Product Failure Lessons For Product Managers: Examples Of Products That Have Failed For Product Managers To Learn From
By Jim Anderson
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About this ebook
Product failures are never something that a product manager wants to talk about. We all live with the secret dread that someday the product that we are responsible might turn out to be a failure. When that happens, we all expect that we'll be asked to leave the company.
What You'll Find Inside:
* HOW DELL PRODUCT MANAGERS STOLE CHRISTMAS
* NEW COKE: A PRODUCT MANAGER CAMPFIRE STORY
* PEPSI FUMBLES A GATORADE MAKEOVER: LESSONS FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS
* FIRE SALE – WHAT HAPPENED TO CISCO’S FLIP CAMERA?
It turns out that we're all missing an important learning opportunity here. Products do fail and they end up failing for a wide range of different reasons. Every product failure is loaded with fantastic learning opportunities for product managers. We just need to take the time an open our eyes to see what we can learn from each failure.
Some of the biggest companies out there have suffered very public product failures. Talented product managers at companies like Coke, Dell, Pepsi, Cisco, and Microsoft have all done their best to bring a product to market with the hopes of having a runaway success only to fail. Given all of the resources that they had at their disposal, these failures are even more surprising.
As product managers we need to carefully study what happened in each of these cases. There are lessons here for us. The better that we can understand what went wrong at these well-funded and well-staffed firms the better chance we have of avoiding making the same mistakes.
Contained in this book are the tips and tricks that you are going to need in order to start to spot when a product is going to turn out to be a failure. As you read each chapter, take a moment to think about how you can start to use the information in your job immediately. I think that you are going to be both surprised and pleased with just how much this information is going to help you to avoid making the mistakes that have caused so many other products to fail!
Jim Anderson
J Jim Anderson is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work focuses on: theories and methods of second language learning and bilingualism, including Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); multilingualism and new literacies; and language policy. Underlying this is a commitment to an integrated and inclusive approach to language and literacy education incorporating the areas of foreign and community/heritage language learning as well as English as an Additional Language and English mother tongue. Jim is co-director with Dr Vicky Macleroy of the Critical Connections: Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project launched in 2012.
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Product Failure Lessons For Product Managers - Jim Anderson
Product failures are never something that a product manager wants to talk about. We all live with the secret dread that someday the product that we are responsible might turn out to be a failure. When that happens, we all expect that we'll be asked to leave the company.
It turns out that we're all missing an important learning opportunity here. Products do fail and they end up failing for a wide range of different reasons. Every product failure is loaded with fantastic learning opportunities for product managers. We just need to take the time an open our eyes to see what we can learn from each failure.
Some of the biggest companies out there have suffered very public product failures. Talented product managers at companies like Coke, Dell, Pepsi, Cisco, and Microsoft have all done their best to bring a product to market with the hopes of having a runaway success only to fail. Given all of the resources that they had at their disposal, these failures are even more surprising.
As product managers we need to carefully study what happened in each of these cases. There are lessons here for us. The better that we can understand what went wrong at these well-funded and well-staffed firms the better chance we have of avoiding making the same mistakes.
Contained in this book are the tips and tricks that you are going to need in order to start to spot when a product is going to turn out to be a failure. As you read each chapter, take a moment to think about how you can start to use the information in your job immediately. I think that you are going to be both surprised and pleased with just how much this information is going to help you to avoid making the mistakes that have caused so many other products to fail!
For more information on what it takes to be a great product manager, check out my blog, The Accidental Product Manager, at:
www.TheAccidentalPM.com
Good luck!
Dr. Jim Anderson
About The Author
I must confess that I never set out to be a product manager. When I went to school, I studied Computer Science and thought that I'd get a nice job programming and that would be that. Well, at least part of that plan worked out!
My first job was working for Boeing on their F/A-18 fighter jet program. I spent my days programming fighter jet software in assembly language and I loved it. The U.S. government decided to save some money and went looking for other countries to sell this plane to. This put me into an unfamiliar role: I started to meet with foreign military officials in order to explain what my product