Index

A

• A/B testing

• Adobe

  • consistent product innovation by
  • Creative Suite and Creative Cloud of
  • Lea Hickman of

• AdWords (Google)

• Agile at Scale

• Agile methods

  • as conducive to consistent innovation
  • inadequate application of
  • leveraging the core principles of
  • product owner role in the
  • in support of
  • waterfall process versus

• Airbnb

• Amazon

  • consistent product innovation by
  • customer-centric culture of
  • customer letter technique used by
  • product leadership of

• Analytics for quantitative value testing

• Andreessen, Marc

• API platforms

  • customer discovery through
  • developer misbehavior on public

• Apple

  • Camille Hearst of
  • consistent product innovation by
  • consumer device products by
  • iTunes product

• Architecture

  • alignment of product team with
  • CTO responsibility to build strong
  • technical debt

• Arnold, Kate

• Audible

• Autonomy

  • accountability tied to
  • company culture emphasis on leverage versus
  • as principle of product team
  • product team structured for
  • relationship between successful scaling and product team

B

• BBC

  • Alex Pressland of the
  • “BBC Out of Home” product of

• Bezos, Jeff

• Blockbuster

• Business accounting/finance skills

• Business cases fatal flaw

• Business objectives

  • CEO's responsibility for
  • for each product team
  • OKR (objectives and key results) of products for
  • See also Product Team objectives

• Business results/outcomes

  • execution culture with focus on
  • focusing on outputs instead of
  • leveraging technology for
  • OKR (objectives and key results) of products
  • outcome-based roadmaps
  • product manager's deep knowledge of your

• Business strategy

  • aligning product strategy with
  • focusing on outputs versus outcomes

• Business viability risk

• Business viability testing

  • business development
  • challenges related to
  • customer success
  • description of
  • finance
  • legal
  • marketing
  • sales
  • security

C

• CEO of the Product

• Certified Scrum Product Owner class

• Chief Executive Officers (CEOs)

  • being CEO of the product
  • interest in business viability testing by
  • responsibility for organization's objectives and key results
  • VP product position interview with
  • who drives the product vision

• Chief Information Officers (CIOs)

• Chief Technology Officers (CTOs)

  • comparing CIOs and
  • six major responsibilities of a
  • leading the technology organization
  • VP product position interview with
  • See also VP engineering

• Collaboration

  • company culture of
  • Lean and Agile principles
  • product team

• Communication

  • of product learnings
  • of product strategy across the organization
  • story map as technique for

• Company culture

  • customer-centric
  • emphasis on autonomy versus leverage in
  • loss of velocity due to consensus
  • See also Product culture

• Computer programming skills

• Concierge testing technique

• Consistent innovation

  • Agile methods as conducive to
  • challenge of maintaining
  • definition of
  • ideas leading to
  • top reasons for loss of

• Consumer device products

• Consumer products discovery program

• Consumer-service products

• Contextual inquiry

• Continuous discovery and delivery concept

• Corporate courage

• Creative Suite and Creative Cloud (Adobe)

• Cue, Eddy

• Culture. See Company culture; Product culture

• Customer-centric culture

• Customer discovery program techniques

  • applied to consumer products
  • applied to customer-enabling tools
  • applied to platform/API products
  • power of reference customers
  • for qualitative value testing
  • recruiting the prospective reference customers
  • single target market
  • when to use the

• Customer-enabling tools

• Customer interviews

  • different forms of the
  • return on your time
  • as important skill to have
  • tips on getting the most out of

• Customer letter technique

  • Amazon's applications of the
  • description of the
  • Nordstrom's application of the

• Customer misbehavior technique

• Customer problems

  • problems versus solutions
  • opportunity assessment technique to identify the

• Customers

  • alignment of product team with users or
  • as always dissatisfied and wanting more
  • building relationship with prospective
  • concierge test technique used with
  • obsessing over competitors rather than your
  • opportunity assessment technique to identify target market
  • problem of too late product validation by
  • product evangelism by giving great demos to
  • product evangelism by sharing the pain of
  • product manager's deep knowledge of the
  • reference
  • unaware of what is possible with technology products

• Customer success strategy

D

• Data analysts

• Data knowledge

• Dedicated product teams

• Delivery managers

  • description of and need for
  • loss of velocity tied to lack of
  • Scrum Master role of
  • See also Product delivery

• Demand testing techniques

  • landing page demand test
  • reasons for using

• Demos

  • product evangelism by giving great
  • user test versus walkthrough versus product

• Design. See Product design

• Design sprint technique, See Discovery Sprint technique.

• Developer misbehavior technique

• Discovery coaches

• Discovery framing techniques

  • customer letter
  • description of the
  • to ensure team is on the same page
  • to identify all the big risks
  • mistake to focus on solutions instead of problems
  • opportunity assessment
  • startup canvas
  • story map used for
  • See also Risks

• Discovery ideation techniques

  • concierge test
  • customer interviews
  • customer misbehavior
  • description of the
  • developer misbehavior
  • hacks days
  • story map used for
  • when to use the
  • See also Ideas

• Discovery pivot

• Discovery planning techniques

  • customer discovery program
  • overview of the
  • story map

• Discovery prototyping techniques

  • description of the
  • feasibility prototype
  • hybrid prototype
  • live-data prototype
  • types of prototypes for
  • user prototype
  • See also Prototypes

• Discovery Sprint technique

• Discovery testing techniques

  • overview of the
  • in risk-averse companies
  • testing business viability
  • testing demand
  • testing feasibility
  • testing usability
  • testing value
  • See also Risks

• Doerr, John

• Durable product teams

E

• eBay

  • e-commerce of
  • “Everything Else” category of

• Empowerment

  • accountability tied to
  • company culture of
  • innovation tied to product teams with
  • product team accountability and

• Engineers

  • being brought in too late to product development process
  • innovation tied to discovery participation by
  • loss of velocity tied to not including them in discovery
  • making them feel like missionaries not mercenaries
  • relationship between product managers and
  • tech lead role of
  • test automation

• Enterprise companies

  • consistent product innovation challenge of

• Ethical risk

• Etsy

• Evangelizing

  • by CTOs for technology organization
  • by product management
  • the product vision

• Execution product culture

  • assessing your company's
  • characteristics of

• Experimentation culture

F

• Facebook

  • consistent product innovation by
  • platform strategy of
  • product leadership of
  • as social media product

• Failed products

  • Root Causes of Failed Product Efforts

• Feasibility prototypes

• Feasibility prototype technique

• Feasibility risk

• Feasibility testing

  • considering a feasibility prototype for
  • description of
  • questions answered by
  • tips for successful

• Finances

• Fisher, Mike

• Founder product vision

• Front-end developers

G

• Gates, Bill

• Geiger, Chuck

• “Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager” (Horowitz post)

• Google

  • consistent product innovation by
  • creation of the AdWords product of
  • Google Ventures (GV) team
  • Jane Manning of
  • OKR (objectives and key results) approach used at
  • product leadership of

• Go to market (GTM)

• Group product manager role (GPM)

• Growth-stage companies

  • how they devolve from good to bad
  • scaling to success challenges of

H

• Hack days

  • two major benefits of
  • undirected vs. directed

• Hardware product discovery

• Harik, Georges

• Hastings, Reed

• Hearst, Camille

• Hewlett Packard (HP)

  • management by objectives (MBO) approach used at

• Hickman, Lea

• High-fidelity user prototypes

• High-integrity commitments

  • as alternative to product roadmap
  • execution culture with
  • OKR (objectives and key results) paired with
  • understanding how to get the best results from

• Holistic view of product

  • leadership roles in context of
  • leaders of product design
  • leaders of product management
  • leaders of technology organization
  • understanding the concept of

• Horowitz, Ben

• Hybrid prototypes

• Hybrid prototype technique

I

• Ideas

  • as first step in product development
  • problem with source of
  • understanding that most will never work
  • user testing to assess the value of
  • See also Discovery ideation techniques; Innovation

• Industrial design

• Industry knowledge

• Infrequent release cycles

• Innovation

  • Agile methods as conducive to consistent
  • challenge of maintaining consistent product
  • definition of consistent
  • ideas leading to
  • source of future
  • top reasons for loss of
  • See also Ideas; Scaling

• Innovation product culture

  • assessing your company's
  • characteristics of a

• Instagram

• Interaction design

• Invite-only testing

• Iterations

  • discovery
  • product discovery
  • the prototype
  • Sprint: (Knapp, Zeratsky, and Kowitz) on
  • time to money cost of implementing

• IT-mindset organizations

• iTunes (Apple)

K

• Kawasaki, Guy
• Keep The Lights On activities
• Knapp, Jake
• Knowing what we can't know lesson
• Kordestani, Omid
• Kowitz, Braden

L

• Landing page demand test

• Lauchengco, Martina

• Leadership

  • holistic view of
  • talent development role of
  • See also Product managers

• Leadership roles

  • product design
  • product management
  • technology organization
  • VP product

• Lean principles

  • leveraging the core principles of
  • in support of

• Lean Startup coaches

• The Lean Startup (Ries)

• Legal issues

• LinkedIn

• Live-data prototypes

• Live-data prototype technique

• Lockhart, Walker

M

• Management By Objectives (MBO)

• Manning, Jane

• Markets

  • focus on one target
  • go to market (GTM)
  • opportunity assessment technique to identify target
  • prioritizing
  • product manager's deep knowledge of your
  • single target market technique for target
  • time to market (TTM)
  • total addressable market (TAM)
  • See also Product/market fit

• Mercenaries

  • making engineers feel like missionaries and not
  • teams made of up

• Microsoft

  • developing the Word for Mac of
  • Martina Lauchengco of

• Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

• Missionaries

  • hack days used to build
  • making engineers feel like
  • teams made up of

• Mission statements

N

• Netflix

  • consistent product innovation by
  • consumer-service products of
  • Kate Arnold of
  • product leadership of

• Netscape Communications

• Nordstrom

O

• Objectives. See Business objectives; Product Team objectives

• OKR (objectives and key results)

  • critical points to remember when using
  • description and function of
  • high-integrity commitments paired with
  • product team objectives approach using the
  • scaling the

• Opportunity assessment technique

  • business objective
  • customer problem
  • description of the
  • key results question
  • target market question

• Opportunity cost

• Outcome-based roadmaps

• Outcomes. See Business results

• Output versus outcome

P

• Packard, Dave

• Page, Larry

• Patton, George

• Patton, Jeff

• PayPal

• Pilot team technique

• Platform/API products

• Platform product teams

• The Power of Customer Misbehavior (Fisher)

• Pressland, Alex

• Priorities

  • deciding on market
  • loss of velocity tied to rapidly shifting

• Product culture

  • creating the right culture for success
  • description and importance of
  • innovation versus execution
  • VP product position who supports a strong
  • See also Company culture

• Product delivery

  • continuous discovery and
  • CTO's responsibility for
  • understanding the purpose of
  • See also Delivery managers

• Product demos

  • product evangelism by giving great
  • user test versus walkthrough versus

• Product design

  • the costs of absent
  • holistic user experience (UX)
  • industrial
  • interaction and visual
  • leaders of
  • loss of velocity tied to not utilizing in discovery
  • user experience design team providing

• Product designers

  • holistic user experience (UX) design by
  • interaction and visual design by
  • product discovery applied by
  • prototyping by
  • user testing by

• Product development

  • consistent product innovation requirement of
  • differences in the way best companies go about
  • growth-stage companies scaling to success with new
  • importance of integration to
  • importance of speed to
  • knowing what we can't know lesson on
  • problem in the role of
  • sources of future innovation
  • startups finding product/marketing fit
  • waterfall process of
  • See also Engineering

• Product development process

  • Agile methods
  • fatal flaws and root causes of failed
  • ideas starting the
  • iterations (“sprints”)
  • product deployed to customers
  • user experience design team providing designs
  • waterfall process

• Product discovery

  • build things that don't scale philosophy of
  • continuous delivery and
  • critical risks addressed by
  • CTO's responsibility for
  • ethical risk examined through
  • for hardware products
  • iterations of
  • loss of velocity tied to not including engineers in
  • loss of velocity tied to not utilizing design in
  • principles of addressing critical risks
  • product designer's application of
  • providing enough time for effective
  • validated product backlog output of
  • why it is so important

• Product discovery techniques

  • customer discovery program
  • discovery framing
  • discovery ideation
  • discovery planning
  • discovery prototyping
  • discovery sprint
  • discovery testing
  • story map
  • transformation

• Product evangelism

  • of the product vision
  • as “selling the dream,”

• Product foundational concepts

  • continuous discovery and delivery
  • holistic product
  • minimum viable product (MVP)
  • product delivery
  • product discovery
  • products and product/market fit
  • product vision
  • prototypes
  • See also specific foundational concept

• Product learnings

  • communicating
  • generous sharing of credit and
  • knowing what we can't know
  • summarizing usability testing

• Product management

  • backlog administrator model of
  • leaders of
  • management by objectives (MBO)
  • OKR (objectives and key results)
  • versus product owner role
  • responsibilities of
  • roadmap administrator model of
  • why they want to have product roadmaps

• Product manager responsibilities

  • deep knowledge of the customer
  • deep knowledge of the data
  • deep knowledge of your business
  • deep knowledge of your market and industry
  • understanding the key

• Product managers

  • business accounting/finance course recommended for
  • computer programming course recommended for
  • how they can work in order to be successful
  • innovation tied to strong
  • loss of velocity tied to lack of strong
  • product owner versus the
  • profiles and examples of the best
  • relationship between engineers and
  • role and key responsibilities of
  • role in startups by
  • smart, creative, and persistent qualities of the best
  • stakeholder management by
  • VP product responsibility to develop strong team of
  • See also Leadership

• Product/market fit

  • defining the
  • how consumer-focused companies structure the
  • importance of
  • sales organization's selling to markets with
  • Sean Ellis test for assessing
  • startups finding their
  • See also Markets

• Product marketing managers

  • description of the
  • focus of the

• Product-mindset organizations

• Product objectives

  • OKR (objectives and key results)
  • using the OKR system at scale
  • See also Business objectives

• Product owner role

• Product principles

• Product roadmaps

  • definition of
  • description and functions of
  • high-integrity commitments as alternative to
  • outcome-based roadmaps
  • problems with
  • stakeholder-driven roadmap form of
  • two purposes of
  • typically focused on output not outcome
  • as typically the root cause of waste and failed efforts
  • weaning an organization off
  • why management wants to have
  • why stakeholders are so attracted to

• Product strategy

  • align business strategy with
  • applications of
  • business context provided by
  • description of the
  • innovation tied to focused
  • loss of velocity tied to lack of
  • principles of
  • product team structured to support
  • should be focused

• Product team principles

  • development of techniques based on
  • team autonomy
  • team collaboration
  • team composition
  • team duration
  • team empowerment and accountability
  • team location
  • team of missionaries
  • team reporting structure
  • team scope
  • team size

• Product teams

  • autonomy of
  • business objectives for each
  • challenges faced by growth-stage company
  • characteristics of good versus bad
  • comprised of product manager and engineers
  • as cross-functional set of professionals
  • delivery manager's role in removing impediments for the
  • how to split up product across many
  • innovation tied to empowered
  • innovation tied to stable
  • loss of velocity tied to lack of co-located and durable
  • OKR (objectives and key results) applications by
  • OKR (objectives and key results) scaling by
  • principles of strong
  • principles of structuring
  • share learnings and credit generously
  • three team skill levels of
  • understand that It's all about the product team

• Product vision

  • business context provided by
  • CEO or founder type of
  • description and purpose of
  • innovation tied to compelling
  • loss of velocity tied to lack of
  • principles of
  • product evangelism by sharing the
  • product team structured to support
  • should be inspiring
  • when there is no clear visionary driving

• Profiles

  • Alex Pressland
  • Camille Hearst
  • Jane Manning
  • Lea Hickman
  • Martina Lauchengco
  • Kate Arnold

• Programmers. See Engineers

• Programming skills

• Prototypes

  • description and function of
  • feasibility
  • high-fidelity user
  • hybrid
  • iterating the
  • live-data
  • minimum viable product (MVP)
  • principles of
  • product designer's prototyping of
  • product evangelism by using
  • testing your
  • user
  • user test versus product demo versus walkthrough for showing
  • visiontype
  • Wizard of Oz
  • See also Discovery prototyping techniques

• Public APIs

Q

• QA testing

• Qualitative value testing

  • begin with an interview
  • description of
  • specific value tests
  • usability test

• Quantitative value testing

  • A/B testing
  • customer discovery program
  • description of
  • flying blind when
  • invite-only testing
  • role of analytics in

R

• Recognition culture

• Reference customers

  • recruiting the prospective
  • understanding the power of

• Ries, Eric

• Risks

  • addressed by product discovery
  • business viability
  • ethical
  • feasibility
  • usability
  • value

• Roadmap administrator model

• Robinson, Frank

S

• Sales-driven specials model

• Salesforce.com

• Sales organizations

  • aligning product strategy to strategy of the
  • Google AdWords opposed by Google's
  • selling to markets with product/market fit
  • testing business viability benefits to

• Scaling

  • Agile at Scale consultancies on
  • build things that don't scale philosophy of product discovery
  • as growth-stage company challenge
  • keep the lights on activities
  • the OKR system
  • product team autonomy to facilitate
  • structuring product teams for effective
  • understanding that the right talent drive
  • See also Innovation; Products; Technology-powered products

• Scrum Master role

• Sean Ellis test

• Security issues

• Shared services product teams

• Silicon Valley Product Group

• Single target market technique

• Skill-set diversity culture

• Social media products, examples of

• Sonos

• Source of ideas problem

• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days (Knapp, Zeratsky, and Kowitz)

• Sprints. See Iterations

  • in discovery See Discovery Sprints
  • in delivery, See Scrum Sprints

• Stakeholder management

  • product manager responsibilities for
  • strategies for successful

• Stakeholders

  • defining
  • interest in business viability testing by
  • product evangelism by giving great demos to key
  • stakeholder-driven products using ideas from
  • stakeholder-driven roadmap
  • why they are so attracted to roadmaps

• Startup canvas technique

  • description of the
  • tackling the biggest risks first using the
  • when to use the

• Startups

  • discovery testing in
  • finding their product/marketing fit
  • founders driving product vision in

• Story map technique

T

• Target markets

  • opportunity assessment technique to identify
  • single target market technique for

• Technical debt

• Technology

  • company culture of
  • maturity of

• Technology organizations

  • CTO's six responsibilities to the
  • leadership of the

• Technology-powered products

  • consistent product innovation challenge of
  • customers as always wanting more and better
  • description and examples of
  • discovery for hardware products
  • Google AdWord
  • growth-stage companies scaling to success with
  • root causes of failed
  • startups finding product/marketing fit
  • See also Products; Scaling

• Tesla

• Test automation engineers

• Time to market (TTM)

• Time to money

• Total addressable market (TAM)

• Transformation techniques

• Twitter

U

• Uber

• University of California, Berkeley

• Urgency culture

• Usability risk

• Usability testing

  • description of
  • preparing the test
  • qualitative
  • recruiting users to test
  • summarizing the learning from the
  • testing your prototype

• User experience design teams

• User experience (UX) design

• User prototypes

• User researchers

• User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product (Patton)

• User testing

  • description of
  • product demo versus walkthrough versus

V

• Validated product backlog

• Value risk

• Value testing

  • description of
  • qualitatively
  • quantitatively
  • testing demand

• Value tests

  • using access to demonstrate value
  • using money to demonstrate value
  • using reputation to demonstrate value
  • using time to demonstrate value

• Vision pivot

• Vision. See Product vision

• Visiontype

• Visual design

• VP engineering

  • See also Chief technology officers (CTOs)

• VP product

  • competencies required for the
  • description and titles of the
  • group product manager (GPM) type of

W

• Walkthrough

• Waterfall process

  • Agile methods versus
  • product development fatal flaws of the
  • product development using the

• Wizard of Oz prototype

• Word for Mac (Microsoft)

• Workday

• Workiva

Y

• YouTube

Z

• Zeratsky, John