• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Product Mastery Now

Helping product managers move to product mastery

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Training
    • For Groups
    • For Individuals
    • Certification for Individuals
    • PDMA & AIPMM
  • Login
  • Schedule a Discovery Call

By Chad McAllister

TEI 005: How Relying on Aggregate Marketing Data Can Doom New Product Development – with CEO George Farkas

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Reddit

George FarkasGeorge Farkas is CEO of an electronics engineering service company in the Pacific Northwest called Tsuga Engineering. His company creates portable power components for electronic devices, such as integrated power in backpacks and business cases.

Over his career George has helped several companies develop products that provide customers value.  He is also certified as a New Product Development Professional (NPDP) by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA).

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Highlights from the discussion include:

  • As an avid rock climber as a kid as well as an adult, George learned to take, manage, and mitigate risk – lessons he applies now to product development.
  • Working well as a team by developing trust and collaboration is essential for product development projects.
  • Huge advantage to a holistic product development process that applies a team approach and starts by meeting with customers face-to-face, then developing prototypes, and verifying the prototypes with customers.
  • Product development can benefit from good sales management experience by having the best interest of the customer in mind.
  • The winning product formula is developed by studying the customer and collaborating as a cross-functional team to deliver what the customer values.
  • Using aggregate market data only, in isolation from real customers, results in a “me too” product that is more likely to be a failure.
  • Face-to-face voice of the customer and ethnographic research leads to innovative insights.
  • Watch out for those who say “we know what the customer needs” – the way to know is to iterate and co-develop prototypes with customers.
  • Wrong assumptions early in the process can set product development work on a path that leads to failure because time is not available to correct the issues.
  • Skipping proven product development and management processes leads to expensive failures.
  • Executives role in product innovation includes developing the company culture to support innovation and create alignment in strategies.
  • Executives need to understand the best practices in product innovation processes and know that such training exists.
  • Don’t compromise a good product concept with a poor user experience.
  • Don’t design a product based on opinions – base the design on real customer needs.

 

Innovation Quote

George shared a favorite innovation quote he paraphrased and attributed to Fred J. Palensky, 3M,

Companies whose innovation processes are strong and whose cultures strongly support those processes process a huge advantage.

 

Listen Now to the Interview

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

 

Raw Transcript

tei-005_george_farkas

Thanks for Listening!

Thank you for joining me again. I love discussing product development and learning from the successes and failures of product innovators. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product innovation professional by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Reddit

Filed Under: Interviews/Podcast

Footer

HOW WE HELP PRODUCT MANAGERS

We help product managers become product masters - influential drivers of product strategy - so they can consistently create products customers love without getting overwhelmed putting out fires. Learn about it in the Product Mastery Roadmap.

FOUNDER

Chad McAllister - Product Management and Innovation TrainingThe primary responsibilities for an organization are product management and innovation. They deliver value to customers. They're also exciting responsibilities for those properly equipped. That is my job - equipping product managers and innovators.
Read More...

SEARCH

MORE

Contact

About

Product Mastery Roadmap

IDEA Framework

Quotes

Innovation Stories

Innovation Roundup

 

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Disclaimer

Copyright © 2008–2023 Product Mastery Now and The Everyday Innovator™ · All rights reserved

Return to top of page

Product Managers and Innovators!

Product Master Roadmap for Product Managers

Get the Product Mastery Roadmap

And become a Product Master:

    • - Develop the right products more often - as much as 5X
    • - Get the influence you want
    • - Drive product strategy, creating products customers love
x