(From a post on Melissa’s blog, link here.)
Melissa boils down the complexity of product management to its essence:
- 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
About Melissa (from her blog):
Melissa Perri is a Product Manager, UX Designer, speaker, and coach. Working along side product development teams around the world, Melissa helps them create product strategies that satisfy users and drive business goals. She coaches Product Managers to answer two important questions – “Should we build this?” and “Why?” Harnessing knowledge from Agile, Continuous Improvement, and Lean Startup, Melissa has developed her own processes for great Product Management that she teaches through workshops and consulting. Her clients have included Spotify, Rovio, Valtech, Plated, Wayra UK, and Levo League.
Melissa began teaching through Skillshare after successfully incorporating these concepts into her own role as a Product Manager. Later, she expanded on these principles to write and teach the Product Management curriculum for General Assembly worldwide. Conferences such as QCon, Mind the Product, Lean UX NYC, Lean Agile Scotland, and Agile 2015 have invited her to speak and keynote on these subjects. Before becoming a consultant, Melissa worked as a Product Manager and UX Designer at Barclays Capital, OpenSky, Capital IQ, and Conductor.
There was also a brief year in her career where she started a company in Italy and learned about the wonderful world of bureaucracy (and risotto). Right now she is finishing up her book, “The Build Trap”, and wishing she paid more attention in English class. Contrary to public belief, she is actually based in New York City and not London, but loves crossing the pond to work with awesome clients in Europe.
