Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators

Five mindsets every product manager should cultivate I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference. This discussion is with Matt Phillips, whose session is titled “The Mindsets of Breakthrough Innovators.” Matt shared that successful innovators and entrepreneurs think differently from other people. Further, the...

How SCADpro is elevating product management through design We are talking about some of the lessons from integrating art, design, and business needs that have been learned by SCADpro—the Savannah College of Art and Design’s in-house design, research, and innovation studio—which is generating innovative designs and products for the world’s most influential brands, including Google, Amazon, an...

Mastering the art of customer conversations – for product managers As a product person, you know or at least have heard how important it is to talk with customers. Also, if you are not a complete newb, you also know you can’t simply ask the customer what they want. Instead, what do you ask them—how do you conduct a customer interview? We are about to find out from the go-to person on c...

Insights for product managers on fostering innovation in corporate environments Today we are talking about how established organizations can innovate, resulting in new products and ventures. Most of us who have been in established organizations, know this can be challenging as a culture of innovation is often lacking. Joining us is Andy Binns, a management advisor, award-winning author, and speake...

How product managers can turn customer dissatisfaction into innovation I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Tony Belilovskiy, whose session is titled “Voice of Customer in Product Design.” Tony will be sharing with us how you can turn customers’ perceptions (that is, thei...

How product managers can create authentic demand Today we are visiting the topic that is at the heart of this podcast—creating products customers love. To do that, we are joined by one of the co-authors of the new book The Heart of Innovation: A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand . Our guest is Dr. Merrick Furst, a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the   Center for Deliberate...

Unpacking the BRIDGeS framework for product managers Today we are talking about strategic product planning, which involves decision-making, problem-solving, feature prioritization, and product vision creation. Our guest is Yaroslav Lazor, Founder and CEO of Railsware. He created the strategic product planning tools and frameworks that Railsware continues to apply on projects for customers as well...

How product managers can navigate leadership challenges Today we are talking about four leadership motions that enable increased organizational effectiveness and productivity and alleviate organizational friction, waste, and indecision. The motions reflect a need for leadership change as organizations struggle for higher performance while supporting employees. Sharing the four leadership motions w...

The secret recipe for organizational transformation Today we are talking about organizational change. As innovators, creating change is what we do. You may have already learned that change is not always welcomed, such as when the new product you created also cannibalizes an existing product your organization provides. Organizational change and transformation is challenging, and today we’ll l...

Hershey chocolate company’s InnovationOps story I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Shawn Houser-Fedor, whose session is titled “Creating a Recipe for Innovation Success: Hershey Chocolate Company’s InnovationOps Story.” Shawn is a R&D Senior Director at Hershe...

The key ingredients of a successful product management team Today we are talking about how to build a great product team that in turn will build great products customers love. Joining us is a returning guest, Vidya Dinamani. She’s a product executive, advisor, and coach. She has over 20 years of experience in product management, including multiple executive roles at leading companies such as...

How product managers can use AI to get more actionable insights from qualitative data Today we are talking about using qualitative data to drive our work in product and consequently improve sales. Joining us is Daniel Erickson, the Founder and CEO of  Viable, an AI analytics tool that enables businesses to instantly access and act on valuable insights from customer feedback, saving them hundreds o...

Tips for creating customer use cases – for product managers Today we are talking about how to create and use customer use cases to guide product design.  Our guest is Dr. Lilac Muller, VP of Product Management at Kymeta Corporation. She oversees product strategy, definition, and launch activities for Kymeta’s mobile satellite communications product line, which is making mobile broadband conn...

How product managers can gamify their products, process, and career I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Mike Hyzy and Bret Wardle, whose session is titled “Level Up Your Product: Innovation with Game Mechanics.” In our competitive landscape, businesses constantly seek innovati...

How product managers can promote human-centered design I wonder if you can relate to this frustration—the pressure to get products and product updates released quickly sometimes means making compromises on design quality. It’s an organizational issue—moving quickly to beat competitors and keep up with changing customer preferences. Speed is more important than quality. Our guest, Debbie Levi...

Product feature validation and iteration – for product managers Today we are talking about tips for selecting, planning, and prototyping product features. To help us, our guest is Matt Genovese. He is the Founder and CEO at Planorama Design. He has in-depth experience marketing products, addressing product requirements, research, UX design, and management. He spent the first half of his 25-y...

How product managers can use Adobe’s Kickbox innovation system Today we are talking about using the open source innovation system called Kickbox that was created at Adobe. This is a simple and effective tool for increasing innovation by orders of magnitude in an organization. Our guest is  Ralph Hartmeier, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of rready, an organization that started from p...

How one serial inventor brought a revolutionary approach to flossing from idea to launch Today we are talking about the journey from initial insight to launched product. The featured product is Instafloss, a revolutionary approach to flossing your teeth.  With us is the creator of Instafloss, serial inventor, and two-time founder, Eli Packouz . Summary of some concepts discussed for product manage...

How to stand out as an applicant for a product management position We are talking with Erika Klics.  Erika is a former Head of Talent for tech companies who became a Job Search Strategist for startup and scaleup Directors, VPs, and department Heads for Product Management and other functions in tech.  She sent me an email message that got my attention, and I’d like to read part of it. She wro...

How to build connection and empower product management teams Tami Reiss is with us. She is an experienced product executive who works with tech product leaders and teams to realize their potential by focusing on their strengths to advance toward their goals. She guides product leaders through defining their personal product vision then taking the right steps to make it a reality. R ight now, Tami...

A four-layer framework to create a winning product strategy Today we are talking about creating product strategy. Our guest is Bob Caporale. Bob is the author of the book Creative Strategy Generation . He is a strategic practitioner, having spent 20 years leading product, marketing, and business functions for large international corporations. I first heard of Bob when he was the president of Seque...

What product managers need to know about the Decision Sprint framework for faster problem-solving Today we are talking about faster problem-solving to speed innovation by using a three-part framework including Exploration, Alignment, and Decision-Making. Our guest is Atif Rafiq. He invented a system for problem-solving based on his 25-year career spanning Silicon Valley and the Fortune 500. His id...

Thrive Market’s VP of Product Management discusses mission-driven product process Jonas Klink is joining us. He is the Vice President of Product Management & UX Design at Thrive Market, the health-first membership for conscious living. He is responsible for the company’s entire product portfolio, shepherding a lean virtual team of 10 Project Managers & UX Designers. He has establishe...

How to solve common dysfunctions in product management Today’s guest is  Ben Foster, the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Prodify. He is convinced that product is the single most important success driver for tech companies, which is why he founded Prodify to share what he learned from being an advisor to over 50 tech companies to realize their full potential. Ben has led successful techn...

The value the Product Development and Management Association provides for product mangers and leaders Today we are talking about the most influential professional product association you’ve likely never heard of. The association is PDMA, and we’ll talk about what the they do and why you should know about them. Susan Penta is with us. She is the Chair of PDMA and has served in other vol...