Christophe Dujarric - Heimir Consulting

Building the Right Product: Why, What, and How

Reminder: don’t trust fancy methodology names I tend to repeat myself over all of the articles I’m publishing here, yet let me do it one more time for this particular topic: I don’t believe in dogmas.

Some Keys to Setting Objectives

Why not read this post further I wondered for a minute whether I’d title this blog post “Forget about setting objectives”. Why? Essentially because, as you might have noticed if you read some of my past posts, I’m rather against dogmas. And today, at least in the software industry, most of the chats I have with people about “objectives” include the “OKR” term.

Product Management Is Not Project Management

In the early days of this blog, I started writing a series of articles on what Product Management is, and what it is not, according to my experience. There’s a draft I initiated back then that I thought would be uninteresting. I’m pretty surprised that I’m now writing it, but after seeing some discussions about it in some product management communities, I felt it was time.

NPS, Doing It Right

Disclaimer I’m not a fan of NPS, for the reasons I’ll expose later in this article. It probably suffers from its fame and the common consequent pitfall where teams would rush into using it without thinking it through.

Methods: Adapt It, Don’t Adopt It

It’s been about 12 years that I’ve been working in “agile” environments. I’m getting the chance of discussing with multiple teams from multiple companies, and to try and understand how they work, and where they struggle. One thing especially seems to worry people, funnily enough: words.

'Eat Your Own Dog Food' Dilemma

Eat your own dog food Product Managers like that saying.

Where Strategic Partnerships and Marketplaces Fail

The strategic partnerships may sometimes sound like an El Dorado. But most of the time, you’ll be digging until you lose your nails for non-existing gold lodes.

Your Sales Don’t Know What They Are Selling

In a previous article, I wrote that your sales team doesn’t know what they are selling. By this, I mean that they most likely aren’t users of the product. They don’t know it inside out like you should, as a product manager.

Of Egos and Organizations

A few months ago, I attended Intercom’s “World Tour”. To be honest I didn’t expect this kind of content, on lessons Intercom’s team learnt while growing to the business they are today. It was filled with valuable experiences. Not necessarily on the business of creating a tool to communicate with users of SaaS businesses. Rather on the struggles of a web business trying to be good at what they do.

Organizations Are Made of Humans

In the startup world, most are aware that to become a unicorn, on top of a great idea you need some (a lot of) luck.

The Product Is the Organization

The Product is the Business. The User Problem is the Essence of the Product. Let me give it a twist: The Product is the Organization. Your team’s coordination defines your ability to deliver the Product.

Product Design Is Not Product Management

Two years ago, I wrote about what it means to work on a product rather than on a technology.

Responding to Change

This article is the fifth part of a series on: The end of the agile world hasn’t come. Read part 4 here.

Customer Collaboration

This article is the fourth part of a series on: The end of the agile world hasn’t come. Read part 3 here.

Working Software

This article is the third part of a series on: The end of the agile world hasn’t come. Read part 2 here.

Individuals and Interactions

This article is the second part of a series on: The end of the agile world hasn’t come.

The End of the Agile World Hasn’t Come

It’s amazing the amount of articles I’ve been reading lately, or the amount of people I’ve heard discussing the same thing: the end of Agile.

Complexity to Assess Feasibility

I’ve quickly mentioned this concept in earlier posts, but I’d like to spend more time on it, as it is one of the crucial parts of Scrum, and one of the hardest to understand, for developers and for managers.

Be a Product Manager, Be an Expert

An other one of those videos which always make me laugh.

Empty Your Backlog, Delete Issues

I’ve discussed a lot about how to fill-up a backlog.

Why You Should Care About Your Product’s Technical Debt

Depending on your organization, as a Product Manager, you may be sitting right next to your dev team, in a different room, or even an other building.

Product Manager or Product Owner?

I’ve been attending a few meet-ups/conferences/you-name-it around product management. As I mentioned in a previous post, people in general have a rather poor understanding of the Product Manager’s job. And many of those meet-ups end-up redefining that job (sadly).

Getting Things Done with Scrum

This post is not about Agile. It is about getting things done.

Execution