Resources for product teams from industry experts
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
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.
The ability of a company to innovate is not just useful for developing new ideas, it is invaluable for navigating struggle. When people come to work with a higher sense of purpose, they find it easier to weather hard times or even to find opportunity in those hard times.
— Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Instead of trying to use your technology and expertise to make a better product for your users’ standard behavior, experiment with inviting the users to change their behavior to make the product work dramatically better.
— Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
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