... not establishing a product innovation and decision process

                                      or a Product Innovation Funnel

- How (process and success metrics) and who (Product Manager, Product Board, CEO) makes the decision at every phase?

- It is OK to fail. Actually good if an item doesn’t go to next phase. If most ideas are becoming products you are doing it wrong.   

Ideas come into the Product Innovation Funnel from: 
- Internal: partners (sales, dev, etc.), experts, Product Board, site analytics
- External: customers (feedback, usability testing, survey, directly listening to), partners/suppliers, competitors, industry sources (experts, blogs, magazines, tradeshows, conferences), market and demographic analysis, other industries’ best practices, etc.

Marty Cagan ("Inspired") spoke at my class last Thursday 2/5

What stuck in my mind was:

Discover: Product Managers need to "discover" a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible.

Talk to Customers: They have to deliver a specification that describes a product which has evidence will be successful. PMs need to prototype with User Experience Designers and then iterate with real users. Talking to users is the most important thing a product manager can do.

Most Fail: 50%-80% of software doesn't succeed primarily because this isn't done.

Empower: Don't design by committee, empower:
                 Product Manager: Function/Value
                 User Experience Designer: Form / Usability
                 Engineering: Technology / Feasibility
                 but realize function (requirements) and
                    form (design) are intertwined.

Don't Chase New Features: - If a product manager is just racing to add new features, they are probably not improving the product and definitely not innovating.  Product Management is not about chasing new features, often the easiest revenue can come from just making existing parts of your offering easier to use.

Create High-Fidelity Prototypes: - Marty is a big fan of high-fidelity prototype specs, not paper specs.
 
Read "Inspired" or his articles at SVPG.com