Naming Your New Product? Let the Battle Begin!

Every product manager knows the drill: business case approved, use cases completed, product requirements documented, then comes the dreaded "what are we going to call it".

As soon as this moment is reached in a product life cycle, suddenly everybody has an opinion.   Personally I think that it is easier to pick a name for your unborn baby - at least generally there are only two people that have to agree (with a little advice thrown in from others of course, but you are under no serious obligation to comply with their wishes).

Advice / instructions will be issued by exec's in the management hierarchy, sales, marketing etc.  And for the most part this will be driven by personal bias, opinion and nothing much else.  I have yet to see a substantive or  rational reason put forward for any product name - generally the biggest ego rules.  But there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Great advice: 4 ways to Think like an Innovator

I am working on the draft of part 2 of my series on "Solutioneering" and starting thinking about how cracking the problem, fits into a product managers frameworks and methods.  This in turn lead me to pondering on how to trigger some focused, creative thinking when approaching a customer request for a proposal - how could this fits into an innovation cycle  - how to think out of the box?

I came across a video blog post by Scott Anthony from Innosight,  which outlines a suggestion of 4 things to think about when you are stuck - in essence, how to think like an innovator.

1. Keep an external focus - this one has particular resonance with "solutioneering" and understanding the customer problem, but more of that in a later post.
2. Learn from your mistakes
3. Embrace your inner Edison
4. Resist the pull of the core.

The blog post is only 2 minutes and 58 seconds - take some time to go and watch it, it will keep you busy, and give me some time to finish up my next post.

[Image from PublicDomainPictures.Net]

Don't Let Biases Cloud your Decision Making

I came across what at first look seemed to be just some psycho mumbo jumbo.  On reflection, it turned out to be a really thought provoking post (on the The Emotion Machine blog) about how smart decision making can be adversely affected by innate biases that we may or not be aware of.

Simply speaking, these biases can and probably will inhibit our ability to make rational and intelligent decisions. In my book, this is something that every product manager needs to be aware of - especially when considering strategic options/alternatives.