Yes! The author of "Escaping the Build Trap" and CEO of Produx Labs is one of the stellar speakers at From Business to Buttons 2020. Melissa Perri, welcome!
Product Management is a critical discipline, but it’s widely misunderstood nature leads many organizations straight into “The Build Trap.” These organizations are so focused on building and shipping software that they forget to ask the core question behind great Product Management – are we building a valuable product?
Companies often turn to Agile processes like Scrum in the hopes that these frameworks will help them ship better software. But this often demotes Product Managers into the role of order takers, much like waiters in a restaurant. Instead of determining what features or products will help reach company goals, they reluctantly turn their attention to filling backlogs and keeping developers busy.
When companies fall into The Build Trap, they miss out on creating products that actually produce value for their customers and further their business objectives.
We need to break out of an endless cycle of building and shipping, and refocus on only creating products of value. Product Managers have to become “Bad Idea Terminators,” able to identify the strongest opportunities for success.
Melissa Perri is a product management educator, author, speaker, and consultant. She believes the key to creating great products is growing great product leaders.
Committed to that mission, she created the online school Product Institute, where she has shared her scientific approach to Product Management with over 3,500 students. Seeing an opportunity to help executives understand the value of Product Management, she wrote the book Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, with O’Reilly Media. In 2014, she wrote the Product Management curriculum for General Assembly’s part-time Product Management course, being used worldwide today. In 2019, she started a program to train the next generation of Chief Product Officers with Insight Partners and their 150 portfolio companies. Also, Melissa was recently appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program.
As the CEO of Produx Labs, Melissa runs a team of consultants who work with executives worldwide to set up their product organizations, advise on product strategy, and train leaders and team members. Their clients include Capital One, Lloyds Bank of England, Spotify, Liberty Mutual, Bynder, AthenaHealth, the Australian Defence Department, and Chewy. Prior to her current position, Melissa was a Product Manager and UX Designer at Capital IQ, Barclays Capital, OpenSky, and Conductor.
Meet Melissa at From Business to Buttons 2020!