A doctor, a lawyer and a product manager were discussing the relative meritsof having a wife or a mistress. The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better. If you have a wife andwant a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems." The doctor s...
You are sitting in you cube, listening to some kick ass tunes in your headphones, and an engineer drops in. "I need you to change spec X". My response is to ask why, like all good product managers do. Invariably there are three answers It is impos...
Ah, I am procrastinating in the preparation of my decks for the sales meeting and/or training next week, I have come to reflect on the whole concept. I have written in the past on "Sales Meeting Musings", as have others, including a snark filled c...
About 6 months ago, I started a new job. The former product manager had left about 18 months prior to my arrival, and they "limped" along. Now, I am going through sales presentations, sales training decks and curriculae and I am aghast at what I h...
Those following the thread have seen my comments about a web project going poorly. End root cause is that we went with a vendor which we were "comfortable" with, and didn't figure out up front if he had the chops to deliver. I want to pull back, c...
and on budget. Sigh. There are always some extenuating circumstances: A key component was more difficult to work through. Some circuit design was wrong the first time around (and the second, and the third). Regardless of how many times the design ...
I am a huge fan of accessibility, and convenience for my customers. In my new role, we have a product that is a little long in tooth, and the software is a bit dated as well. Working to fix that, but one hangup is our absolutely shitty help system...
Just had an ambush call. (that is when Sales invites you on a call, but "forgets" to clue you in on what is to be discussed). Needless to say, some pretty deep hip waders were needed. The whole premise was that we failed to accomplish some perform...
About 5 months ago, I left my cushy job as Director of Product Management, for a gig as an ordinary old product marketing manager. So far, I am exquisitely happy with the change. Great products, great people, small org (in a huge company) so I can...
Sunday morning here, and I am working on my backlog in preparation for iteration planning tomorrow. One of the major tasks is that a recent architecture change (that was SUPER for performance) heinously breaks our old model of licensing. By old, I...