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

 

Use Google’s “design sprints” in your product management work. Need to validate product-market fit assumptions and prototypes in just a few days? Google Ventures developed a process to do just that – the Design Sprint. Learn how to put it into action from this detailed article… https://community.uservoice.com/blog/design-sprints-for-enterprise-product-management/

Customer experience and engagement teardown of the Dollar Shave Club. This article examines the customer experience from the first interaction a customer has with the company, offering suggestions for improvements in the analysis. It is a useful look at enhancing an engagement process. Read the details at https://blog.iterable.com/dollar-shave-clubs-billion-dollar-user-engagement-144970719918

Product manager at Facebook – $20M products don’t move the needle. Author of the new book, Chaos Monkeys, and former product manager at Facebook shares why “working at Facebook at the time was more stressful than being at a startup.” Read more at http://www.businessinsider.com.au/antonio-garcia-martinez-chaos-monkeys-2016-7

How Marriott is testing new service ideas and changing customer experience for the better – with an innovation lab hotel. Innovation labs are all the rage, with some adding value and others struggling to justify their funding. Marriott’s new lab – a functioning hotel in Charlotte, NC – appears to be on the right track with goals centered on enhancing customer experience. Read about their lab at http://www.fastcompany.com/3061829/marriott-is-preparing-for-gen-z-with-an-innovation-lab-hotel

What innovation should mean to product managers – per Jeff Bezos. “…to improve our customers’ experience. To be genuinely innovative, innovation needs to [be] adopted by consumers. If they do not choose it, if they prefer the old-fashioned way to do things, it is not innovation. We love inventing and we are willing to fail. Real winners, such as Kindle and AWS, make up for any losses. Failure is costly, embarrassing, unpleasant. In a number of cultures it can be a reason for being dismissed, for being fired. To invent and to fail are one and the same, you cannot have one without the other.” It is a perspective that covers several important points. Read more at http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/07/jeff-bezos-innovation/

What is product management? While the question and most answers are not new, it is useful to reexamine this question to look for shifts in thinking. This article examines several aspects of product management and the work we do: https://medium.com/100-pm/what-is-product-management-anyway-4368e8518f38

How to pursue green innovation. This is an interesting article titled in the context of “sustainable innovation” but only addresses environmental/green issues. True sustainable innovation considers the needs of all stakeholders, with environment being one of them.  Yet, it is a good article to consider how waste that results from creating a product can create innovation… http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2016/07/25/how-to-unleash-sustainable-innovation-that-matters

Innovation is a marathon, not a sprint – promote it correctly. Did Newton really layout his entire theory of gravity after an apple fell on his head? Of course not. Such so-called eureka moments are fueled by constant and steady progress towards a revelation. Innovation occurs in organizations as a result of constant feeding, not one-time activities. Read how to properly feed innovation at http://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2016/07/24/feeding-the-mechanisms-that-drive-innovation

4 ways to embrace innovation. (1) Focus on how innovation is changing what customers expect. (2) Seek out the startups that want to eat your lunch. (3) Just get on with it. (4) Recognise that sectors and business models are blurring. Read about each at http://www.zdnet.com/article/four-ways-to-make-your-business-embrace-innovation/