Resources for product teams from industry experts
Building a visionary company is a design problem, and great designers apply general principles, not mechanical lock-step dogma. Any specific how-to will almost certainly become obsolete. But the general concepts — adapted, of course, to changing conditions — can last as guiding principles well into the next century.
— Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
People cannot reliably predict where they are going and how their lives will unfold, especially in today’s unpredictable world. Those who built visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going — for where you are going will almost certainly change. It is a lesson as relevant to our individual lives as to aspiring visionary companies.
— Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
Functionality, design, and technology are inherently intertwined. In the old waterfall model, the market drove the functionality (aka the requirements), which drove the design, which drove the implementation. Today, we know that the technology drives (and enables) the functionality as much as the other way around. We know that technology drives (and enables) design. We know that design drives (and enables) functionality.
You don’t have to look further than your own phone to see numerous examples of both. The point is that all three of these are completely intertwined. This is the single biggest reason we push so hard for the product manager, product designer, and tech lead to sit physically adjacent to each other.
— INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group) by Marty Cagan
While product strategy starts with focus, it then depends on insights. And insights come from study and thought. These insights come from analyzing the data and from learning from our customers. The insights might pertain to the dynamics of our business, our capabilities, new enabling technologies, the competitive landscape, how the market is evolving, or our customers.
— EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) by Marty Cagan
When you start a new business you do not need to envision accurately the details of your strategy or predict foresightedly how technology will evolve. Rather, you need to focus primarily on getting the initial conditions right. If you start from a good place, then the choices that lead to success will look like the right choices. In order to exploit these choices, you need to create a business model whose resources, processes, and values can harness these forces so that they propel you toward success rather than blow you away.
— The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M. Christensen, et al.
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