Product Growth Leaders | Product Conversations with Grant Hunter

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by regular panelists Dharma Subramanian , Joy McCaffrey , and Calvin Marshall , as well as new panelist Paul Hatala . Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question "Why does an organization need product management?" where doing the right things emerged as the leading reason. Listen to our conversation on the poll question "What is the biggest...

This week's episode is on Win Loss Analysis. Grant and Steve are joined by Paul Hurwitz, Joy McCaffrey, Jason Vincelette, Charles Topping, Graham Roe, and Anita Wood.

This week's episode is on product operations. Grant and Steve are joined by Calvin Marshall.

This week, Steve Johnson and I were joined by regular panelists Jason Vincelette ,  Anita Wood , Jon Gatrell   Paul Hurwitz , Calvin Marshall , and Dharma Subramanian , and new panelist Seth McKnight for our largest Topic of the Week conversation. We could anticipate the large panel as our Monday question got the most responses of any topic of the week, and the poll had the most responses as well....

And just to put this out there, this week was perhaps the most monumental conversation since we started. While nearly every week I adjust and evolve my opinions on mindsets on topics, this week's conversation truly got me to change my lens for product metrics. Watch it to see why. Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What are the key metrics you should be tracking for your p...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - Which is more valuable, personas or market segments? Hear our conversation on our poll question: Which is the hardest to define well? Market Segments, Buyer Personas, User Personas or It Depends, where Market Segments seems to be the clear leader. Get our take on the following questions: Why is it so hard to do personas and market segment...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - Should pricing determine positioning or should positioning determine pricing? Hear our conversation on our poll question: What is the most important component of the business plan? With a strong race between Strategic Positioning and Financial Business Case. Get our take on the following questions: Both pricing and positioning are tied to...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette and Joy McCaffrey.   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, what should be product management’s role in defining strategy?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, how involved should product management be in their company's strategic planning?   Get our take on the questions: How should product management be involved in strategic p...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - How should a product manager deal with people who continue to micromanage their work? Including the importance of the soft-skills of communication and expectation setting. Hear our conversation on our poll question: Which function is prone to micromanage product management the most? With a strong consensus on senior leadership, including...

This week @steve and I are joined by Anita Wood.   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, how should risk be factored into product strategy decisions?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, who should be responsible for managing risk in product strategy decisions?   Get our take on the questions: What is the best approach for managing risk in product strategy decisions?​ Outside of P...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, how technical should a product manager be?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, how important are technical skills for a product manager?   Get our take on the questions: What is the best way for someone with a non-technical background to build technical competence? Is it harder for a non...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What is a product manager's most important responsibility? Where we have a slight debate whether a product manager being the voice of the market or a product manager being a business leader. Hear our conversation on the poll and the importance of the Business Case, Roadmap and Positioning, and the wish for an all of the above option. See...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - Why are clearly defined roles & responsibilities so important? Including (even though he could not join us)  Jason Vincelette 's amazing answer from Monday around the importance of needing to understand by what actions and deliverables will be evaluated, how roles play into career aspirations, and alignment across the company around who d...

After Steve and I discuss my poor "Seinfeld" deliver on the question, hear our panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What is the deal with roadmaps? Why do so many teams want them? Listen to the panel discuss why Development was the overwhelming winner in our poll about the most important use case for roadmaps. Get our two-cents on the following questions: What is the strategic role o...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What do senior leaders need to know about product management? Including Anita and Jason teaming for a great answer on the role senior leaders can play as mentors/coaches for product management, and the senior leaders need to know that product management's number one goal is to create great products that customers and users love. Hear why...

Hear the panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - What is the value you get from your product management peer network? Where we discuss the differences between networking, having a peer (or peers) to go to one-on-one, and having a networking group of peers (or 3 or 4 dudes in a Slack channel). Hear us discuss the poll on "Where do you go to network with product professionals?" where we a...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette, John Harmar, and Gregg Fenton.   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, how do you manage predictability versus agility when making budgets and plans?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, what department has the greatest need for predictability?    Get our take on the questions, What has been your biggest challenge with balanci...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette and John Harmar   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, what are the keys to successful stakeholder management?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, which steakholder function do you find is the most difficult to collaborate with?   Get our take on the questions, What are the best techniques and tools to manage the expectations...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette, Gregg Fenton, and John Harmar   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, how will machine learning impact the future of product management?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, where will Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have the biggest impact on product management?   Get our take on the questions, There are many exa...

This week @steve and I are joined by Jason Vincelette and John Harmar   Hear us discuss the answers to Monday’s question, what was your most valuable product management professional development experience?​   See the results to the Wednesday poll, if you had the budget to invest in product management professional devlopment for a team of 5 to 10, where would you spend that money?   Get our take on...

Hear our panel discuss the answers to our Monday question - when hiring internally for a new product manager, what background do you look for?  Hear why Steve may have biased our poll with his well-known opinion that Sales Engineers are the best background Get our two-cents on the following questions: Which is harder for someone to learn, a specific industry/domain or product management? What are...

Hear our panel discuss introducing the function of product management to an organization, how product management is happening in one way or another, how Jon built a motley crew for the first product management organization, and Grant getting excited about Yes-and. Listen to us discuss our key recommendations to an organization looking to bring the product management function into their organizatio...

Hear our panel discuss when is the best time to have retrospectives, the difference between post mortems and retrospectives (and how like Win-Loss analysis we need to look at successes and failures), and join Gregg Fenton as he defends his dissertation on retrospectives. Listen to us discuss when we do have retrospectives, the desire for an "all of the above" choice, and how different the answers...

Hear our panel discuss where they find the most chaos in their product management process, including 15 years of Jason Vincelette's chaos and being the VP of NO, Steve ranting about his antagonist Kevin (the world's worst salesperson) and getting on his soapbox on role clarity, and Robert thinking about failures in build-buy-partner. Listen to us debate if we find more chaos with executives, devel...

Hear our panel discuss the dynamics and metrics we find most valuable when managing a product's lifecycle, including the two different TTM (Trailing Twelve Months, and Time To Market), and great input from Laurie on the great business performance KPIs to utilize during for lifecycle management. Listen to us debate if Decline or Inception (Getting to Product-Market Fit) is more difficult to manage,...