AVO Chief » Product Management
Make Room for the New Chief Business Agility Officer (CBO)
Let’s face it, for some companies the role of the CIO driving business really doesn’t make sense. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that the CIO role is going away. But according to CIO magazine the role of the CIO seems to be changing. It was like riding a business wave that may have peaked. What many companies seem to need now is not just an IT manager that can speak business but a business manager that can speak product and technology. Remember that for the most part many company org charts have not changed over the years. Because of a need for quicker solution and agility it was thought that IT may be the solution. The only problem is that in order to grow business much more … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management
Central Desktop with Project Portfolio Integration and Features
One of the main things I like about Central Desktop is its ease of use and its ability to help me manage simple projects. Its features make it pretty easy to start a project and keep track of milestones, tasks and related documents. But what do you do when one project becomes more or if you start off by having to manage upwards of 10 or 20 projects? Will Central Desktop easily be able to track multiple projects, prioritize and allow alignment of projects to business goals? The answer I think is that right now though you might be able to do it, it wouldn’t be an elegant or user-friendly solution. That is why I would suggest that Central Desktop create at least some lite Project Portfolio Management features. The key ones … Read entire article »
Filed under: Collaboration, Product Management
How Central Desktop Could Benefit from a Customer Product Council
It appears to me that currently much of Central Desktop’s success is owed to their responsiveness to their customer. As Central Desktop continues to grow it will be vital for it to grow along and meet its product strategy goals while still maintaining a closeness to customer base. A launch of a Customer Product Council could be a benefit to Central Desktop and its customers. A Customer Product Council would act as a vehicle where customers can share their insight and best practices with each other. Also a Customer Product Council could help ensure that valuable customer input is included in the roadmap development process on a tactical level. Central Desktop could begin by launching Regional and Global User Groups. These can help to create local communities of professionals who will … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management
Product Strategy Review: Central Desktop 3 Year Product Roadmap
Central Desktop is still a young company that is growing rapidly. The next few years could be crucial in deciding whether it stays as contender or reaches the leader tier. I have listed a possible 3 year roadmap that would allow CD to handle customer requests while building on strategic plan to break into leader role through the enhanced features in collaboration, content management, document management, project portfolio management, social media and large enterprise features. This product development would require Q4 Roadmap planning and the following Roadmap activities: 10:16 PM Q4 2009 Research and Confirm 3 year Strategic Roadmap Q4 2009 Create and grow Consumer Product Council’s Tactical Roadmap Q1 2010 Begin development to Connect to Sharepoint like Alfresco (LAMP-based) (Growth Areas) Q3 2010 Build lite Project … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management, Reviews
Product Managers and Win/Loss Analysis
Product Managers should be part of the Win/Loss Analysis. Now we all know that it is vital for product managers to talk to the customers not only for customer retention reasons, but also for competitive analysis and product performance reasons as well. With the state of the economy, and product managers’ busy schedules we know that this easier said than done. So what product managers really need to concentrate on is making sure that they are involved at the sales win loss decision. The reason is that if it’s a win, the product manager will be helping to develop the new relationship, resulting in retention and obtaining valuable customer feedback. If it’s a loss, finding out the reasons for the loss will be important as well. For example, was it a product issue, sales issue or support issue? … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management
Product Strategy Review: What about a Central Desktop Collaboration Appliance?
As part of my Product Strategy Review of Central Desktop for the large Enterprise, I got to thinking about the benefits of a Central Desktop Collaboration Appliance. Now as far as I know this doesn’t exist and isn’t on the radar anytime soon. But I am aware that some customers have asked for an on-premise CD solution. Listed below would be one possible solution to that request: ABSTRACT The Central Desktop Collaboration Appliance (CDCA) would be an on-premises collaboration solution suited to large enterprises. Within the Enterprise setting, the CDCA would be able to serve as the corporate portal and the departmental web sites, file servers and Content Management system, along with the future possibility of a growing list of other business applications. The CDCA would then be able to be scalable, providing … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management, Reviews
Product Strategy Review: Central Desktop for the Large Enterprise
When You Need Collaboration Up Quickly Central Desktop Works! I have had several projects at Fortune 500 companies where a collaboration tool was needed to be implemented but where a department couldn’t move forward because the company hadn’t decided which tool they were going to standardize on. For example, even though other departments were using Sharepoint, it was difficult for us to get approval for Sharepoint fast enough to meet our project deadlines. So what I ended up doing was just getting my own account setup of Central Desktop and used it as my own project library. It was actually one of my better decisions. Everyone was impressed how well organized the project was and it was easy to present at meetings on a projector screen. I would just login and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Collaboration, Product Management, Reviews
Why the AVO Method works for companies going Agile.
When it comes to software development a lot of companies still use a methodology that has been around for a long time and that is the waterfall method. Before, months or even years went into strict planning of every detail, finalizing requirements, developing the design, then construction and then finally testing only to find out that markets had changed and therefore business requirements had changed and the product’s value was only a fraction of what it should have been and in some cases needed major re-work or even needed to be shelved completely. For many business today the market moves even more frenetically than ever and therefore strategies need to be far more dynamic. And of course with these challenging economic times for many companies the point may no longer be … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management, Project & Portfolio Management
Software Product Management Basics
What Is Software Product Management? Software product management is the process of managing software that is built and implemented as a product. It is also the business process governing a product from its inception until its delivered to market in order to generate the highest possible value to the business. It can be a combination of systems, solutions, materials, and services. Product management provides guidance to the project and portfolio management process. For example, a “project” is a temporary endeavor such as one undertaken to create a product. The project manager focuses on delivering one specific product or release while meeting time, budget, and quality requirements. The Product Manager The product manager looks to the overall market success and evolution of this product together with its subsequent releases, related services, etc. Another way to look at it is that the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management