Jeff Bennett's Blog

Marty Cagan built products for Netscape, AOL and eBay and is now involved with a “who’s who” list consumer companies with his Silcon Valley Product Group.  He knows how to build products.  Marty has brought all of his experiences together in his book:  “Inspired:  How to Create Products That People Love.”

Creating inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. If you can’t do this, then it’snot worth building anything.

• How do you decide which product opportunities to pursue?
• How do you get evidence that the product you’re going to ask your engineering team to build will be successful?
• How do you identify the minimal possible product that will be successful?
• How do you manage the often conflicting demands of company execs, customers, sales, marketing, engineering, design, and more?
• How can you adapt Agile methods for commercial product environments?

“Inspired” gives great insights into how to organize and resource your team to enable building great products.  If you are running a conusmer focused company I strongly recommend this book.  If you are in marketing or product management, “Inspired” can become a go to book for you.