Tag Archives: product management

5 Reasons to Keep Suppliers & Buyers in the Loop

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charts_businessOrganizations love to make design changes to their products on a regular basis.  Any firm producing a product, be it the Tesla Model S or McDonald’s French fries, strives to introduce incremental improvements to add new features, reduce costs, comply with the latest regulations, and remain competitive.  Sometimes these changes have an impact on suppliers.

  • Tesla just released its Version 8 software that introduces over 200+ enhancements for the Model S Autopilot technology.  Some of these changes will have an impact on Tesla’s suppliers due to integration between purchased components and Tesla’s design.
  • In 2008, McDonald’s formally announced it changed its recipe for French Fries by changing to trans-fat-free oil to address general health concerns over cardiovascular disease. Imagine the impact of this change to the supplier providing the trans-fat oil from a capacity, inventory, and profit standpoint.

The impact that design changes have on suppliers is significant.  Let’s take … Read more...

How to hire a great product manager

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After writing my last two posts about great product managers and career paths to become great product managers, I thought I should write a post for all the employers (like myself) that are looking to hire great product managers. Probably more so than any other role, identifying and hiring a great product manager is very challenging. Since the job requires a breadth of knowledge to be successful, the interview process requires a breadth of questions to be asked to get feel for whether or not the candidate will be successful.

So what specifically do I focus on trying to understand when I interview a product management candidate? There are a few key items, and I’ve outlined them below.

Are They Wicked Smart?

To me this is the most important thing. If they’re not wicked smart, I won’t even consider them.  Since product managers are faced with an endless amount of … Read more...