Product manager - who are you?

I had a chance to work with a big customer in a web 2.0 project. From this project, I've learned a lot of things from business to techniques.
After 1 year, our client gets financial support from one big Capital venture organization (over 3 million dollars) and this project becomes one of top 100 raising web 2.0 sites this year.
(I am so sorry because I can't tell you more information about my customer , and my project business - that's my principle)
One of the most important factors help this project to be success is: product managers. They created good road map and a good product positioning for our product.
In this entry I will help you understand more about this position and how it is important.
I also share to you some experiences when we develop a product from idea.

What is Product management?

First, we have to know what Product management is.

Product management is an organizational function within a company dealing with the planning or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. (wikipedia)

So, more detail - in product management, what we have to do?

Product planning

• Gathering market requirements


• Defining new products


• Building product roadmaps, particularly Technology roadmaps
  


• Product Life Cycle considerations


• Product differentiation

Product marketing

• Product positioning and outbound messaging


• Promoting the product externally with press, customers, and partners


• Bringing new products to market


• Monitoring the competition

So, what is product manager?

Product manager

Product manager is the person who takes responsibility of Product management in an organization.
In production companies, there are usually 2 separate staffs takes important role in product development: sale - marketing + product management staff. Sale & marketing staff research the market, predict market trend in the future and send it to Product management staff. Product management staff will research to create product to follow market trend.

How important this position is?

As you can see above, product manager takes care of all things related to Product management. It's a very important role because:

• This position determines the success of product and strongly affects to your business
  


• It determines the development trend of a company in the future. If your company is built only one product, the product management strongly affect to the vision and mission of your company .
  

How to develop a product from idea?

This is a big question, so I can not write all related things in only one entry. I just give you some questions that you need to answer before deciding to develop an idea:

• Who are end users that your product/service serves?


• How your product/service earns money? (What is your business model?)


• Who are your competitors?


• What is the most important difference of your product with others? (differentiation).


• Why users must use your product (not others)?

...
These questions are not enough. I will post a series of entry related to this question.
Wait and enjoy!
Do not hesitate to feedback me if you have any other ideas.

Basic course for junior web developers

While working in Pyramid Consulting, I’ve had a chance to work with Mr. Truong Lap Vi. He was one of Technical Architects of Pyramid Consulting. I’ve learned a lot of things from him. Based on his original training course, I’ve added some customizations to create a newer version of the Basic course for junior web developer.
This basic course takes only 3-4 hours. The purpose of this course is:
+ Based on the Web model to explain the vision and road map of a web developer.
+ Explain what good code is.
The original structure of this course has 2 parts:
1. Web model
2. Good code
2.1. What is good code
2.2 Good function
2.3 Good class
I’ve changed its structure a little bit and add more sections:
1. Web model
2. Good code
2.1. What is good code
2.2 Good piece of code
2.3 Good function
2.4 Good class (make the definition clearer)
3. Best practices in coding

You can find the slide for this course here:
Basic course for junior web developers

Some cool pictures for wallpaper

Today, when searching a document in my computer, I found some old pictures I used as wallpaper for a long time. I think they're very nice. So, I upload them into Google Web Picasa. You can view and download them into your computer.

They may help your desktop screen to be nicer.

Enterprise solution patterns for Microsoft .NET (Books for technical architect)

This is one of good books that any Technical architect should read.
This book is organized in 6 chapters.
+ 2 first chapters introduce to you about concepts and how patterns are organized.
+ Main content of the book in the rest (4 chapters). You can find here all of necessary patterns for:
a. Web presentation patterns
b. Deployment patterns
c. Distributed system patterns
d. Performance and reliability patterns.



As a technical architect, you always face to application design. This book is really a must-read book if you need to refer some patterns in application implemented in Microsoft technologies.

One important note: do not read this book to learn technology or tips and tricks to solve your specific problem. You should learn ideas from patterns and apply them into your real project.

One very good news: you do not need to buy this book if you do not want hard-copy. You can find the online version on MSDN here

CMS comparision - where you can find a place to do this?

Image via WikipediaIn the past, I received a request from my client: implement a CMS to satisfy some of their specific requirements.
The first step I have to do is: searching on Internet all of CMS solution and compare them for pricing, features, ...
Fortunately, I found a website very useful for this: http://www.cmsmatrix.org/

After checking all famous CMS on this site with features and pricing. I found the best solution for my customer.
I hope it can help you also