Training and Speaking
George’s principle message is:
Product Managers must know their users like they know their best friends in order to make good product decisions and defend those decisions to management.
- Are your product managers order takers or strategic thinkers?
- Do they understand your users’ and customers’ challenges?
- Can they prioritize solutions to those challenges?
- Can they explain this evidence-based strategy to others?
Product Team Assessment
Typically ordered by a CEO or VP of Product, this analysis and report highlights areas for improvement in your product team structure and activities.
One-day Basic Product Manager/Owner Training
In one day, up to a dozen members of your team can begin to learn the basic skills to turn them from order taking to strategic thinking.
Speaking Engagements
Your team doesn’t need a cheerleader. They are already motivated.
They need to learn a better way to manage products.
Product Team Assessment
Are your product managers identifying users’ most critical pain points?
Are the most useful enhancements being prioritized?
Or… Does your team react to the loudest customer on any given day?
I review Staffing, Market Research & Requirements Gathering, Team Communication and Process Standardization.
Through interviews and observations, I gain an understanding of your current product related workflows, then provide recommend improvements.
Your Team
- Is your team staffed correctly for the complexity of your product line and for the volume of work delivered to the Development teams?
- Do your product managers and analysts have the right knowledge and skills to be high performing and to select the right features for your products?
Your Workflows
- Between customers/users/business stakeholders and your product team
- Between the Product team and Development & QA teams
Are these workflows friendly and efficient?
Are the biggest problems and best ideas being prioritized?
Your SOPs
- Clarity and completeness of requirements documentation
- Reference documentation, E.g.: Style guides & non-functional requirements
This service typically takes a few days to interview team members and review documentations. Cost will vary by the size of the team or number of product teams. Contact me to discuss details and pricing.
One-day Basic Product Manager/Owner Training
In one day, up to a dozen members of your team can learn the basic skills to turn them from order taking to strategic thinking.
Morning Session
- Terminology and workflows
- Identifying and understanding your target audiences
- Knowing the difference between a customer and a user
- Managing expectations, internally and externally
- Why asking customers for feature suggestions rarely succeeds
- How to choose the next most important feature
Afternoon & follow-on Sessions
- Real-world practical exercise
Your product managers interview your customers. - One interview per hour, scheduled in advance
- Limit of three per half day
Feedback and skills to practice
One-day basic training or practical exercise sessions can be stacked, to give more team members hands on experience, or combined with deeper dives on a variety of topics.
For example, nine attendees for the AM session, followed by three practical exercise sessions over the next one and a half days. This provides a practical exercise for nine people.
Speaking
Your team doesn’t need a cheerleader. They are already motivated.
In this one hour presentation, your audience can understand the challenges faced by product managers and how a few powerful skills can improve your business and the lives of both your customers and your PMs.
Product Managers need to be right.
Your company depends on product teams making the right decisions.
Product managers and owners need to learn the specific techniques that help them select the right product features to be delivered in the right order, and to give stakeholders confidence that the decisions are correct.
This presentation is an optimistic look at the challenges faced by product managers and the techniques that change a product manger from an order taker to a strategic decision maker.