This post is the first of a five part series. October 5 marked the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. Many people remembered him as a visionary and the uncompromising leader who scripted one the greatest turnaround acts in corporate history. And many remembered his keynotes and the mesmerizing spell cast on people, called the reality distortion field. As I was reflecting further on Steve Jobs’ contributions, it occurred to me that, more than anything, Steve was a great Product Manager. Continue reading “The Insanely Great Product Manager – Part 1: Understand Value”
What If You Are Not Like Steve Jobs?
Some days back I started reading Walter Isaacson‘s “Steve Jobs” all over again. Chapter fifteen, titled “The Launch” is about the launch of the first Macintosh in 1984, and ends with the following sentences: Continue reading “What If You Are Not Like Steve Jobs?”
The Pentagon Wars – A Product Management Disaster
The Pentagon Wars, made as an HBO movie in 1998, is based on a book of the same name by Col. James Burton (retd). The film depicts the development of the Bradley fighting vehicle. Col Burton was appointed by Congress as an outsider to oversee the testing of new weapons in development, including the Bradley. In order to get up to speed with the development history of the Bradley, Burton dives into the mountain of paperwork documenting it’s development. This is where we pick up the movie below for a 11-min scene that takes us through the “product development process” in flashbacks. Continue reading “The Pentagon Wars – A Product Management Disaster”
Andy Bechtolsheim on Innovation
Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and a Stanford Engineering Hero gave a talk today at Stanford on The Process of Innovation. It was streamed online. This time around, while listening to the lecture and watching the slides that were webcast, I tried something new. I started to create a mind map of his talk as it was going on and below is what I ended up with. I will go into some of the key points that were brought up as I feel they are pretty important.
Continue reading “Andy Bechtolsheim on Innovation”Leadership Lessons from Moneyball
Moneyball is one of my favorite movies. It is the story of Oakland A’s GM, Billy Beane’s, innovative approach to baseball. Following the loss to the Yankees in the 2001 post-season, the A’s lost marquee players, and did not have the deep pockets to compete with other teams in Major League Baseball. Sports is a business after all, and Billy Beane, as the General Manager has to run it to win, regardless of the competition, uneven playing field, dissonance in the company, or anything else. I thought it would be interesting to summarize some key moments from the movie that highlight the courage, conviction and other qualities that leaders possess. Continue reading “Leadership Lessons from Moneyball”
Product Manager as CEO of the Product
A few weeks ago, I came across this blog post on LinkedIn. It was about the product manager’s role as CEO of the product and what should be done so that Product Managers can actually function in that respect. The comments were also equally interesting. Some pointed out that the reference to “CEO” is intended to highlight the leadership behavior expected of an individual in that role, while others felt it was about decision making authority on the lines of what a CEO in a company has. All of these are valid arguments. As can be expected, when titles and glory are involved, the subject can be a little touchy 🙂
On Product Leadership 