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

Tips for conducting consumer and market research for new products. You have to identify the right target segment, understand a real problem they have, and learn what action to take. Read the details at https://current.innovatemap.com/wisdom/the-art-of-conducting-research-for-product-innovation/

What you can learn from user behavior to improve aspects of products. Too often applications ask users to do more than is really needed. If the information is not essential, why ask for it? Each “ask” is another hurdle for customers. This article shares a useful example… https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2017/08/user-behavior-can-bite-lessons-product-management-trenches/

5 best books on product management. (1) Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, (2) Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, (3) Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love, (4) Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, and (5) The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. What would you add? Details of each at https://www.wrike.com/blog/reader-recommended-books-product-management/

An introduction to Design Thinking for product managers. Design Thinking has become an important tool to product managers who are involved in the front end of new product development. These are the innovators improving existing products to add value for customers or creating entirely new products. What is appealing to many people, myself included, is the strong emphasis on design being human centered. Discover where DT fits and where it doesn’t in this article http://blog.hypeinnovation.com/an-introduction-to-design-thinking-for-innovation-managers

An intro to product management – what is the role about? 57 slides and article with the answers, revolving around (1) define problem, (2) prioritize problem, (3) design solution, (4) build solution, (5) test solution, and (6) ship and measure results. See details at https://worldtechscene.com/what-is-product-management/

Product managers should not forget – product over process. Process is important but it can overtake product projects and become the focus. I like to think in terms of just enough process to make great products but not any more to get in the way. We need to keep our focus on creating value for customers, not creating more process… https://medium.com/pminsider/the-product-beats-the-process-28028151c485

3rd wave product development at Gatorade – why it worked. Product managers know about improving products to continue their appeal to customers as competitors offer options and consumer preferences change. That is incremental product development. It sustains products but may not result in significant revenue. If you identify adjacent products your existing customers also want and you can develop them, then you have a revenue boost in the making. Read how Gatorade did just that https://hbr.org/2017/08/how-gatorade-invented-new-products-by-revisiting-old-ones