The Product Vision blog

Favorite reads of the month – August 2009

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | monthly compendium

Here are the most interesting articles I read this month:

1. The New, Faster Face of Innovation

This article discusses the qualitative changes taking place in the nature of innovation itself:

Technology is [..] allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago. They can stick features on Web sites and tell within hours how customers respond. They can see results from in-store promotions, or efforts to boost process productivity, almost as quickly.

The result? Innovation initiatives that used to take months and megabucks to coordinate and launch can often be started in seconds for cents.

And that makes innovation, the lifeblood of growth, more efficient and cheaper. Companies are able to get a much better idea of how their customers behave and what they want. This gives new offerings and marketing efforts a better shot at success.

2. Succeeding with Scrum: Start by Creating an Effective Product Vision

A common question I am asked is how my product vision process fits in with Agile.  The short answer is that they are complementary.  The product vision process is for establishing the product vision.  Agile, on the other hand, is a development methodology.  It can help tune the vision, but it is not a proper process for generating the idea.

Have you ever worked on a Scrum project where the overall goal was not clear? Where you had a product backlog but the people involved in the development effort only vaguely understood the purpose of the release? It happens more frequently than any of us would like, even on projects with multi-million dollar budgets! Often Scrum’s emphasis on “getting work done” is misunderstood as a rush to develop with not enough thought to where the project should be going. Don’t make that mistake. Every Scrum project needs a product vision that acts as the project’s true north, sets the direction and guides the Scrum team.

3. Apple Afraid Google is Taking Over the iPhone?

If you consider yourself a student of product vision and strategy, you might want to follow the fascinating dance playing out between Apple and Google.  Two of the world’s most visionary companies are erstwhile friends, and now, looming competitors.  Techcrunch has the scoop:

[..] Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features. The Google Voice App takes things one step further, by giving users an incentive to abandon their iPhone phone number and use their Google Voice phone number instead (transcription of voicemails is reason enough alone). Apple was afraid, say our sources, that Google was gaining too much power on the iPhone, and that’s why they rejected the application.

4. Reed Hastings on Culture of Innovation

This slideshare on Netflix’s corporate culture is really about your corporate culture.  There are enough powerful insights and ideas here to warrant multiple careful viewings:

Lots of companies have nice sounding value statements.  Enron had a nice-sounding value statements with 4 values: Integrity, Communication, Respect, Excellence.  Their four values were chiseled in marble in the main lobby, but had little to do with the real values of the organization.  The real company values [..] are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.

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