Frameworks & Models
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Building Better User Stories: INVEST Framework Explained
User stories are a cornerstone practice for modern product management. They allow product managers to capture desired functionality and improvements from an end-user perspective without getting bogged down in technical specifications. This facilitates collaboration across teams and stakeholders. However, writing good user stories can be tricky. Stories must strike a balance between being simple yet comprehensive… Continue reading
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Market Penetration to Diversification: Applying the Ansoff Matrix
Applying the Ansoff Matrix – The Ansoff Matrix has been providing product managers and business strategists with a powerful framework for guiding growth strategies for over 50 years. First published in 1957 in the Harvard Business Review by Russian American mathematician and business manager H. Igor Ansoff, this matrix gives a simple 2×2 view of… Continue reading
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RICE Scoring: A Data-Driven Approach to Product Roadmap Prioritization
Product managers today have a challenging task – choosing which features and initiatives to prioritize on their roadmaps from amongst a multitude of ideas. With development resources limited, not everything can make it onto the next release. Some system of prioritization is essential to identify the projects that will deliver the most value to customers… Continue reading
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The Pyramid Principle: How to Structure Presentations to Executives
You’ve got a big presentation coming up to the CEO or other executives at your company. This is your chance to showcase your product and strategy. How do you ensure your presentation hits the mark and gets buy-in from leadership? That’s where the Pyramid Principle comes in. Developed by consulting firm McKinsey, the Pyramid Principle… Continue reading
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How Story Mapping and Impact Mapping Drive Alignment
Effective product development requires clear alignment between business objectives, user needs, and technical implementation. Two techniques that help create this alignment are Story Mapping and Impact Mapping. Both provide visual ways to connect desired outcomes to the features that will drive those outcomes. Story Mapping creates a user-centric narrative of tasks and activities. It focuses… Continue reading
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The Action Prioritization Matrix: A Product Manager’s Guide to Effort vs Impact
The Action Prioritization Matrix is an incredibly useful yet often overlooked framework for product managers to evaluate and sequence their initiatives. By mapping potential actions on a simple 2×2 grid based on estimated effort and impact, the matrix helps managers quickly visualize key tradeoffs and make smart strategic decisions on where to focus their limited… Continue reading
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An Introduction to the McKinsey 9-Box Framework for Product Managers
The McKinsey 9-Box Framework for Product Managers – The McKinsey 9-Box Matrix is a well-known strategic framework used by businesses to analyze their organizational units, product portfolios, and talent. The matrix provides a technique for objectively evaluating elements within a business and determining the best strategic approach. In recent years, product managers have started leveraging… Continue reading
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Sprinting Towards Success: A Scrum Framework Overview
Scrum has become one of the most widely adopted agile frameworks for product development and team collaboration. With its focus on iterative delivery, transparency, and constant feedback, Scrum empowers cross-functional teams to build products that continuously deliver value to customers. In this short scrum framework overview, we’ll provide a beginners guide to the Scrum framework,… Continue reading
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Prioritize Your Product Backlog Using the MoSCoW Framework
As discussed in the two previous posts on prioritization frameworks (post 1, post 2), prioritizing the product backlog is one of the most important, and challenging, responsibilities for any Product Manager. With long lists of features, enhancements, bugs and other tasks, determining what to build first can be difficult. This is where the MoSCoW framework… Continue reading
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Estimating Part II: Tools and Techniques for Estimating Product Deliverables
In the first part of this series on estimating product deliverables, we explored common agile estimating techniques like story points, planning poker, and t-shirt sizing. While those methods are great for arriving at initial sizing and gauging relative complexity, product teams often need more precise and data-driven forecasts to more accurately estimate deliverables. In this… Continue reading
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Unlocking Sustainable Growth: The Power of Growth Loops in Product Management
In hyper-competitive markets, achieving and sustaining growth is a top priority for Product Managers. One powerful concept that has emerged as a key driver of success is the Growth Loop. In this post, we’ll explore the world of growth loops in product management, exploring what they are, and why they are the key drivers of… Continue reading
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OKRs for Product Teams: Creating Impactful Goals
As Product Managers, we want to ship successful products. But that’s easier said than done! Defining the right goals that will lead to long-term success can be tricky. I’ve found that using a framework like OKRs is super helpful for getting everyone aligned and focused. OKRs are Objectives and Key Results. With OKRs, you set… Continue reading
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Prioritization Frameworks Part II: Jobs to be Done Prioritization
In this post, the second in the series, and as a follow-on to the recently posted Jobs-to-be-Done Canvas Explained Step-by-Step (please read that one first), we’ll explore how applying a Jobs-to-be-Done prioritization lens to your backlog can help you identify and elevate the items that will drive the most meaningful impact for your customers. Using… Continue reading
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Think Outside the Box with Analogy Thinking
Analogy Thinking involves drawing parallels between seemingly unrelated concepts from different industries or domains. By mapping similarities between a familiar idea and a new scenario, we can transfer insights from one context to another in an imaginative way. This pushes us to move past obvious answers and make connections we may never have considered before.… Continue reading
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Estimating Part I: Tools and Techniques to Accurately Estimate Deliverables
Estimating the effort required to deliver product features and epics is one of the toughest yet most critical responsibilities for product managers and product owners. Being able to accurately estimate deliverables directly impacts the team’s ability to plan sprints, meet commitments, and delight customers with new capabilities. Traditionally, product managers made guesses or relied on… Continue reading
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