http://www.darryl.net/w The Impact of Product Management Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:08:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Edge cases are typically deprioritized by product managers - there is usually little gain for the amount of work necessary to meticulously handle every case. After all, that's what customer service is for: to hold the hand of the customer through those dark times when software is not responding. ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2008/08/13/exceptions-are-the-pain-not-the-rule/ I was driving to work this morning and talking on the phone. A pretty regular occurrence. Another pretty regular occurrence for me: Cingular's network dropping my call. In my opinion, Sprint dropped my call far less than Cingular. So how can Cingular's tag line be "fewest ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/11/14/can-your-product-back-up-your-marketing/ This GigaOM show with Max Levchin (founder of Slide) has some good insights on why this Facebook app boom will continue for some time. A few key points I'd like to elaborate on: Other networks will open up their platforms. Both MySpace and LinkedIn have indicated they will open their platforms. ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/10/25/why-facebook-cant-shut-down-100-ad-revenue-for-app-developers/ Following on the previous post, I just gave a guest lecture at Haas on requirements gathering. Here's the presentation on product requirements gathering. It's lacking some of the necessary verbal context - mainly that there are so many standard processes around requirements gathering that people miss the basic ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/09/14/requirements-gathering-part-2/ Requirements Gathering is one of the more important skills of a good product manager. The sooner you can lose your ego and ask as many dumb questions as needed from as many different stakeholders as possible, the sooner you will see the complete picture of what it is you ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/08/14/remember-the-blind-men-and-the-elephant/ Ok, so I haven't posted here in some time. Here's what we've been working on that's kept me so busy these last few months: http://web.im/ - or, officially, http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/ (or, Yahoo! Messenger for the Web). "It's like travel size toiletries with everything that you love about the Yahoo messenger application ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/05/03/yahoo-messenger-for-the-web-is-live/ Sometimes your customers don't tell you exactly what they want, but if you read between the lines, they tell you what will make your product stand out. I always hear people say two things: 1) "Minivans are so uncool - I'm going to buy an SUV with a third ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/02/23/listening-to-your-customers/ After seeing all the trackbacks on the recent TechCrunch Apple iPhone post, I wondered if you could use the number of trackbacks as a measure of story importance. Are sophisticated blog readers essentially 'voting' for the events that will define the tech industry? In The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/01/18/trackbacks-as-a-measure-of-a-storys-importance/ This is one of the strangest products I have seen in a long time: http://www.darryl.net/w/2007/01/03/ipod-for-your-bathroom/ Bathroom Originally uploaded by GotreK. In the traditional waterfall approach of software development, people document unknowns. Specifications are written at the beginning of the process. The team attempts not only to lay out the features they want to build, but also to posit the most efficient manner of development. ... http://www.darryl.net/w/2006/12/08/document-mistakes-not-unknowns/