Product Management News, Latest Updates and Recent Announcements on Techminis

A naukri.com initiative

New

Home

Product Management News

Medium

155

Image Credit: Medium

Laying the Foundation: High-Performing Teams Take Ownership

Building cross-functional teams to drive results and maximize potential.
Teams must take ownership of their role in achieving shared goals.
Creating a culture of belonging and purpose for team members.
High-performing teams are built on trust, shared goals, and ownership.

Read Full Article

9 Likes

Medium

307

Image Credit: Medium

Instagram’s New 5-Second Ad Rule: Game-Changer or Gimmick?

Instagram's new 5-second ad rule disrupts the seamless experience and frustrates users.
Loss of control and disrupted flow are some of the issues faced by users.
Instagram has the potential to turn this annoyance into an opportunity through strategies like rewarding engagement and hyper-personalized ads.
The 5-second ad feature is a double-edged sword, generating revenue while potentially driving users to explore alternatives.

Read Full Article

18 Likes

Logrocket

336

Image Credit: Logrocket

Use case vs. user story: How and when to use each

As a product manager, you express customer needs to your development teams so that you can work together to build the best possible solution.
Two common approaches to requirements are use cases and user stories. Use cases are more detailed and explain how the system should be working, whereas, user stories focus on a feature’s result.
Use cases let you build understanding stakeholders because you write out a structured requirement flow for the system behavior. On the other hand, use cases are time consuming and complex products require lots of cases.
User stories need to be as simple as possible to prevent misunderstanding between stakeholders. They represent acceptance criteria and desired features that provide value to customers.
Use cases and user stories are both important parts of the software development cycle and each describe a specific feature. User stories are more user centric and use cases are more system behavior centric.
When to use each approach and how to implement. As a product manager, if you want to explain a user need or a product goal, you need to write user stories. Typical use cases have actors, description, preconditions, main flow, alternative flows, and dependencies components.
User stories tend to be the preference for agile, but don’t think that means that agile doesn’t require details. When you find yourself needing detailed requirements, turn towards use cases instead. And sometimes you can even mix the two methods together.
Although the road you take for the two methods differs, they both focus on understanding your customer’s needs. Choose the method that best suits your product or team style and remember that you can change them to adapt to new needs or circumstances.
Either way, understanding requirements gives you the best chance at building successful, sustainable products.

Read Full Article

20 Likes

Medium

365

Image Credit: Medium

The Product SWAT Team

Product success requires more than working on ideas with skilled developers. It requires strategic product knowledge, deep market understanding, thoughtful validation, and the ability to pivot when needed.
Most developers simply build what is asked of them without questioning it, after all, it’s not their job to have a Product-centered mindset. This modus operandi frequently results in a product that neither solves the right problem nor resonates with its intended audience - a complete waste of time and money.
Different-sized companies have distinct challenges, but all of them benefit from collaborating with a third party for product management work. As a startup founder, you are likely to be biased toward action. The most efficient use of your resources is to start with the problem, not the solution.
SMBs share a challenge with enterprises: you can’t justify hiring a full-time product manager for a project whose success is uncertain. By working with a third party, businesses access senior product management expertise without the long-term commitment of full-time hires.
Working with a third-party product management agency results in a variety of benefits for clients. Outsourcing product management work comes with its own set of challenges. Most likely, you’ll deal with the following: building trust, fostering a cohesive team culture, detecting early signs of misalignment, and remote working.
Building successful products isn’t about moving quickly, it’s about moving strategically. We’ve all seen products that launched quickly but failed to connect with users. The secret isn’t speed — it’s knowing exactly what you’re building and why.
Purple Brains is a product management agency providing a hands-on service that you don't get with large agencies. They only work on 2 to 3 projects at once, allowing them to stay focused, work more closely, adapt quickly, and address challenges more effectively.
At Purple Brains, they are seasoned tech entrepreneurs and product professionals. They are your partner to help you move forward with confidence, whether you’re a startup founder, an SMB, or leading innovation at an enterprise. Let’s build smarter, together.

Read Full Article

21 Likes

Medium

180

Image Credit: Medium

A guide for sizing workshops.

A different approach is required to size workshops involving large deliverables for a long running programme.
The most important thing is to make it multi-disciplinary to bring in people from all the capabilities that would be involved in delivering the work.
Using sticky notes, folks would add their thoughts to discrete sections and discuss, rationalise and tidy them up.
Align on a shared understanding to focus the rest of the workshop and define the measures of success to know the problem is solved.
Leaning heavily on Section 3, start to pull in the things we’ll need to do to and putting it in a logical order or flow tends to help.
Start with t-shirt sizes and build up more clarity as things progress, then take a bit of a leap get the group’s honest view of how big or small the tasks are.
Use ranges of estimates where possible and consider how confident we are in our final overall estimates.
Agree on a short succinct justification statement for why the confidence level is what it is.
This approach was fruitful overall in helping to deliver consistency in large programme with many teams, dependencies, and governance requirements.
Consensus building, honesty, continuous learning, and respect are key to successful workshop sizing.

Read Full Article

10 Likes

Medium

Image Credit: Medium

Marketing Behavioural Science: The Reciprocity Principle (give to get)

The Reciprocity Principle is based on the idea that when someone gives you something, you feel obligated to give something back.
In marketing, this principle is applied when a company provides something of value for free, and in return, expects the recipient to provide their contact details or attention.
A common example is when a marketer offers a free white paper in exchange for the recipient's name and email address.
Small gestures, such as offering candy or personalized gestures, can significantly influence customer behavior and increase engagement.

Read Full Article

2 Likes

Medium

373

Image Credit: Medium

"Why Product Management is the Backbone of Every Successful Business"

Product managers act as the bridge between different departments, ensuring alignment and reducing misunderstandings and delays.
Product managers gather valuable customer insights to ensure the product meets real user needs.
Product managers prioritize features and tasks based on impact, feasibility, and urgency.
Product managers embrace iterative improvement to constantly improve the product over time.

Read Full Article

22 Likes

Medium

254

Unlocking the Potential of STON.fi: Exploring the TON Ecosystem and DeFi Features

STON.fi is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the TON ecosystem, offering a seamless and secure trading experience.
The platform leverages TON's scalability and efficiency for low-latency transactions at minimal costs.
Key metrics such as Total Value Locked and Trading Volume reflect the platform's growth and liquidity.
STON.fi stands out in DeFi with its liquidity, security protocols, and active community engagement.

Read Full Article

15 Likes

UX Design

Image Credit: UX Design

Features shouldn’t feel like features

Product experiences should feel natural and intuitive for users, rather than like a collection of distinct features.
Designing for the user and their unique needs creates an experience that is seamless and designed to be part of the user's workflow.
Experiences are more than just bullet point features on a roadmap - it's about the feeling of how all aspects of the product come together to create a cohesive solution.
This type of experience-driven design eliminatess complexity and removes friction from users' lives rather than adding more features to the product.
Creating an experience that feels natural and eliminates friction points involves understanding the user's story, and detecting their moments of frustration.
Rather than adding features, this design process involves removing what is unnecessary and making everything feels natural.
Ultimately, the goal is to create products that just work the way users expect them to work, without the need for explicit features or instructions.
Investing in experience-driven design will lead to products users love, tools that feel tailor-made for them and seamless experiences they cannot imagine any other way.
The most elegant solutions often involve removing complexity rather than adding features.
Creating truly exceptional products requires a fundamental shift in how products are designed from feature-driven to experience-driven design.

Read Full Article

Medium

386

Image Credit: Medium

Stakeholders are like your family: everyone wants something different for dinner

Being a project manager (PM) is like trying to cook dinner for a family with different preferences.
The sales team wants features delivered quickly, while the engineering team focuses on feasibility.
The marketing team wants everything to look perfect, and customers can be picky and demanding.
Despite the challenges, finding a balance and delivering a satisfactory product brings satisfaction to a PM.

Read Full Article

23 Likes

Medium

Image Credit: Medium

Feature Bloat: The Silent Killer of Product Success

Feature bloat undermines alignment with strategic goals, creates inefficiencies, and wastes resources. Balancing innovation with efficiency is crucial to maintain a product’s core purposes. Adding more features may not always lead to more value. Excessive additions of features in a product lead to reduced performance. Many features are never used, while others are underutilized. Strategic misalignment, communication gaps, and resource burdens contribute to feature bloat. Poor prioritization muddles the product and may not address the core user needs. Overcommitment, burnout, and attrition go hand in hand with feature bloat. Teams may feel the need to add similar features to compete. Effective feature prioritization requires analyzing user behavior and fostering good user feedback. Lean and agile methodologies help in decision-making for effective feature prioritization.
While focusing on the high-value features is crucial for success, the dilemma arises when teams must decide whether the incremental value from additional features justifies the resources required to implement them. Feature bloat manifests in several ways: resource drain, user frustration, underutilization of core features, and performance issues. Feature bloat reduces the product's overall return on investment and may dilute a product’s core value proposition. Feature bloat results from systemic and organizational challenges that organizations must overcome, such as systemic inefficiencies, market pressure, and fear of missing out. To mitigate feature bloat, product managers must implement strategic, data-driven decision-making processes. High-value features must be prioritized, adopting phased implementation and monitoring key metrics.
Data analytics, AI, and machine learning are essential for effective feature prioritization. By analyzing user behavior and predicting needs, product managers can make data-driven decisions and identify features that provide real value, thereby reducing feature bloat. Effective feature prioritization requires fostering collaboration and building a strong product culture that values simplicity, clarity, and user experience. Product managers must gain an understanding of contemporary best practices, including agile and lean methodologies, to support data-driven decision-making frameworks geared towards the right features that solve real user problems, maximize ROI, and support the long-term product vision. Success lies not in delivering more features but the right features that maximize product potential.
References: [1] https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/are-64-of-features-really-rarely-or-never-used?utm_source=chatgpt.com [2] https://www.pendo.io/resources/the-2019-feature-adoption-report/

Read Full Article

Medium

Image Credit: Medium

Getting Started with Root Cause Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

An RCA-type question typically places you in the role of a PM at a company, where you’re presented with a specific situation.
While finding the root cause is important, the evaluation focuses more on how you approach the problem.
Structured Thinking, Communication, Time Management & Process Over Outcome are key evaluation criteria.
Breaking down metrics is an essential part of RCA.
When solving an RCA, professionals typically explore three key factor categories.
A common pitfall for many candidates is approaching RCA with a predefined list of questions.
Root Cause Analysis is a powerful tool for problem-solving in product management.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more mock interviews, detailed tech and product breakdowns, and practical tips to sharpen your product management skills.
Whether you’re preparing for an interview or tackling real-world challenges, there’s plenty more to come!
If you found this helpful, hit that clap button, share it with your network, and follow me for more actionable content.

Read Full Article

3 Likes

Medium

386

The Transformative Benefits of Meditation: A Path to Well-Being

Improved Mental Clarity and Focus: Meditation trains the mind to focus and avoid distractions. Regular practice has been linked to enhanced cognitive function, better memory retention, and increased productivity.
Enhanced Emotional Health: Meditation promotes emotional well-being by helping individuals develop a greater sense of self-awareness. This practice can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, leading to a more positive outlook on life.
Better Sleep: Meditation can improve sleep quality by relaxing the body and calming the mind before bedtime. Practices like guided meditation or body scan meditation help ease tension, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Physical Health Benefits: Regular meditation has been associated with lowered blood pressure, improved heart health, and a stronger immune system. Mindfulness practices can also help manage chronic pain by changing the way the brain processes pain signals.

Read Full Article

23 Likes

Logrocket

345

Image Credit: Logrocket

Leader Spotlight: Guiding PMs up the career ladder, with Karen Letendre

Karen Letendre, Director of Product Management at Brightcove, shares how she helps her team advance in their careers through mentorship, upskilling programs, and more.
The team mantra that Karen follows is “clear is kind” regarding communication.
Karen has worked with HR and product leadership to draft a clear definition for defining career paths in Product Management career, starting at an associate level and going up to Chief Product Officer.
The definition covered every level that they hire for in their product team and mapped out the roles and responsibilities for that path.
The basic qualities necessary in product management to move up include leadership skills, communication skills, prioritization, and time management.
At Brightcove, Karen started a professional development program, called the Upskilling Program.
The program started six months ago, and they have grown the group while learning topics such as listening and influencing, strategic planning, among others. The program was well received and has been helpful in improving team performance.
Karen encourages her team to experiment with different methodologies and approaches, and she does not want to tell people what they can and cannot do because they will not learn from it.
She is a firm believer that if one is the smartest person in the room, they are in the wrong room. Karen wants to learn from her team.
Karen advises the product management community to be selfish in their time management and to ensure that they are creating a work-life balance.

Read Full Article

20 Likes

Medium

152

Image Credit: Medium

The Systems Paradox: When to Build and When to Sprint

Systems create leverage, but they can also become a prison.
Understanding when to build systems and when to take action is crucial for exponential growth.
Early in a venture, speed is valuable, while as organizations grow, thoughtful systems become essential.
Balancing chaos and order is necessary for success in different roles and phases of an organization.

Read Full Article

9 Likes

For uninterrupted reading, download the app

Product Management News

Discover more