Need and value are becoming critically important in delivering successful outcomes to stakeholders for Project Managers. Helping the stakeholder understand value above want and need is even more critical. So where does a Project Manager go to build these skills. The understanding of value in terms of a customer, whether internal or external, is the core art and science around Product Management. Building a strong foundational skill in Product Management is a critical success factor for the future of Project Management in a highly volatile, rapidly changing environment.
Project Managers work in most cases on internal projects and services, so there is confusion around using Product Management techniques. The reality is internal customers are just as critical as external. There must be value for both types of customer to engage, for external the engagement is usually money and some time. With internal it is all about time and productivity and, time can have more value than money in certain circumstances. As for a service, everything whether a tangible product or a service must create value for the user (aka customer), so the same dynamics drive their lifecycle and value
strategy. At the center is the customer whether dealing with internal or external customers and whether dealing with services or products.
Learning Objectives / Outcomes:
In this session we will go over the fundamentals of product management; first we will discuss the three elements of determining if what you are doing has value/relevance. Second, we will discuss the product lifecycle and actions and reactions that happen at different stages. From there we will discuss
techniques to determine who is your customer and their motivations (Personas). We will sprinkle in the criticality of cognitive diversity in the ideation process and not getting caught up in confirmation basis. We will end with a detailed discussion iterative styles of testing to get real time data straight from the
source, aka your customers.