AMA: Momentive Vice President Of Product Management, Aleks Bass on Product Development Process

Our product development lifecycle process looks very similar to a double diamond design process but with an adapted approach for our organization. While there are best practices for a product development processes, I've found that there is a decent amount of adaptation and adjustment that needs to happen to customize an approach for the needs of the organization. I've not seen 2 product lifecycles that are the same.  At a minimum, a product development process should help reduce friction for the ...Read More

I recommend triangulation as much as is possible. Without a QA function, engineering should be checking to make sure from a technical standpoint that what they have built works. Product and design should also be checking to make sure that the experience you have been cultivating is going to create the positive experience for your customers you intend. I prefer to have each of the functions check to make sure we are shipping quality.  The most important thing is that QA happens when development i ...Read More

Our team believes that success metrics have the highest likelihood of driving focus and execution quality when they are tied to our strategy and something we consistently track and explore. Our teams are well versed in our strategy and the related metrics we are trying to move. We, therefore, set our success metrics early in our opportunity assessment phase. We maintain flexibility and will adjust as necessary if new information surfaces throughout our product development lifecycle that suggests ...Read More

There is an interesting tension here between looking at problem spaces from a variety of angles to make sure you have a sound and differentiated strategy that is worth pursuing and inciting decision paralysis by having too many individuals involved in the process. And the truth is, it depends on the project. I’ll give you a couple of examples for how we have tried to simplify the investment of time and talent for this particular challenge, but it may not work for all organizations. The approache ...Read More