Ronan Dunlop • Monday, November 20, 2017 • News

Free eBook Download of Present! A Techie's Guide to Public Speaking

As a team that engages in our fair share of presentations, we know how important it is to nail it, so we’re always looking for ways to improve our game. That’s why we’re extremely happy to be able to share valuable tips with our readers by offering a free download of the book, Present! A Techie’s Guide to Public Speaking, by Karen Catlin and Poornima Vijayashanker. This is a limited-time exclusive—good through the end of the year only—so please take advantage soon. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Friday, November 17, 2017 • Productivity

Getting Started With Agile: Understanding the Need for Agile

This post is the first in a series that we’re introducing to get back to the basics of agile and help you understand where these methodologies that have been so successful actually originate from. Read more...

Build Tip • Thursday, November 16, 2017 • BuildTV

What is Product Debt and Why You Need to Prioritize Paying It Down

If you’ve struggled to deal with paying down product debt on your product team, or want to educate new teammates on how to manage it, then this Build Tip is for you! Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, November 8, 2017 • BuildTV

Should You Worry About Your Skills Getting Rusty?

I don’t know about you, but before I decided to take on my first leadership role, I agonized over it for months! I worried that as an engineer, the coding skills that I had taken years to learn and hone would get rusty. And I wasn’t alone in worrying. Read more...

Kate Griggs • Thursday, November 2, 2017 • Productivity

So You Want to Be a Product Manager, But Don't Know Where to Start

The world of tech is so, so cool. And bonus—it’s got a role that is both analytical and creative. How can someone new start working towards a product manager position? Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, November 1, 2017 • BuildTV

What Stops Us From Taking a Leadership Role

Have you been in your current role for a while, and are eager to try something new? Perhaps you’ve thought about transitioning from being an individual contributor into a leadership role, but you’re not sure if it’s the right move for you? Read more...

Build Tip • Wednesday, October 25, 2017 • BuildTV

What to Do Before You Redesign Your Product

A redesign is a great way to reinvent your brand, get a leg up on the competition, and revisit those clunky and outdated workflows. While we may be eager to jump right in, we have to be careful about what is actually going to help us accomplish our business goals. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Thursday, October 19, 2017 • Productivity

Embracing Evil with Evil User Stories

If you’re like most product managers, you probably have a backlog full of user stories representing just what you’d like to see your best users do with your product. But what about your not so great users? Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, October 18, 2017 • BuildTV

Why the Last 20% of a Project is the Hardest to Get Through

All this month on Build, we’ve been talking about project management. First, we shared two ground rules you need to set for yourself to get through a software project successfully, and in the last episode, we shared strategies for handling new ideas and unexpected challenges that may derail your project. Read more...

Ronan Dunlop • Tuesday, October 17, 2017 • Community

Where Do Product Management and Project Management Intersect?

Many product managers transition into product management from project management. How to do this and what the differences in these roles are was the central topic of a recent panel discussion held in the Denver offices of Pivotal. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, October 11, 2017 • BuildTV

How to Respond to New Ideas in the Middle of a Software Project

In the last episode, we talked shared two ground rules you need to set for yourself to get through a software project successfully. But we know that managing our own anxieties is only half the battle to keeping the project on course; the other is navigating new ideas or unanticipated challenges. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Thursday, October 5, 2017 • Productivity

Velocity Is Not the Goal

How is my team doing? How much have they done? Inevitably, after your team starts to make progress using an agile methodology, you’ll find yourself wanting to measure that progress. And as soon as you start to look at how to measure agile teams, you’ll encounter velocity. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, October 4, 2017 • BuildTV

The Project Management Ground Rules You Need to Set to Get Through a Software Project Successfully

So you got tasked with managing your first high-stakes software project? Like handling tech debt, breaking up a monolithic code base into a microservices architecture, or something else? Congratulations! Are you excited? Maybe a little nervous? Read more...

Build Tip • Wednesday, September 27, 2017 • BuildTV

How to Think Quickly on Your Feet During a Q&A

As if preparing and delivering a presentation to your peers isn’t nerve-wracking enough, you also have to worry about the Q&A period at the end of your talk! Read more...

Lisa Doan • Thursday, September 21, 2017 • Updates

Introducing Profile Photos

Tracker has always believed in software as a team sport. We are a tool built to help teams collaborate and build better software—not just faster, but together. But for a tool that helps people collaborate, we’ve always represented people by initials that—except in rare examples—don’t really capture your teammates’ personalities, or scan easily. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, September 20, 2017 • BuildTV

Why an Elevator Pitch Isn't the Only Type of Pitch You Need to Prepare

All this month, we’ve been focused on the theme of pitching. We started out by talking about why many creative problem solvers shy away from pitching, leaving it up to CEOs, founders, and salespeople. But pitching is a valuable skill that all of us need to hone in order for people hear us out, adopt our ideas, and believe in our solutions. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Wednesday, September 13, 2017 • BuildTV

Why You Don't Need to Change How You Speak When You Pitch Your Idea

One of the reasons people don’t like pitching is because they feel like they have to be someone else. They have to abandon their personality, get into character, and speak in a way they normally wouldn’t in order to impress a colleague, customer, or investor. Read more...

Ronan Dunlop • Monday, September 11, 2017 • Community

Product Stack Webinar Follow-Up: How to Align Product Strategy with Feature Requests

We are extremely proud to be a partner with Notion and Product Plan in hosting The Product Stack. Our most recent webinar, “Aligning Product Strategy with Customer Feature Requests,” is available below if you were unable to attend the live broadcast. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Monday, September 11, 2017 • Productivity

Choosing the Right Iteration Length

One of the most common questions facing teams that are new to agile is, “What’s the right iteration length for our team?” Although this question can seem daunting at first, there’s actually a simple way to find the answer. Read more...

Dan Podsedly • Thursday, September 7, 2017 • News

Tracker's Journey Through the Cloud

Thousands of teams around the world rely on Pivotal Tracker every day to stay focused on their projects and know exactly what to work on next. As such, we strive to keep maintenance downtimes to a minimum, but eagle-eyed weekend warriors may have recently noticed status messages about “major” infrastructure updates on two otherwise quiet Saturday mornings over the last year. Read more...