Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, etc.) to other areas, such as business, marketing, healthcare, or education for the purposes of changing behavior for positive outcomes. Heather Browning, a growth product leader with a background in game design, cognitive psychology and behavioral economics shares her insights on how to build products aimed at sustained behavior change with a focus on improving engagement and retention.

MPM 053: Gamification and Product Management: Best Practices, a conversation with Heather Browning, VP Product of Ria Health

Consumer subscription business models are sometimes quite difficult. Consumers – and we’re all guilty of this – expect so much for free these days when it comes to content, technology and online services, that it can be a steep mountain to climb for subscription products to become economically successful. The value must be proven initially in order for consumers to take that first step into paying for a product, but then we have to continue to show value for users to keep subscribing. This constant decision-cycle requires an ongoing, validated value proposition, even more so than other types of products.

MPM 052: Building Consumer Subscription Products into Successful Businesses, featuring Gyanda Sachdeva, VP Product at LinkedIn

Regardless of industry, size or age of an organization, or the type of products built, understanding customers and markets is the bedrock of successful product management for any company. Without that understanding, frankly it doesn’t really matter how good they are at the rest of product development and management, because they aren’t getting to the heart of problems to be solved and needs to be met.  However, there are some different dynamics in product research for B2B or Business to Business organizations and B2C, Business to Consumer, organizations.  In this podcast, Yana Welinder, CEO &amp; Co-Founder at Kraftful, and former Head of Product at IFTTT shares her experiences and expertise in product research for B2B companies.

MPM 054: Product Research for B2B Companies, Insights from Yana Welinder, CEO of Kraftful

You’ve likely heard of the Jobs to Be Done theory, popularized by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Jobs to Be Done is a framework for better understanding customer behavior.&nbsp; The theory being that customers don’t buy products, they hire those products to do a job. As Theodore Levitt said in the 1960s, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”

MPM 055: Jobs to Be Done, a conversation with Brian Rhea

Study after study show that diversity is good for business. According to McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity outperform their competitors by 15% and those in the top quartile for ethnic diversity outperform their competitors by 35%.&nbsp; Diverse teams, those made up of people from different races, genders, sexual orientations, backgrounds, and experiences lead to more creativity, a variety of thought and more empathy for customers. And as we all know, when it comes to innovation and product development, empathy for customers is paramount to success.&nbsp; Diversity and inclusion are topics that simply must be top of mind for product managers and product leaders. We can’t build products for everyone if we aren’t in the right environment where inclusion is fostered. In this episode, award-winning author &amp; CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting, Jennifer Brown shares insights into how organizations can be more diverse and more inclusive.

MPM 056: How an Inclusive Culture Leads to Better Innovation, a discussion with Jennifer Brown

Scope creep – every product manager and engineer’s favorite thing. Scope creep is, of course, when, after we’ve finalized the scope for a project or release, the requirements for that release somehow keep increasing. Whether it’s an idea for a new feature, updated customer feedback on how something should work or a just more requirements, the scope of our development work can sometimes feel quite fluid and is something that must be acutely managed. While some of this new feedback can actually be valuable, it does make it difficult to score if the goal line is constantly changing.  In this episode, we discuss some tactics for managing scope creep while maintaining the value and integrity of the original product idea.

MPM 057: Keeping Scope Creep Under Control, with Jonathan Soares, CEO of Agency Labs

When we think of the role of product manager, we mostly think of building products for external customers. Those people or businesses or governments that buy our product. But there are many, many product managers who build products for internal customers – other employees of their organization. It’s often said that an organization’s most important asset is its people, so these product managers who build products to attract better talent, to retain great people, and to help those people do their job more efficiently and effectively are of critical importance to the organization.

Tate Tegtmeier