Happy 2021! I’ve been behind on posting here (it’s been almost 6 months!) so I apologize for the delay, but I’ve got a lot of great things to share

Recent Blog Posts

I wrote two posts for the Forrester blog that touch on popular subjects in recent client discussions:

• Roles and Responsibilities for Product Management and Portfolio Marketing: How Much Do They Matter?: I often field questions like “Who should be responsible for [X]?” (where X is a specific activity or deliverable like market sizing, launch planning, or creating a product growth plan). In this blog post, I address whether the answer to these questions really matters, and what you maybe should be asking instead.
• Four Secrets Of Successful Upskilling (That You’re Probably Not Doing): I speak with a lot of product management leaders who want to improve the skills and competencies of the product manager on their teams. While this is an admirable area on which to focus, so many of them focus on the wrong things and don’t actually end up improving skills, at least not nearly to the level that they could or should. This blog post covers some of the keys to success that I’ve found from working on upskilling with lots of product management leaders.

Upcoming Presentations and Events

It’s great to see that even with the pandemic there’s no shortage of great product management webcasts, virtual meetings, conferences, and other events. It’s easier than ever to access great product management insight regardless of your location or ability to travel. Here’s just a few of the events where you can find me in the coming months:

• Tuesday, February 9: I’ll be presenting on The Evolving Product Management Function as part of a series of online presentation. Tickets are free, and here’s the description: “Product management is maturing at a fast rate, and the nature of product management work is evolving. This means that the function no longer consists of one-size-fits-all product managers; different types of product managers, sub-functions, and roles/specializations are emerging. This session will look at the new roles and sub-functions within product management and define what a modern product management organization looks like.”
• May 3-6 is the annual Forrester B2B Summit North America. This is our flagship B2B event, bringing product, marketing and sales leaders together to highlight ways they can work together better to accelerate growth. Like last year, we’ll be 100% virtual, but we’ll still have fantastic sessions like World-Class Product Management: What It Looks Like And How To Get There; Leveraging Product Management Technology For Digital Product Success; Stake Your Claim: How To Position Offerings To Gain Market Advantage; and Success Through Product Portfolio Management: Strategically Defining And Managing An Offering Portfolio. I’ll be presenting in two sessions: one looking at how product management needs to think beyond just products and look at the overall product experience; and another that dives into what “value-add” products are and why they’re so important to drive growth and customer obsession.

Product Management Tip-A-Day

I started a few new habits for 2021 (I don’t like calling them resolutions). One of them was to try and post a product management tip every day in 2021. I’m 35+ days in and keeping up the streak so far.

You can see these by following me on Twitter (@jefflash) or following the hashtag #ProdMgmtDailyTip. You can also follow me on LinkedIn (here’s how to follow someone on LinkedIn) via my profile page, or you can follow the #prodmgmtdailytip hashtag there too.