Meaningful Product Processes with IMPACT

After reading a blog or a book or attending a conference or talk on product management, I’m always excited to try out the new processes and frameworks I’ve learned about. I try to get my team similarly enthused about this endeavor. But when I check in with them in about a week, you can barely tell that anything had changed… mostly because it hadn’t....

23h

Roadmapping with an IMPACT Mindset

The IMPACT approach to product management’s primary goal is creating the maximum value for the broadest target audience while remaining aligned with the company’s mission, vision, and goals. Filtering everything through the IMPACT lens can be extremely beneficial. It helps product teams level set every action, process, and decision to ensure they’re...

1d

Why Gender Diversity Leads to Better Products

In the 2021 State of Product Management Report, our annual collection of data designed to bring to life the trends driving product management, we found gender diversity, or lack thereof, a prime opportunity for product management teams to create more intentional inclusivity.  Let’s further understand where things currently stand with gender diversity...

6d

An Alive Strategy vs. Dead Strategy

Product Strategy is Important One of the most important roles of a product manager (PM) is setting the product strategy. The strategy, by way of a roadmap, is the document that drives team alignment. When a group of people adopts a strategy, it transforms the product strategy from just a piece of paper to something that drives team success. Informed...

6d

Why I Switched From Spreadsheets to a Roadmap Tool, Featuring Product Director Jay Hum

Not every product manager is lucky enough to work with a purpose-built roadmapping tool. But those that do seldom return to their old methods of managing the product roadmap. The great benefits outweigh other roadmapping options such as spreadsheets and presentations. When we asked Jay Hum, Director of Product for Autonomic, the first open cloud-based...

May 2021

6 Rules of Product Design According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In this blog, we will discuss the applications of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to the world of product design and tips to use this model most effectively to create your product. But first, we must start with the theory itself. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology created by U.S psychologist...

Apr 2021

Taking the Leap: Why Product Managers Make Better Entrepreneurs

I’ve spoken with so many product managers who have a dream of becoming an entrepreneur or launching their own product one day. Every one of those conversations is exciting because that was my dream too. After a decade of working with others to launch successful SaaS products, I took the plunge to launch a startup in 2013. As I continued to help launch...

Mar 2021

Zapier: My Personal Product Management Assistant

As a product manager at ProductPlan, I’m particularly proud of our new integration with Zapier because of the impact I know it can make. My appreciation of Zapier’s capabilities started years ago when I worked in Customer Success here at ProductPlan. Back then, we used Zapier to automate how we shared NPS feedback across the company. It was empowering...

Mar 2021

ProductPlan vs. Roadmunk

Why Do You Need Roadmapping Software? Roadmapping software has emerged as a core need for the modern product manager. In a role that requires not only the creation of both a vision and a strategy for what to build and why, but also the communication of that vision to an endless sea of stakeholders, product managers must be able to quickly build roadmaps...

Mar 2021

Why It Is Essential to Put Customers First with a Customer-Led Product Strategy

At its most basic level, a customer-led product strategy means that your customers are the top priority at all times. Sounds pretty obvious, right? But creating a truly customer-centric business model means balancing a lot of different factors, not just customer service. All too often, customers are losing out to more influential stakeholder groups...

Mar 2021