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

 

Advice for Acing your product manager interview from a senior Google product manager. David Weekly shares his experience from interviewing numerous product management candidates and mentoring others. Use this article to see what is important during an interview as well as what characteristics make someone a good product manager. See it at https://hackernoon.com/acing-your-product-manager-interview-e4f163408cef

Product management is about how you interact with consumers: Frito-Lay case study. One of the things Frito-Lay did this year was to add a crowdsourcing program that generated new flavors of chip products. Innovation has never been more important at Frito-Lay. Read the highlights from the CMO at http://digiday.com/brands/frito-lay-cmo-innovation-important-ever/

New book of product management success and failure stories – free today only on Amazon. I haven’t read the book yet as it was just published, but I’m intrigued by the title – “Building Insanely Great Products: Some Products Fail. Many Succeed. This is Their Story.” It is available for free today, Dec 9, on Amazon – after today you’ll have to pay for it. See it at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7AKWWS

An open letter from developers to product managers. This letter reminds product managers that the product team, including developers and UX people, in this case, share many of the objectives of product managers – making customers happy, increasing revenue, and seeing the organization succeed. It also shares the product team is not just a means-to-an-end and that the people involved have expectations of the product manager. Read the letter at https://hackernoon.com/dear-product-managers-c488ba6386ea

What Steve Blank has been thinking about Lean and service. This is a recent discussion with Steve Blank where he shares many past ideas but some new thoughts on service. Hear it at https://steveblank.com/2016/12/04/so-heres-what-ive-been-thinking/

4 tips for using intrapreneurship to drive innovation management. (1) Provide a collaborative environment, (2) Actively seeking positive deviants, (3) Understand how the role of managers is changing, and (4) Connecting the dots. Read about each at http://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2016/12/02/the-power-of-intrapreneurship-in-driving-innovation

17 important innovation lessons from one of the world’s great architecture firms. I’ve encountered many innovators in various fields who have an affinity for architecture. Not only is innovation seen in architecture, the practices architect firms use inspire innovation. This article highlights 17 ways the Snohetta firm fosters innovation… http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2016/12/02/17-important-innovation-lessons-from-one-of-the-worlds-great-architecture-firms

How to make innovation a priority so your company does not end as Blockbuster Video did. Blockbuster is a sad story, up there with the likes of Kodak. They had the opportunity to purchase Netflix at a bargain but passed. When they finally decided to get into streaming video on demand, they failed to execute properly. This article provides 6 suggestions for avoiding this by making innovation work in your organization http://lacrossetribune.com/business/steve-blue-without-innovation-your-company-is-at-risk/article_77c86e42-241d-5eca-8e04-d7f587d6b744.html

5 good tips for fostering an innovation culture. Lots of lists for making an organization more innovative, making better use of product managers and creating a culture that drives revenue from new products exist across the Web. This list is one of my favorites so far and consists of (1) honor thy accidents, (2) resist complacency: embrace internal uneasiness and dissatisfaction, (3) Build in some breathing space, (4) Strive for a blame-free culture, and (5) Be aware that there is more than one area of potential innovation. Read about each at http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2016/12/06/five-essentials-for-building-a-company-culture-of-innovation/