rev, rinse, cycle, repeat.
I’m looking for a market-driven, software product manager.
Not a marketing guru; not a sales expert; but someone who knows what client/server means, can actually talk to users, and doesn’t wonder aloud in meetings with developers, “why can’t we use those newfandangled cookies all the kids are talking about these days?!”
If you’re up for owning and shipping some cool products, get in touch.
