It is a good article. More globally, the way ideas turn into
requirements is, unfortuately, often from the 'loudest voice' rather
than any analysis of customer needs and wants. My guess is that
the 'loudest voice' was a senior manager who knew in his gut this
was the right thing to do. The other common trap is that
the 'loudest voice' is often a salesman (or group that have colluded
together to champion something).

I worked on one product where sales swore they would die if they
didn't have a particular capability. After the product was released,
I certainly didn't see big sales jumps due to this new capability. I
suggested (foolish me) that it might be interesting to study the
extent to which we were getting new business. Needless to say, that
study never happened. (And the product suffers with a cost overhead
which can't be reduced since it's fundamental to the product.)

And it actually came as a shock when they laid me off. Which I
mention only to note that I'm now working as an account manager
(i.e., I've joined the dark side) for a marketing services company
in Fort Collins called Invision.

Regards,

Mark
mark@...

--- In swprodmgmt@yahoogroups.com, "Michael J. Mikelson"
<mjmikelson@y...> wrote:
> There is validity to this article, I worked for MS at about that
time and saw similar thinking throughout the company.............
>
>
> There is 1 message in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
> 1. Good Blog entry about Product Management gone awry
> From: "Mike Safar"
>
>
>
_____________________________________________________________________
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>
_____________________________________________________________________
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>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 03:05:02 -0000
> From: "Mike Safar"
> Subject: Good Blog entry about Product Management gone awry
>
> Check out this blog entry on Microsoft Money vs. Quicken. I have
to
> say I've been through the same experience: One thing I've learned
is
> that unless you can build a business model that is profitable
based
> on selling a core product, you're very unlikely to reach
> profitability by pasting a banner ad on that same (lame) product!
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/philipsu/archive/2004/07/01/170682.aspx
>
>
>
>
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