Whereas traditional product development would involve making product decisions using business intuition and knowledge, Zynga turned decision-making on its head by hypothesis-driven product testing, quick analysis and agile roll-out based on how customers behaved.

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That 10-15-year product development cycle john2011 alludes to still poses problems to speedy financial analysis and decision-making of this particular industry.

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Natural language-processing experts, visualization and integration engineers, and product managers also play a role in the data analysis chain.

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Product management practices differ across companies, but there are two disciplines that are always critical: problem-solving and tradeoff analysis.

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Suddenly he was responsible not just for end-of-period financial reporting but also for a new financial planning and analysis unit, an expanded roster of product finance managers, a newly installed financial system, and occasional meetings with stock analysts.

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