The Customer

• Great product managers know who their customers are and what they want.
  • They ask their customers directly what they want.
    • Focus groups.
    • Product councils.
  • The study their behavior.
    • They watch what their customers actually do instead of what they say or they think they do.
      • Useability testing.
  • They know their customers' capabilities.

• Great product managers constantly strive to maintain perspective.
  • It is very easy for product managers to think they are just like the target customer.
    • Product managers learn to use the product quite easily and find it useful.
    • The target user may find the product overwhelming, complicated, frustrating, and completely unusable.

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© 2008 John Michael Pierobon

Notes