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

Guidelines for making good decisions as a product manager. Making good decisions begins by assessing the consequences of the decision. Then the proper information is needed. The difficulty is that product managers often must make decisions quickly that are surrounded with some degree of uncertainty. See all the guidelines at https://medium.com/the-black-box-of-product-management/making-good-decisions-as-a-product-manager-c66ddacc9e2b

Will the data-driven product manager please stand up? Data is increasingly driving product decisions. This is good and bad. Of course, we need data for informed decisions, but I have also seen very bad decisions made because data was chosen over common sense. Regardless, you should have a data strategy. Read about how to get one at https://medium.com/@treycausey/rise-of-the-data-product-manager-2fb9961b21d1

3-step survival guide for early-stage tech product managers. (1) Follow a process, even if it is simple. (2) Decide using inputs from multiple sources. (3) Change the process as the company evolves. Details at https://yourstory.com/2017/07/rocketium-survival-guide-for-early-stage-product-managers/

6 traits of effective product managers. (1) Understanding of business requirements and customer need. (2) Technical experience and knowledge. (3) Capability for working with customers and balancing different requirements. (4) Aptitude for holding diverse and complex conversations with different groups of people. (5) Passion for continually exciting consumers. (6) Adaptability. Read about each at http://barronernst.com/the-product-managers-evolution/

Design Thinking is not just for product creation – use it to turnaround your company. Design Thinking is an important tool for product managers who wish to create new value for customers. It can also be used to create an organization that provides more value. It may help change a steady decline into a positive outlook. Here is how one organization used Design Thinking to begin a rebound https://ssir.org/articles/entry/design_thinking_as_a_turnaround_tool

Innovation begins by co-creating with the customer. More and more organizations are involving customers from the beginning when creating or improving products. Building products to see awhat “works” in the marketplace is being replaced with customer involvement that co-creates solutions to problems. Read this to learn more about collaborating with customers https://www.mycustomer.com/community/blogs/cris-beswick/promoting-customer-collaboration-for-innovation

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