2 posts tagged “technology”

As mentioned in my last post, Steve Wozniak (iWoz) was one of the keynote speakers at the just concluded SolidWorks World. It was great listening to him as he narrated his auto biography - his childhood days tinkering with electronics, his meeting with Steve Jobs, early days of Apple etc. He was so bubbly as he talked, he spoke at hundred miles an hour. His talk had two key messages
1) Simplicity in everything you do
2) Your products can either bend the human who is going to use it because it is non-intuitive or bend the technology it is based on so that it delivers a great user experience.

Of course, the goal is to bend the technology, but it easier said than done. A quick look at all the products out there (despite the marketing claims of "easy to use", "intuitive") still ends up bending the human a lot more.

Many times you are faced with make, partner or buy decisions. How do you decide? It all depends on the business opportunity and how much time do you have to capitalize on it. The decision cannot be based on technology, in fact more you get enamored by technology, more likely you are to make the wrong decision. The decision should first be based on "Is there a business opportunity?". Is it going to be a viable business in the long term, what edge would the opportunity give you over your competition or in other words what sustainable product differentiation does it create for you?

Once you have established that, you need to figure out how much time you have to take full advantage of the opportunity - do you need to be the first to market or can you be a fast follower?. It is not always necessary that you be the first to market - iPod was the 73rd mp3 player to the market, Google was not the first search engine. Once you have figured this out, then you choose the best technology that will solve the problem. If it will take you years to build and there is a viable technology out there that can get you a solution faster, then you either partner or outright buy it.

So in essence, you as a Product Manager should be driven by three questions:
1) How big is the business opportunity?
2) How much time do I have before the opportunity closes?
3) Do I need to be first to market or can I be a fast follower?

Once you have these answered, you can participate in recommending or choosing the right technology, but the technology decision should be left to development since they are the ones who understand technology the best and they are the ones who have to build it on their own or have to live with what you get via partnership or acquisition.