product management

Ever run into this deductive reasoning?

1. Customers like our existing products and our company
2. We are building a new product that reflects the priorities of a company executive
3. Therefore, customers will like our new product

It’s a clear violation of the First Law of Product: Customers decide what products they like, not companies.

After publishing Latent needs are overplayed as an innovation dynamic, I got a lot of feedback. Plenty of agreement, but also some good counterpoints. And in reading through some of them, I realized that there is something to this. A lot of people are convinced that whole markets are waiting to be built based on people not really understanding their own needs.

The function and role of Product Management is increasingly becoming a really pivotal one in many digitally facing organisations. Having been aware of it's increasing popularity amongst media owner organisations, the growing importance of Product Management into a much broader spectrum of businesses and sectors became clear when I was researching organisational structures and resourcing for Digital Marketing on behalf of the smart folk at Econsultancy late last year. From the subsequent project on The Progression Of Agency Value that I also did for Econsultancy earlier this year, it's clear that there is also some fascinating take-outs here for agencies.