Published Articles
Product Strategy & Portfolio Performance
Take control of your products: How to unleash your expertise to create dynamic growth
CompanyWeek (now US Manufacturing Report) | June 26, 2018
This piece asks how a product strategy should connect corporate direction, product-line expertise, customer needs, and the value proposition. Its product-business relevance remains direct: portfolio growth improves when enterprise strategy sets the boundaries and accountable product leaders translate those boundaries into market and investment choices.
Leave Product Strategy to the Experts
Industrial Equipment News | 2016
This article separates the roles of executives and product experts in creating product strategy. The current management question is still critical: enterprise leaders should set company direction and resource boundaries while product leaders convert customer, market, technology, and competitive knowledge into coherent product-line strategy.
3 Reasons Why Product Development is Important
Product Design & Development | September 21, 2015
This article asks why product development deserves strategic attention and frames it as the mechanism for creating new customer value and sustaining company growth. Today, that makes product development more than an engineering activity: it is a capital-allocation and renewal system for the business.
Great Product Management Is About Process, Not Content
Product Design & Development | March 1, 2016
This article asks what product management is responsible for when strong functional experts already exist across the company. It positions product management as the cross-functional process that integrates strategy, market evidence, economics, and execution.
If You Don't Control Your Products, You Aren't in Control of Your Company
Product Design & Development | January 26, 2016
This article asks who is truly in control of the company when product ownership is fragmented. Its relevance today is portfolio governance.
Product Specification: If You Don't Have a Destination, No Route Will Get You There
Product Design & Development | November 18, 2015
This article treats the product specification as a business blueprint, not merely a technical requirements document.
Three Problems Caused by Diffusing Product Leadership
Design World | January 31, 2017
This article addresses the consequences of spreading product leadership across multiple functions without one accountable owner.
CEOs owe it to company to be technically savvy
FierceCEO | January 16, 2018
This FierceCEO piece addresses how technically informed a CEO should be in a technology-dependent business.
Investors want to see character, accomplishments before they will invest in CEO
FierceCEO | January 23, 2018
This FierceCEO piece addresses what investors look for in a chief executive beyond a title - character, judgment, and demonstrated accomplishment.
High Rewards Do Not Have to Mean High Risk
Money Inc. | May 18, 2018
This article challenges the assumption that meaningful rewards require accepting uncontrolled risk.
The Five Most Important Phases of the Product Lifecycle
Money Inc. | March 22, 2018
This article frames the product lifecycle as a sequence of management phases that require different decisions and priorities.
Customer Value & Commercialization
3 Reasons Why Product Quality is Irrelevant
Product Design & Development | October 12, 2015
This article challenges the idea that product quality, by itself, is a compelling differentiator when customers already expect an acceptable level of quality.
Beware of VOC: The Customer is Often Wrong
Product Design & Development | September 8, 2016
This article asks how leaders should interpret Voice of the Customer rather than simply transcribe customer requests into features.
Do You Know What You Are Really Selling?
Product Design & Development | October 6, 2015
This article asks what customers are actually buying when they choose an engineered product.
Key Elements of a Successful Product Concept
Product Design & Development | November 30, 2015
This article addresses the front-end question of what makes a product concept strong enough to justify development.
Tips for Creating an Effective Value Proposition
Product Design & Development | January 19, 2016
This article asks how to build a value proposition that is useful before a product is fully defined rather than as late-stage marketing copy.
10 Ways To Convince Customers To Upgrade To IP Video
Business Solutions | —
This article asks how to persuade customers to move from an established video technology to an IP-based alternative.
On-Shore Support: Using Company Location as a Competitive Advantage
Design World | May 5, 2016
This article asks whether company location and on-shore support can become part of the competitive offer rather than simply an operating fact.
You Sell to People, Not Markets
Money Inc. | April 12, 2018
This article challenges leaders to remember that markets and segments are abstractions while buying decisions are made by people.
Megapixels: What's the Perfect Number?
Security Insights (Pelco) | February 2017
This article uses megapixel count to ask a broader product question: when does more specification stop creating more customer value?
Cheat sheet: What project managers need to know about RFIs and RFQs
TechRepublic | April 7, 2017
This article explains how RFIs and RFQs support formal buying and supplier-selection decisions.
Not All Data Is Created Equally
Product Design & Development | December 15, 2015
This article asks how product teams should distinguish useful market and customer evidence from hearsay, irrelevant data, and feature requests that do not represent real need.
Product Development & Execution
5 Things to Look for When Evaluating a Contract Manufacturing Firm
Design World | December 8, 2015
This article addresses how leaders should evaluate a contract manufacturer as a business partner rather than as a unit-cost supplier.
5 Things to Look for When Evaluating an Engineering Design Firm
Design World | (date disputed)
This article addresses how to select an outside engineering design firm capable of extending the company's technical team without weakening accountability or execution.
Who's Responsible for Hiring Success?
Human Resource Executive | 2018 Jan/Feb (Vol. 32, No. 1), p.4 — published letter to the editor
This published letter asks who should ultimately own the success of a hiring decision and argues that accountability cannot be outsourced to recruiting or HR.
Decision Point for Maximum Effectiveness: Making the Greatest Impact on Your Organization
Industrial Equipment News | January 18, 2016
This article asks when a decision should be made to create the greatest business effect.
The Advantages of Increasing Decision Power Throughout Organizations
Industrial Equipment News | 2016
This article asks how much decision authority should sit close to the work.
3 Common Pitfalls in Product Development Projects
Product Design & Development | October 21, 2015
This article identifies behavioral causes of product-development failure, including hubris, ignoring facts, and poor planning.
7 Steps to Process Development Every Manager Should Know
Product Design & Development | March 22, 2016
This article addresses how managers can build a repeatable process rather than depend on individual heroics.
How Bureaucracy Starves the Golden Goose of Innovation
Product Design & Development | August 26–27, 2015
This article examines how bureaucracy can suppress innovation by adding friction between ideas and action.
Simplify – Overcomplication Stalls Progress
Product Design & Development (pddnet.com) | February 27, 2017
This article addresses the cost of unnecessary complexity in management and development work.
The Time They Are A-Changin' For Change Management
Chief Marketing Officer (CMO.com) | January 8, 2018
This article examines how organizations should approach change when change is continuous rather than episodic.
Agile vs Waterfall: Key Differences And Definition — Which Model Is Better?
Codegiant | April 14, 2020
This article compares Agile and Waterfall as alternative ways to organize development work.
Develop Partnerships to Improve Time-to-Market, Innovation, and Productivity
Design World | November 1, 2016
This article asks when partnerships can improve innovation, productivity, and time-to-market rather than merely add another supplier.
Four Steps to Faster Results
Design World | May 1, 2017
This article focuses on converting organizational intent into faster results.
Risk: The Glass is Half-Full or Half-Empty – It's Your Choice
Design World | December 8, 2016
This article challenges leaders to treat risk as something to understand and manage rather than automatically avoid.
Five Unexpected Career Resolutions You Should Make In 2018
Fast Company | December 28, 2017 — quoted/featured, not authored
This Fast Company article uses Doug Ringer as a quoted expert on focus, workload, and limiting priorities.
Companies say having agile environment makes for better productivity
FierceCEO | March 28, 2018 — featured/quoted status, byline not independently confirmed
This FierceCEO piece addresses the relationship between organizational agility and productivity.
Companies use slow, ad hoc approaches to innovation
FierceCEO | May 1, 2018 — featured/quoted status, byline not independently confirmed
This FierceCEO piece raises the problem of innovation being handled slowly and ad hoc rather than through a repeatable operating discipline.
Leading vs. managing: See our tips for effective leadership
Home Furnishings News | March 26, 2018
This article examines the difference between leading people and managing work.
6 Steps to Getting the Best from Your Team
Industrial Equipment News | January 3, 2017
This article asks what managers can do to get stronger results from the people already on the team.
Employees: The Other Half of Employee Empowerment
Industrial Equipment News | June 6, 2016
This article argues that employee empowerment has obligations on both sides: leaders must delegate real authority, and employees must use that authority responsibly.
Expertise is Not Enough to Be Successful
Industrial Equipment News | November 5, 2016
This article asks why subject-matter expertise alone does not guarantee business success.
Poor Communication Speaks Volumes
Industrial Equipment News | September 19, 2016
This article addresses communication as an operating issue rather than a soft skill.
Three Ways to Stop Skills Shortages
Industrial Equipment News | July 6, 2016
This article asks how organizations can respond to shortages of critical skills rather than simply compete harder for scarce hires.
Why Speed Beats Perfection Every Time
Money Inc. | May 10, 2018
This article argues that excessive pursuit of perfection can destroy more value than a timely, well-informed decision.
Fewer Americans Uproot Themselves for a New Job
Wall Street Journal | August 19, 2018 — quoted/featured, authorship not established
This Wall Street Journal article addresses declining willingness of workers to relocate for jobs, with Doug Ringer identified in the evidence register as a likely quoted source.
Why January Is Your Least Productive Month And What To Do About It
Fast Company | January 17, 2018 — quoted/featured, not authored
This Fast Company article quotes Doug Ringer on setting a small number of priorities and working backward from desired results.