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

 

New book for learning how to apply Lean Startup practices – Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya. Since finding Ash’s first book and his related training materials at LeanStack.com, I have been a fan of his work. In his first book he shared his experiments applying Lean Startup and provided a how-to guide for Lean practices. In Scaling Lean he builds on this previous work and shares how you determine if your MVP represents a viable business, what metric is most important to track your success, and more. Check out the details of the book at https://leanstack.com/scaling-lean-book/

Top 45 product management presentations. Want answers to product management questions, ranging from what is product management, what are the basic practices, how to apply agile and lean, to creating product-market fit? Check out this list of slide presentations https://userbrain.net/blog/product-management-slideshare-presentations

How to quickly figure out if product management is right for you. Product management, a formal role in organizations since the 1930’s, has become the hot career in 2016. This article helps you learn what product management is and to decide for yourself if you want to pursue it as a career. It covers three books to read, a handful of blogs to visit, and the mindset you need. Get the details at https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-beginners-guide-to-getting-into-product-managementfast

Reframing R&D to create innovation in solutions, not just products. The “whole product” concept has long been known as the need to consider the entire customer experience surrounding a product. This results in a complete solution. While not new, companies are considering what business they are really in – reframing from a product focus to a solution focus. Read some examples here http://www.forbes.com/sites/strategyand/2016/06/16/innovation-shifts-from-products-to-solutions

4 steps to take before deciding what improvements to make to an existing product. (1) Understand their business goals. (2) Understand their target market. (3) Understand the local market influences. (4) Understand and analyse the data. Read about each at http://yourstory.com/2016/06/product-fix-tips/

How audio company Harman destroyed business unit silos to create innovation. This is an interview the Wharton school of business conducted with Dinesh Paliwal, CEO of Harman International. He shares the steps he has taken to transform the organization and create greater innovation. Read the interview at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/audio-giant-harman-broke-silos-spark-innovation/

A cautionary tale – Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos is looking more broken than breakthrough. Innovation means doing new things. In the beginning stages of innovation, the new thing you are tackling benefits from a compelling story that captures the attention of others and helps them support your idea. Theranos had that and more, capturing $400 million in startup investment and reaching a valuation of $9 billion. Forbes has declared the company is now worth nothing. What went wrong? It could be there was more promise and not any actually working tech. Read this insightful editorial for one perspective http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-theranos-walgreen-holmes-edit-0614-md-20160613-story.html