My Favorite Mistake — 96: Software Product Manager Melissa Perri Got Stuck in the “Build Trap”

Author of Escaping the Build Trap

Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake96

My guest for Episode #96 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Melissa Perri.

She is the author of the book Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value.

Melissa does many things, including hosting the podcast Product Thinking with Melissa Perri. She is Founder & CEO of Produx Labs. Melissa created the online school Product Institute, where she has shared her scientific approach to Product Management with over 3500 students. She also started a program called the CPO Accelerator.

In 2019, Melissa was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program.

Melissa is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, having addressed audiences in over 35 countries.She has a B.S. in Operations Research and Information Engineering from Cornell University.

In today’s episode, Melissa shares her “favorite mistake” story related to working for a software company, where they produced a big requirements document and then built software that, basically, nobody wanted to use. People SAY they’ll use it, but really??

Other topics and questions:

  • How do we know if it’s a great startup idea?
  • TheHighest Paid Person’s Opinion?
  • Risk of creating smaller batches but not being open to experiments not working out
  • *MVP – minimum viable product
  • Delegating the things you’re really good at
  • Didn’t listen to gut over advice, warring with herself for years
  • “Experiment theatre”
  • What is “The Build Trap”?
  • As a consultant, have to be careful not naming names when presenting on stage or doing podcasts… everyone’s on a journey
  • Product management mistakes?
  • Is the problem the product managers or the company?
  • Find Melissa onTwitter
    LinkedIn

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