Let it Beep: Sosumi

Here's an amusing story about the MacOS System 7 beep sound (by the 280 Group's own Jim Reekes). Talk about a creative way to get a feature your realy want into your products. :-)

Keynote: How to Accelerate Your Product Management Career

I'm doing the keynote presentation at the PMEC (Product Management Education Conference) in San Diego at the beginning of April. Come join me for an excellent conference if you get the chance.

Here's a description of the talk:
Do you ever wonder why some product managers seem to get promoted and advance much faster than others? Are you interested in learning strategies and tactics you can use to speed up the advancement of your own career? In this presentation Brian Lawley, Founder of the 280 Group and President of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association will share the different ways he has seen product managers successfully accelerate their careers during his twenty year career in product management.

More details here...

Product Management in IT

We've been seeing an interesting trend - IT departments hiring product managers and setting up a formal product management function and process. For example, Intel IT licensed our product manager's toolkit and product roadmap toolkit for their IT staff and have set up a centralized product management resources portal for worldwide use. They also had us do some training and consulting work.

It's not surprising to see this happen. IT departments have a wide range of projects with requirements that change often and need to be defined up-front. Using MRDs/PRDs and roadmaps to prioritize, get commitments and communicate plans is a proven best practice, and IT is leveraging the resources and knowledge that has been developed over the years. There is an interesting article about it here if you want to read more about it.