Lean Product Management Manifesto
If you want to read the story behind the Lean Product Management Manifesto, you can find it here.
Over the past few months I have been working with people in the Lean and Agile community to figure out how we can communicate the benefits of a Lean approach to Product Management. I expect this to evolve and change as we continuously integrate these principles into our own practices and learn. I welcome your feedback and contributions. I hope we can get together in an open space one day to discuss and improve it. Thank you to Adrian Howard, Corey Innis, Chris Matts, Tim Lombardo, Rob Liander, Wes Royer, and Alberto Anido for your reviews and help!
The Lean Product Management Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of creating valuable products for customers by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Customer problems and needs over internal requirements Data driven experiments over preconceived solutions Customer problem roadmaps over feature roadmaps Idea generation and collaboration over solution mandates
While we value the things on the right, we value the things on the left more.
Customer problems and needs over internal requirements
We believe that the best products are ones that solve customer problems. Product Managers spend a lot of time gathering requirements from inside the company and getting features approved by business stakeholders. As Lean Product Managers, we understand that the most important information comes directly from our customers. Thus, we should direct our efforts at exploring customer problems and needs, while keeping in mind our business goals. While we need to know the internal stakeholder requirements, we spend more time outside of the office, talking to our customers face to face and determining what value we can deliver by providing solutions for their problems and needs.
Data-driven experiments over preconceived solutions.
We believe in finding customer value by running small experiments. Product Managers spend much of their time thinking up and documenting unvalidated features. As Lean Product Managers, we focus on running experiments using MVPs, getting solid data from customers, and then making decisions on product strategy. As we experiment and learn, our product decisions are based upon fact and not speculation.
Customer value roadmaps over feature roadmaps.
We believe that effective product roadmaps need to focus on customer problems and the delivery of value from solving these problems. Product Managers plan roadmaps off speculation, slotting in features to be built because they think it is what customers want and need. These roadmaps focus on building unvalidated solutions, and usually don't include adequate amounts of time to do effective customer research and run experiments. As Lean Product Managers, we understand that we need a plan that reflects our process of discovering problems, experiments, and building validated solutions. We create problem roadmaps that communicate customer value by experimenting on features that are aligned with the company's goals and KPIs.
Idea generation and collaboration over solution mandates.
We believe that exceptional products are not built by the efforts of one person, but by great teams. Product Managers usually come up with feature ideas on their own and then dictate solutions to the designers and developers. Lean Product Managers understand that the best ideas can come from many different sources, including customers, designers, and developers. We solicit ideas from others, and work collaboratively with designers and developers to determine product strategy.
These are a set of guidelines I have used to improve my Product Management practice and help others do the same. These principles should not be blindly followed. If you do plan to use them, adapt them for your specific organizations and situations. And, as always, improve upon them as you learn and practice.
