In this entertaining and insightful talk from Mind the Product San Francisco he distills 20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes, breaking them down in twelve key lessons.
20 Years of Product Management in 25 minutes
My Takeaways
One thing that I thought was fascinating about this talk is that Dave Wascha addressed this tension between listening to customers … but don’t listen to customers!
As a User Experience Designer, I’ve been working with Product Managers, Software Architects and Developers and I’ve made a huge part of my mission for the last 20 years working in the software industry to bring teams together around the needs of the user.
However I noticed that – in the efforts of learning about user needs – the pendulum sometimes tilts too much to the other end. Conversations around user requirements turn into “whatever the customers told us, we do it!”
It’s really refreshing to see the user problems being brought back to the center! While we should listen to customers about their problems – we shouldn’t listen to them about the solutions. That’s our job!
Other points worth noticing: Don’t Confuse Yourself with Your Customer, Say No, Be Dumb!
About Dave Wascha
Dave Wascha is a trusted advisor and consultant to some of the US and UK’s largest (and smallest) brands in the areas of innovation, new product development and growth strategy.
He is currently the Global Director of Digital Products at Travelex where his role is to create the future of money and how people send and spend it around the world.
Prior to Travelex Dave was Chief Product Officer at MOO.COM, one of London’s fastest growing privately held companies. He has also held a variety of roles over his 14 year tenure at Microsoft in Seattle and London
Source: 20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes by Dave Wascha – Mind the Product
