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Scroll down for your weekly product newsletter... but first, we are excited to introduce Gigantic, an on-demand product training platform.
On Monday, May 20th, we'll re-launch Gigantic, on-demand courses for the modern Product Manager and Product Leader. If you purchase any course (starting at just $299) between now and May 31st, you'll unlock bonuses worth over $300!
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Prioritization beyond the frameworks
As a Product Manager, there are a lot of things you could do with your product. But with limited time and resources, you know you have to prioritize the work that will deliver the most value to your customers and drive your product forward. But there’s more to prioritization than a 2x2 or scorecard. This week, we’re looking at some nuances in effectively prioritizing your product efforts.
Meanwhile, in product news, Apple faces crushing (sorry, couldn’t resist) backlash from a recent ad, and Sonos claims its recent redesign took courage. Google found a way to do a redesign without needing to claim courage, and Open AI introduced a new version that may crush it in a different way.
How to evaluate ideas to build impactful products. Evaluating ideas can be one of the trickiest elements of idea management. The process can become quite subjective—and even contentious—with multiple stakeholders and team members having different priorities. Edie Brockwell identifies a few tips and techniques to make this flow so much easier. Follow these, and you’ll select the best ideas to drive your product forward.
Product backlog prioritization with multiple key stakeholders: A case study. Backlog prioritization can get overwhelming when multiple stakeholders make requests independently of one another and asynchronously. At the same time, the product manager spends long hours in one-on-one meetings, negotiating with them over what items will make it into the next sprint. The result is often wasted time and resources. Chris Sykes suggests the best solution is a prioritization workshop that enables stakeholders to come to a consensus on the relative priority of their requests.
Continues below...
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FROM OUR FRIENDS
Meet Chisel: a revolutionary PM tool. Chisel AI can automatically generate a PRD or status report in seconds, freeing up hours of time. Chisel brings roadmaps and feedback collection together. It’s rated 4.8/5 on G2 and ranked #1 for Usability in Roadmapping and Product Management categories.
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This Week’s Interview:
Mastering Product Roadmaps
Creating compelling roadmaps that effectively communicate your company and product goals is essential for gaining stakeholder buy-in and driving successful product development. In this discussion, Mike Belsito discusses how to best approach roadmaps with Tami Reiss, a seasoned product strategist with nearly 20 years of roadmap-building experience. You'll gain invaluable insights and hands-on practice to elevate your roadmap design and presentation skills.
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This video, and many more just like it, are available on our Member Hub. If you don’t have access to the Member Hub already, you can join the community today for free.
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INDUSTRY: The Product Conference returns to Cleveland in September, with over 700 other product people from across the globe attending. During this two-day (three-day for Conference Plus and Superpass ticket holders) retreat from your desk, you'll be inspired and challenged. Ultimately, you'll return to your workplace with ready-to-implement strategies and the confidence that you are doing things right.
Register by May 31st, and save $200 -- plus get a special bonus!
You'll save $200 if you register this month before prices increase... plus you'll receive our INDUSTRY Greatest Hits Keynote Collection (value $99) featuring Marty Cagan, Lenny Rachitsky, April Dunford, and others as a special bonus! But it's only included if you register this month.
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Sonos
As product people, we're constantly faced with tough prioritization decisions. Do we ship new features to stay competitive or focus on polishing what we already have? Do we prioritize speed to market, or do we take the time to ensure a smooth, bug-free launch?
The recent controversy surrounding Sonos' new app release is a stark reminder of the risks of making these tradeoffs wrong. In their rush to ship a sleeker, modernized app, Sonos omitted core features that many longtime customers relied on—things like local music search, sleep timers, and more.
The backlash was swift and severe. The Sonos community forums (and in places online like X) erupted with angry users demanding answers. The company's attempts to explain their rationale fell on deaf ears. Customers didn't care about the behind-the-scenes tradeoffs; they just wanted their features back.
As PMs, getting caught up in the excitement of shipping something new and shiny is easy. We're driven by the desire to innovate to push the product forward. But we must never lose sight of the core value proposition that keeps our users loyal. Removing features, even in the name of progress, is a dangerous game.
This isn’t meant to dunk on Sonos. I know all too well that prioritizing for a product launch is hard. You won’t get everything right. And sometimes, you have to make tough calls that you know may not be popular now… but you believe they are the right thing to do long term. Perhaps in the case of Sonos, their longer-term plan will alleviate the current customer pains.
But it’s also a reminder that trust is our most valuable currency as Product Managers. Once lost, it's incredibly hard to regain. The trust from the Sonos community may have taken a hit with this launch. Can they earn it back? We’ll have to see…
Mike Belsito
Co-founder, Product Collective
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AI is my CoPilot. GitHub recently announced that it was expanding past GitHub Copilot and GitHub Copilot Chat to create an AI-infused development environment - GitHub Copilot Workspace. Now, your team can brainstorm, plan, build, test, and run code in natural language. This new task-centric experience leverages different Copilot-powered agents from start to finish while giving developers full control over every step of the process. So, who’s the copilot in this setup?
Google Layoffs. This week Google laid off staff from its Flutter, Dart and Python teams weeks before its annual I/O developer conference. 200 people were let go across Google’s “Core” teams, including those working on app platforms and other engineering roles. Even though the timing is a bit curious, Google said the layoffs were due to “reorgs that are part of the normal course of business.”
Internet assistance program cuts subsidy payments ahead of funding drought. Regulators and telecom industry members are ratcheting the pressure on Congress to renew an expiring internet subsidy program, which just downgraded its monthly subsidies from $30 to $14 as it enters its final month of operation. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which has helped subsidize internet access for as many as 23 million households since 2021, will fully cease providing financial support at the end of May if lawmakers fail to imbue the program with new funds. If you work on a B2C product, this program cut may impact your active user numbers come June.
Do people still flip houses? Flipping houses is not for the faint of heart, no matter how fun or easy HGTV might make it seem. One startup wants to simplify the process by offering a different way to borrow money to fund such a purchase. Founded in late 2020, Backflip offers a service to real estate investors for securing short-term loans. Beyond helping users secure financing, Backflip’s tech helps investors source, track, comp, and evaluate potential investments. Think of it as a cross between Zillow and Shopify.
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How to evaluate ideas to build impactful products. Evaluating ideas can be one of the trickiest elements of idea management. The process can become quite subjective—and even contentious—with multiple stakeholders and team members having different priorities. Edie Brockwell identifies a few tips and techniques to make this flow so much easier. Follow these, and you’ll select the best ideas to drive your product forward.
Resources and news curated by Kent J. McDonald.
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