Each week I scour articles, wading through the dogs, and bringing you the best insights to help product managers, developers, and innovators be heroes.

 

10 tips for creating an agile roadmap. (1) Focus on Goals and Benefits. (2) Do the Necessary Prep Work. (3) Tell a Coherent Story. (4) Keep it Simple. (5) Secure Strong Buy-in. Read the details of these 5 tips and 5 others at http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/10-tips-creating-agile-product-roadmap/

How wireframes can help product managers communicate with product teams. Wireframe drawings capture the key parts of a product story and functionality. They purposefully look incomplete, which makes them useful tools to create collaboration with technical and non-technical teams. Read how at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-de-haaff/why-product-managers-shou_b_11086108.html

Good reasons why your product team should include a lawyer – sooner than later. I worked with a large organization that had a risk-adverse culture. They built several barriers into their stage-gate process, including legal, to ensure risks were not taken. You can imagine the result – it killed innovation. Instead, legal can be effectively used early in product development to not limit innovation but to avoid future problems. Read this perspective in HBR for more information https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-your-innovation-team-needs-a-lawyer

Interview with Tony Fadell, father of the iPod and co-founder of Nest. Tony talks about what is needed for revolutionary products, the creation and growth of the iPod, what he learned from Steve Jobs, and more. Listen to the interview at https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/20/tony-fadell-speaks-out-about-innovation-revolution-nest-steve-jobs-and-entrepreneurship/

Big companies working with startups is becoming the norm, but much of it is innovation tourism – how to do it right. I had a great guest on my podcast who literately wrote the book on working with startups to create innovation in larger companies. This article also discusses the steps to take to make such relationships work…http://venturebeat.com/2016/07/17/why-innovation-tourism-is-killing-big-companies/

Are you investing for the year 2020 innovation tipping point – what will change and what will stay the same? Software innovation, in the form of new apps, will slow while foundational technologies will take center stage. Moore’s law will finally slow or end. More change is coming. This article helps you consider the future trends that will impact innovators http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/07/17/a-new-era-of-innovation/#6e1d8e402e87

3 ways established companies can help employees innovate. (1) Not all risks are created equal.(2) Explore uncharted territory. (3) Support the ideas. Read about each at http://fortune.com/2016/07/16/business-innovate-risks-success/