The Product Roadmap should be a Chartplotter

Over the last 6 months, I have been diving into the Lean Startup methodology. I went to see Eric Ries in March. He's a fabulous speaker. In practice, I have found Ash Maurya's book to be the most useful, especially the Lean Canvas companion site. Eric has a book coming out in the fall - watch for it.

My background as a product manager has been with startups: One was small, looking for a product/market fit; and the other was scaling quickly. Like every job, they both had their challenges and I've been looking for some sense on what worked well and what didn't. Many of the lessons in 37Signals' book "Getting Real" spoke to my experience. I had been through the waterfall-to-agile conversion and the light on documentation mantra certainly makes some sense. Which brings me to this post: 37Signals just posted a note in the Signals vs Noise blog: Product roadmaps are dangerous. I disagree.

Their post has the light but oh-so-convincing tone of Getting Real. Hell it's only 332 words! The main points:

1. Roadmaps let the past drive the future.
2. You should only look out a few weeks into the future.
3. Roadmaps create expectations.

I get it - they are in the web applications business: build fast, release often, measure and learn; Repeat... But some of the points seem plain wrong. Here are my objections:

• Yes, focussing on now is great, but trying to predict based on past patterns is important, as well.
  
• Once you grow past the everyone-does-everything stage of a startup, organizational behaviour begins to take hold. Stakeholders will always try to protect their interests: Sales wants the next feature that will reel in their current prospect. Support wants the highest visibility bugs fixed. The CEO is after the next big thing. A product manager who doesn't lay out out a path that extends beyond the next few months, will simply be reacting to these forces.
  
  
• Dealing with expectations is part of the management game. Everyone wants a date: Operations needs time to roll out infrastructure or train customer support for that great new feature you want to release. Acquiring customer in a consumer web business is different than the SMB or enterprise world. There may be limited opportunities to interact with prospects. There is a reason that marketing is fixated about that feature that needs to be ready for the the big conference: everyone who buys will be there! Product managers owe these constituents more than: "I don't do roadmaps, they are out of date as soon as you publish them"

• A Product Manager is not just a feature-monger throwing customer requests onto the roadmap willy-nilly. I won't use that hoary Henry Ford quote, but you won't get quality customer feedback if you ask them only what feature they want in the next couple of sprints. You will get a minor delta from the current product iteration. Show them you have a vision that extends beyond the here and now.

The product roadmap has a bad name - it implies a fixed paper map where you can't deviate from the street grid. The term makes me think of the old Triptiks from AAA. I can still remember the silence that would permeate the Chrysler station wagon when Dad drove us outside the highlighted route... "Are we lost Dad?"

I think a better analogy for product planning document comes from the boating world: the chartplotter: it shows you the ports-of-call (customers) but also the rocks (market barriers) to avoid. Most importantly, it automatically updates with your progress through the environment. I could take this analogy further, but I think you get the idea. Expressing a vision for your product and the intermediate steps to get there isn't dangerous - it just needs to be done in a living document so you don't get lost at sea!

Follow-Up: Asus N73SV Laptop

Last week, I posted on the Asus N71 laptop. Sure enough, Asus has launched an incremental successor and the Register has an enlightening review. Here's the summary:

Wins

• Asus doubled down on audio. The 11 watt system developed in partnership with Bang & Olufsen moves down from the flagship N90 laptop.
  
  Aside: I live around the corner from a high-end audio-video store with a dedicated B&O section. Glad to see this company doing something other than making ridiculously priced products that can't compete. The Great Recession was good for something, I guess.
  
• They bumped up the screen resolution to full HD 1920x1080 and used a much better LED-backlit panel. Great idea - why have the screen be the weakest link.
  
• The processor is bumped up to the latest i7 version
  
• They moved the audio controls to the right of the keyboard and increased their size - much improved usability!

Fails

• The battery is still pretty weak. A larger battery would make this beast altogether unwieldy, I expect.
  
• No backlit keyboard - you gotta be kidding me. This was a weakness I neglected to mention earlier.

Depending on your opinion of Windows 7, this laptop could compete well with the Apple 17 incher. That is, if it had a backlit keyboard!!! In this segment of the market, it's table stakes.

How I Chose the Aircraft Carrier of Laptops: The Asus N71

It's been 9 months since I bought my first laptop - plenty of time to become acquainted. Here's a  review for shoppers: "Should I buy one of these?" along with a "What I thought I needed vs what I actually got" review for the product managers. TL;DR summaries at the end.

Before we begin:

• I’ve no axe to grind with any consumer electronics company. 
• I don't like to be wed to brands, but I will always love Canon point & shoot cameras, as long as this category exists (smartphones are eating their market share)

Background

My old Dell Dimension 8400 desktop had put in yeoman service over a life of many Windows XP re-installations. Nothing could make this machine fast again! With a new Canon Powershot S90, I needed more horsepower. The S90 shoots in RAW format and I wanted to see what could be done with Panoramas and High Dynamic Range photographs using files "straight from the camera". Turning RAW into JPG or TIFF takes CPU cycles. Having a fast multi-core processor really helps.

I wanted a laptop but had a desktop mindset (didn’t want to sacrifice anything):

Spec	What I Thought I Needed
Processor	Mid-level processor for photo heavy-lifting. See comments above.
Screen	HD resolution (1920x1080) or close to it
Sound	Superior quality built-in speakers
Optical Drive	For use as an audio/video component for home AV system.
Keyboard	With a number pad
Output	Three analog outputs to drive Logitech 5.1 system

I purchased an Asus N71. This is targeted as a desktop replacement / entertainment focussed machine. Here's a great review providing a thorough look at performance specs.

Spec	What I Got	What I Actually Needed
Processor	Intel Core i5 M430 @ 2.27 GHz	All 4 cores max out when processing RAW files. Watching this on the CPU Meter makes me happy!
Screen	1600 x 900 TFT (not an IPS panel)	I really don't need a screen this large. Occasionally, I watch high definition content (DVD) directly on the laptop. But the possibility of doing this appealed to me when I purchased Overall the screen is good - the reflection and limited viewing angles aren't a showstopper. What has bugged me is the small colour gamut. It is pretty obvious beside my second Samsung SyncMaster 226CW monitor - where are the reds?
Sound	"SonicMaster" Technology	This truly came as advertised. The 2.1 speakers are awesome, especially considering the size of a laptop. I especially like the cute little subwoofer on the bottom. It is really a "mid-woofer" - the speakers are well tuned to cover the mid-to-high frequency range.
Optical drive	DVD drive	Adding a Bluray drive was too expensive and not needed for my home A/V system. I am only set up for 5.1 not 7.1 Connecting to home A/V was a big FAIL. Beyond being a pain in the ass to arrange settings for displaying DVD onscreen, I could never  get to full HD dimension on the TV. It defaulted to 1600 x 900 instead of 1920x1080 no matter what I tried Netflix was option 2. However, it failed partially as Netflix outputs stereo sound and the receiver borked on handling this in the HDMI input from the laptop. By itself, Netflix on the laptop is good - too bad the selection is so limited in Canada.
Keyboard	With a number pad	I didn't really need the extra number pad. When doing heavy duty number crunching in  Excel or Quicken I am at a desk and use an external keyboard.
Output	Three analog outputs	I use a Logitech 5.1 system to play music with stereo right and left speakers set up in the office and kitchen. The centre speaker fills out the stereo on my desk. The system works just fine with a single analog output!

Wins

• Sound quality
• Solid construction and design
• Powerful i5 processor
• USB 3.0 for future peripherals
• Nvidia Optimus graphics processor - useful for Google Earth, but probably best suited for gamers

Fails

• Battery life is pretty miserable, about 2 hours.
• Size - can't lock in a safe and it's heavy to transport. there's a reason most people don;t buy laptops this size.

Consumer Summary

This is a great entertainment laptop, but I would go for the Asus N61 model unless you absolutely need three analog sound outputs for your systems. If you plan to do photo editing on the laptop (no external monitor) get an IPS screen. This is likely taking you toward the Apple line-up. Dells have high-end RGB-LED screens with large colour gamut, but who wants to go through their crazy ordering process.

Product Management Summary

• Having never bought the exact type of product before (laptop), I fixated on silly stuff like the need need for a keypad. 
• One marketing message really got through to me: the higher quality of sound was a call to action
• Overall, the Asus brand appealed to me. In two phrases I would describe it as: good value and advanced components
• PC laptops still market strongly on spec sheets - no wonder it is so hard to choose amongst the manufacturers.
• fanboys for any model!

Nokia: Sisu and Susi

Back in the late 90s, I had the opportunity to work with a company that had Canadian, American, and Finnish operations. The highlight of this job was a visit Finland in 1998. The ritual of sauna, drinks, dinner, and dancing is still a blur in my memory...

The Helsinki stock market was booming during my visit. Like NorTel in Canada, the market was driven by a single company: Nokia. I got my first mobile phone that year; a Nokia 5100 series. It had a intuitive menu system and was a joy to use. Of course, phones didn't need to do much other than make calls and text back then.

Part of the business trip took me to the city of Oulu, north of the Arctic Circle, Oulu has a major Nokia R&D centre and the flight from Helsinki was a veritable Tower of Babel with technologists from around the world on the shuttle.

Our first night in the hotel coincided with the end of the fall semester. It seemed like the whole university had parked their bikes outside the hotel bar for a night of drinking. Earlier in the evening, I had crossed a bridge over the frozen Oulu river and nearly died from the biting wind. These kids were riding their bikes through the same wind - drunk! This was my introduction to that most Finnish of characteristics:"sisu". It's hard to describe, but Wikipedia makes a good attempt. Of course I got it backwards and pronounced the term "susi". This means quite the opposite! More along the terms of "snafu".

Back when Nokia had trouble in the mid 2000's, their CEO said "sisu" would see them through. . Several CEOs later, Nokia is still trying to figure it out. So how did Nokia go from "sisu" to "susi"?

Fortunately, we have an insightful piece that sheds some light. Unlike the usual finger-pointing associated with insiders describing a company's fall, this article is based on over 25 interviews reflecting a wide variety of viewpoints. It has an almost mournful tone. There are many product management lessons to be learned. The clearest example is found in this paragraph:

"In the 1990s Nokia's product development was still very much concentrated on one product - or at the most two products - at any given time. Every product had a clearly-defined team working on it, where the people focused on that one item and no others."

That changed in the 2000's with a component based approach. Now there are rumours of Nokia using Windows Phone 7 as their software platform. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Lemon-Aid

I just went through an accelerated "pre-owned" car shopping experience. The trusty Volvo 850 wagon suddenly became untrustworthy after 14 years and more than 200,000 kilometres of service. The car had been good to me, but it stalled on the way home from a ski trip and wouldn't run for more than 20 minutes before dying. It was sad to sell it to my mechanic for parts, but nobody will buy a car that won't run.

Like many Canadians, I had grown up reading Lemon-Aid as the prime source for information on used cars. I consulted it again. Of course the information is useful, but the organization is really lacking (there is no index!!!) The online site has so much potential for searching reviews, service bulletins, etc... Here's hoping that Phil Edmonston gets some fresh blood involved in this enterprise.

In the mean time, if you are Canadian and want to get a decent idea on the current market values of used cars check out http://www.vmrcanada.com. Most of the data on the web is US focussed. Unfortunately cars are on of those items where the Canucks get ripped off versus US pricing :-(

Oh, by the way I got a 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe in "Natural Khaki" with a beige interior. Leather, sunroof, but no 4WD. It's basically the late 2000's equivalent of the classic mid-size wagon, just made tall.

Watch out for the Zalm

The harmonized sales tax begins to be collected in BC tomorrow. It has shaken up the politics of this province. My thoughts:

The government deserves to be punished for making a major policy change two months after campaigning with a different position. I don't believe for a minute Colin Hansen's timeline. Clearly the BC government had considered this change before the election. Check Hansen's laughable answer on a Globe and Mail Q&A session several weeks back. However, the reaction to this tax could be worse than the actual policy. Be careful what you wish for progressives: especially when Bill Vander Zalm is involved.

With tax, I see two questions: Is it better to tax consumption or income; and , is it fairer to tax businesses or individuals?

Start with an assumption that tax expenditures will stay relatively stable in order to maintain our current standard of public services. The population is getting older. With the proportion of retirees increasing there will be less income tax revenue to support this standard.

We need consumption taxes. Yes, they are regressive, but choosing which items are of benefit to society (hence no tax) seems arbitrary. Provide a relief to lower income tax brackets and leave it simple. It's complicated enough dealing with food

More and more people follow paths where they are both employees and contractors. Nothing drives nuts me more than paying a tax as a contractor but not being able to claim the cost of it toward the revenue I've earned.

The debate over the proportion of taxes paid by individuals or corporations / private businesses is tougher. Not going to try to cover it here - obviously the strength of the anti-HST argument from the left.

The benefits of this tax are there: one level of government will collect and run the tax. Imagine for a second that we had two income tax forms to fill out as individuals?

And the Feds are paying BC to do this... No wonder BC took the money. Close the PST office and turn out the lights. Fundamentally, there is one less administrative task removed from all levels of government. Woohoo!

The Recall Campaigns

Unhinging the Vancouver elite from power may be a good thing, but we will get a re-calibrated right-wing party that loses its urban influence, at least temporarily. It's a good thing to clean the attic for any jurisdiction, party, etc.... Yes, but the risks to social values that many hold dear in this city (Vancouver) would be large.

Bill Vander Zalm. Blatant crookedness that would make the mythical Chicago ward chief smile. I mean: read the Fantasy Garden and Expo land Hughes report. These are dealt with in the public record. He has fundamentalist views that contradict established scientific knowledge. He does not support access to abortion at a level that many see as a fundamental right (including me).

I feel for restaurants in the East Kootenay and along the Alberta border that are going to get hammered by the HST. I predict the petition will pass. It's the recall campaigns that are going to be scarier...

iPad Thoughts and Apps I Want

ReadWriteWeb is reporting  on Steve Jobs talk at the D8 conference: "Tablets will Usher in Post-PC Era. I've had an iPad in my mits for fifteen minutes, at most. No real basis for comment... Just some thoughts.
Many people bitched about the hardware/design at the announcement (over-sized iPhone, bezel size, lack of ports). I don't see major issues with this:

It is an over-sized iPhone. I read lots of the web on my iPhone - simply a bigger a screen would greatly improve the experience.

Bezel size: I would find it hard to bet against Apple's user experience people here. I think they figured that this machine will be grasped rather than laid flat.

You know that Apple will add some ports in future versions.  In any case, the Apple and third party docks will handle card readers, usb, etc... for the interim. Simple clean design for the masses wins here.

If you can believe Apple, they didn't want to build the tablet, but responded to consumer demand and the closing of the eBook opportunity. This meant that they didn't have a huge amount of time to totally revamp the OS. That'll wait to the fifth generation iPhone/iPad OS next year.
This product is about extending the iTunes franchise. Apple has figured out most people  don't want to screw around with computers when adding applications. They are happy to have Apple be their Walmart, controlling what is appropriate for them to buy. Here is a selection of apps where the tablet screen size would perfect. Only one exists now:

• Epicurious- I have four folders of recipes, most printed from Epicurious. Boy, would it be nice to stop printing and have the recipe display full screen behind a splashguard. I have the iPhone app, but it isn't big enough.
• Rebirth - I loved this synthesizer simulator when it came out for PC back in 1997. They have re-released it for iPhone, but the screen size is too small and it looks like it requires lots of finicky scrolling. Release this for iPad.
• iBird Explorer - I love this app on the iPhone. I have used it in the field to identify birds, but rarely go back to it when sitting at home. Put it on a bigger screen and it will replace the Sibley.

I am waiting for the Google tablet, but these apps would tempt me.

Cloud Photographs

Wired has put together some beautiful shots of clouds from space. Of course, the first one they chose was a perfectly formed vortex street: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/gallery-clouds/