Focus on two priorities
Most product managers, marketers, and developers have an infinite queue of things to be done. The challenge for many (including me) is to stay focused on the things that really matter. You can easily get distracted by the “noise” and miss the ideas that are vital.
Use a simple model for prioritizing.
Will the thing you’re doing (a feature, a meeting, a sales call, anything) increase the number of customers or increase product profit? Or both?
Obviously, features and activities that increase customer share and product profits are the goal. Things that do neither—that is, don’t increase the number of customers and don’t increase profits—should be rejected, shouldn’t they? Some items may not increase customer count but will decrease churn so those items count too.
Once you’ve rejected the low-value distractions, you’re likely to find you still have more items than resources. Use the quick prioritization technique to filter your ideas even further.
Prioritization is a key skill for product managers. Make it part of your product playbook.
About Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson is a product management process coach, author, speaker, and advisor. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product marketing and management team. Before founding Under10, Steve was a Pragmatic Marketing instructor for over 15 years and personally trained thousands of product managers and hundreds of company senior executive teams. Learn more at www.under10playbook.com
In his spare time, Steve enjoys making music, and has an album available on iTunes. Check out Steve’s music at notExactlySteve.com