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Build Knowledge by Expanding on Previous Hypotheses

In the last post we ended by concluding that the results of many A/B tests lead to further questions. This is a good thing. Let's take a look at how you can string A/B tests together to build up a knowledge base over time. Let'

How To Run an A/B Test

Now that you are measuring open, click, and conversion rates for your emails, it's time to look at how to improve them. Let's talk about A/B testing, sometimes called split testing. Far too many people hear A/B testing and think button colors and small

Measuring The Success Of Product Emails

We've discussed why you should send product emails, how you can design emails to convert, and how you can ensure your emails get delivered. Today, we'll look at what you can expect from your product emails. Understanding Open Rates Open rate = the # of people who opened

The Awful World of Email Deliverability

It's not enough to just design a good email template. You also have to put in the work to make sure your email gets delivered. Fortunately, there are a lot of great services to help make this happen. Understand Email Deliverability First, let's go over how

Designing Product Emails That Convert

We've already established that sending product emails is absolutely necessary. So let's take a look at how to design product emails that convert. After all, ineffective product emails aren't much better than not sending product emails at all. Start With a Great Template I

Are you sending enough email to your users?

I know. Email is dead. Everyone is Facebook messaging, texting, and tweeting instead. So why am I asking about email? Because when it comes to products, email is far from dead. I'm not going to beat a dead horse. Lots of people have written about this. Instead, I&

Is This a Dialogue Or a Discussion?

Have you ever been in a brainstorming meeting where the group gets stuck on one idea? They just want to run with it at the exclusion of all else. If your goal is to generate a lot of ideas, this can be pretty frustrating. But what about the opposite? You&

Weekend Reading: A/B Testing Is Hard, To Pivot Or Not, And More

Each week, I read dozens of blogs, countless articles from my Twitter stream, and one or two books. In Weekend Reading, I highlight the best, as it applies to developing great products. A Personal Approach To Organizational Time Management by Peter Bregman "choosing what we are going to ignore

How To Find Common Ground When Engineers Don't Like Features

Have you ever found yourself in an argument with an engineer about the value of a feature? Take a look at the following exchange: Engineer: I don't think we should let companies message candidates who haven't applied for their jobs. Product Manager: How come? Engineer: It

Find Big Wins by Setting Exponential Goals

I've spent a lot of January working with folks on goal-setting. Setting the right goal can be hard. Whether it's picking the right metric or determining the target, there are plenty of places where goal-setting can go wrong. The biggest mistake I see is,

Weekend Reading: A Product / UX Rant, Choosing Metrics, and Setting Goals

Each week, I read dozens of blogs, countless articles from my Twitter stream, and one or two books. In Weekend Reading, I highlight the best, as it applies to developing great products. Who Owns Your UX Philosophy? Brad Feld in Feld Thoughts I have a lot of respect for just

3 Use Cases For Better Communication With Kindling

I recently rolled out Kindling, an idea management app, across my company. If you aren't familiar with idea management apps, there's no shortage of them. This blog lists 44. The idea is to get more people involved in idea generation and evaluation. The various software packages

Weekend Reading: Experimenting, Deliberate Practice, the Rise of Paperbacks, And Much More

Each week, I read dozens of blogs, countless articles from my Twitter stream, and one or two books. In Weekend Reading, I highlight the best, as it applies to developing great products. The $100,000 Experiment | Brad Feld in The Wall Street Journal "A long time ago, I realized

Be Truthful, Be Concise, Be Relevant, Be Clear

Whether it's dashing off a quick email or laboring over user stories, how you communicate can have a big impact on the outcomes you drive. Writing well is a critical product skill that you should deliberately practice. As an undergraduate, I learned about Paul Grice's maxims

What do you want to see on Product Talk in 2013?

Thank you so much for reading Product Talk. I'm committed to making it even better in 2013, and need your help. I'd love it if you could take 3 minutes to fill out a quick 5 question survey about what you would like to see on

Looking Back On The First Year of Product Talk

I started Product Talk in November 2011. It's been a great first year of blogging. I've learned a lot. Some posts that I thought would be hits didn't gain traction and others that I thought would be sleepers really took off. More importantly, I

Ignore the Competition, Talk to Your Customers Instead

I love this post, Do You Care More About the Customers or the Competition?, by David Meerman Scott on Web Ink Now. Take a minute. Go read it. Everywhere I've worked, people on my team have been obsessed with the competition. Every day they read about who is

The High Cost of Interruptions

In this post, I argued that you should ignore bugs. It was easily the most controversial blog post I've written. If you haven't read it, go ahead, read it. I'll wait. It was fun. Naturally, some people disagreed. If you read the comments, you&

Why Ignoring Bugs Will Make Your Product Better

Do you have a bug management system with thousands of bugs? Do you have meetings to review high priority bugs? Do you argue over how to use priority and severity? Why? Bug management is a waste of time. Bugs fall into three categories: Bugs that need to interrupt work. These

Reward Ideas With Good Feedback

On Tuesday, we looked at how to get the entire company involved in idea generation. One of the key steps we highlighted was to give feedback on every idea. Giving good feedback is an art form in and of itself. When you open idea generation up to your whole company,

You Aren't The Only One Who Can Have Innovative Ideas

One of the hardest parts of product management is making visible how you evaluate ideas and make decisions about what to build. Everyone has ideas. Rarely are you sitting around dreaming up what to build next. More likely, your wading through feature request after feature request trying to identify what&

When Helping Hurts

A sales rep comes to you and asks for a small product change to satisfy a prospective client. Your manager wants to A/B test her latest idea. Your friend in client services keeps asking for an updated FAQ even though nobody reads the one you do have. One of

Do One Thing Well

Most product managers know that your product should do one thing well. If you do one thing well, your customers will know exactly when and why to use your product. If you do one thing well, you have a hope of being the best at what you do. If you

Global Product Management Talk: Writing Compelling User Stories

Yesterday, I was the guest speaker on the Global Product Management Talk hosted by Cindy Solomon. For yesterday's show, Roger Cauvin was the co-host. We were discussing how to write compelling user stories. As many of you know, this is a topic that I've covered

Remembering Steve

One year ago today, Steve Jobs passed away. I can't think of any other person of whom I feel more conflicted. It's hard to argue with Steve's results. After all, he brought us the candy-colored iMacs, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad,