Building The Case For A Market-Focused Approach w/ Greg Whit

New product ideas can come from many places. A customer may request a specific solution to address a business challenge. A competitor may introduce a new game-changing concept that needs to be answered. New regulations may cause a need for which there is no solution yet. An executive may have a pet idea that they’ve fallen in love with and want to bring to life. An observed overall market trend may point to an emerging need. These ideas should all result in the development of business cases.

The responsibility of creating the business case usually falls on the shoulders of the product manager. Whether the idea is the brainchild of the product manager or not, it’s the product manager who must make the case. If the product fails, it’s often the product manager who takes the blame. Therefore, product managers need to be the voice of reason when a not-so-great idea introduced by an influential person in the company doesn’t look like it’s going to fly with the target market as conceived.

"This discussion assumes that the audience is familiar with business cases. It's about steering the direction of the company and business cases are one of the tools to do that. Another is a clear vision of the future in the form of a good product roadmap," states Greg White.

Greg White Co-founded ProductCamp SoCal, an "unconference" educational and networking event for local product management and marketing professsionals.  Greg also founded  Orange County Product Managers, a rapidly-growing professional organization that facilitates the exchange of ideas, resources and contacts between product management and product marketing professionals in Orange County, California.

Follow @GregWhiteOC @prodmgmttalk http://www.prodmgmttalk.com