Leading Product Development

Covers pre-project planning, choosing projects that match the strategic objectives of the company, and determining project sequence, measurement, and incentives.

In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource. In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore: Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics Best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company’s evolution Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders

It is becoming increasingly challenging for product development leaders to effectively lead as workplace demands continue to increase. The rate of change in technology, society, and business places immense pressure on leaders to ensure their groups move in the direction of their goals. What might have worked in the past no longer works. Organizational surveys show that firms struggle with leadership. Product development leaders routinely complain of burnout and stress while their teams members complain of workplace dissatisfaction, resulting in organizational underperformance. The lack of evidence-based leadership literature for product development leaders means that many leaders are left to figure things out with little guidance. They do not have a reliable resource that they can refer to when they face leadership challenges and, as a result, struggle during times of crisis and change. This book addresses this challenge by providing a theory-informed set of techniques for product development leaders. Becoming a Leader in Product Development provides an evidence-base set of practices for product development leaders. In doing so, it explores what leadership is and the leader's role in the leadership process, the impact of national culture and organizational culture on the leadership process, and the need for product development leaders to practice adaptive and servant leadership, followership, and self-care. The underlying theories for each topic are reviewed and then brought to life through stories and examples. What You Will Learn See the difference between authority, persuasion, and influence and how leaders can use these constructs to benefit their organizations Gain the skills for practicing servant and adaptive leadership in your organization Examine the blind spots of each leadership theory Discover the importance of adapting leader behavior to the national culture and organizational culture where you find yourself Who This Book Is For Product development leaders (starting with product development managers) who want to go beyond leadership anecdotes to evidence-based leadership practice. A secondary audience is individuals aspiring to product development leadership positions.

This book will help you become a better product leader. Benefitting from Roman Pichler's extensive experience, you will learn how to align stakeholders and guide development teams even in challenging circumstances, avoid common leadership mistakes, and grow as a leader. Written in an engaging and easily accessible style, How to Lead in Product Management offers a wealth of practical tips and strategies. Through helpful examples, the book illustrates how you can directly apply the techniques to your work. Coverage includes: * Choosing the right leadership style * Cultivating empathy, building trust, and influencing others * Increasing your authority and empowering others * Directing stakeholders and development teams through common goals * Making decisions that people will support and follow through * Successfully resolving disputes and conflicts even with senior stakeholders * Listening deeply to discover and address hidden needs and interests * Practising mindfulness and embracing a growth mindset to develop as a leader Praise for How to Lead in Product Management: "Roman has done it again, delivering a practical book for the product management community that appeals to both heart and mind. How to Lead in Product Management is packed with concise, direct, and practical advice that addresses the deeper, personal aspects of the product leadership. Roman's book shares wisdom on topics including goals, healthy interactions with stakeholders, handling conflict, effective conversations, decision-making, having a growth mindset, and self-care. It is a must read for both new and experienced product people." ~Ellen Gottesdiener, Product Coach at EBG Consulting "Being a great product manager is tough. It requires domain knowledge, industry knowledge, technical skills, but also the skills to lead and inspire a team. Roman Pichler's How to Lead in Product Management is the best book I've read for equipping product managers to lead their teams." ~Mike Cohn, Author of Succeeding with Agile, Agile Estimating and Planning, and User Stories Applied "This is the book that has been missing for product people. Roman has created another masterpiece, a fast read with lots of value. It's a must read for every aspiring product manager." ~Magnus Billgren, CEO of Tolpagorni Product Management "How Lead in Product Management is for everyone who manages a product or drives important business decisions. Roman lays out the key challenges of product leadership and shows us ways of thoughtfully working with team members, stakeholders, partners, and the inevitable conflicts." ~Rich Mironov, CEO of Mironov Consulting and "Smokejumper" Head of Product

This book presents unique insights and advice on defining and managing the innovation transformation journey. Using novel ideas, examples and best practices, it empowers management executives at all levels to drive cultural, technological and organizational changes toward innovation. Covering modern innovation techniques, tools, programs and strategies, it focuses on the role of the latest technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence to discover, handle and manage ideas), methodologies (including Agile Engineering and Rapid Prototyping) and combinations of these (like hackathons or gamification). At the same time, it highlights the importance of culture and provides suggestions on how to build it. In the era of AI and the unprecedented pace of technology evolution, companies need to become truly innovative in order to survive. The transformation toward an innovation-led company is difficult – it requires a strong leadership and culture, advanced technologies and well-designed programs. The book is based on the author’s long-term experience and novel ideas, and reflects two decades of startup, consulting and corporate leadership experience. It is intended for business, technology, and innovation leaders.

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--

Increasing pressures to produce new products faster and cheaper are resulting in huge efforts to streamline and restructure the traditional new product development (NPD) process. The purpose of the book is to describe, assess and apply the latest constructs, methods, techniques and processes to enable managers, professionals, and practitioners to be more effective in designing, developing and commercializing new products and services. It provides guidance and support in formulating and executing NPD programs for business practitioners and MBA students. The book is written from an Integrated Product Development (IPD) perspective, linking all aspects of marketing, costing and manufacturing into the development process even before the first prototype is built. It covers the advanced tools necessary to achieve this such as virtual prototyping and fully integrated business systems, and explains the changes needed to organizational structure and thinking.

Project Management in Product Development: Leadership Skills and Management Techniques to Deliver Great Products is written for new and aspiring project managers in product development. Although texts on project management are common, the material presented here is unique, instead focusing on product development, a challenging segment of project management because of the high level of uncertainty, the need for a robust set of problem-solving techniques, and a demand for broad cross-functional teams. The book also focuses on more than just project management techniques, including a thorough treatment of transformational and transactional leadership. Other topics covered include problem-solving techniques, development, and continuous improvement of processes required in product development, risk recognition and management, and proper communication with mangers and other stakeholders. Finally, project management techniques used in product development are presented, including the critical path method, scrum and XP, and Kanban/lean project development, along with the strengths and weaknesses of each. Provides ways to successfully manage product development projects by teaching traditional and advanced project management techniques like Gantt, CPM, Agile, Lean, and others Covers transformational and transactional leadership, how to create a vision and engage the team, as well as tactics on how to manage a complex set of tasks Uses a practical, common sense approach to the day-to-day activities of a project manager, including project planning, project process development, problem-solving, project portfolio management, reporting, and more Presents a thorough comparison of popular project management tools Includes many examples, cases, and side-bars that are included throughout the book