Posts

Showing posts from 2021

Professional bodies - Mind the Product/Women in Product

One of the interesting things running a "state of practice" survey is finding out (or being reminded!) of organisations. In my previous round-up of professional bodies , I had missed out two in particular - Mind the Product and Women in Product. Women in Product From the Women in Product website : Women In Product connects women in the product management field through our online platforms and live events. Our robust global community empowers women with opportunities to collaborate and resources for advancement. We align with organizations driving innovation through inclusive policies and practices that encourage mobility for women in product.  so, it's more the community angle than a professional body per se. From the website it still seems to be heavily weighted towards North American chapters. That and not reallt being the target demographic and it's not surprising that I hadn't thought of them when providing professional bodies that survey respondents might be

A systems look at the variables in a successful SaaS product

Image
A while back I shared a version of this rough and ready systems diagram looking at a system to manage new product development priorities where the situation of interest is the need to create new revenue streams to diversify.    Note: It doesn't fully follow the conventions of Systems dynamics and is firmly grounded in a B2B SaaS context.  This formed the basis of a Systems Thinking assignment that I did, so sharing a bit more here in case anyone has any comments or suggestions on my exploration of this space. It kinda felt right, yet the focus felt it was off. So, I then used the 12 boundary questions from Critical Systems Heuristics ( CSH ) to think about the system again from other viewpoints. Source of in fluence Who should be the stakeholders? What’s at stake? Stakeholdings: constraining or developmental? Motivation (beneficiary) Business owners   Business sales team Software users (purpose) Maximise profits from customers   Solve the business problems of the customers (measur

Professional bodies and Product Management

Doing background desk research for my final MSc project and I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole. It started with looking at the different industry bodies that look after computing fields. I have been a member of the  British Computer Society (BCS) for a number of years, mainly because of their Project Management group and local branch meetings. But they are lagging a bit on modern development practices and roles, such as Product Management. Although they do have a Digital Product Management book coming out later this year! This got me to looking at associations that specifically support product roles, and building a " body of knowledge " like the project management world has. I found quite a few out there, and some names I had seen in academic research started popping up. I also fell down a rabbit hole in terms of the difference between a certificate and certification ! I have joined a couple, and ordered copies of all of the "bodies of knowledge" books I can since