NOTE: The following is a guest post by John Mansour. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information

The words “strategy” and “strategic” are draped all over most B2B product management job descriptions like a cheap suit.  But many organizations don’t realize the consequences of hiring product managers with skills, talents and experience to be strategic, setting expectations accordingly, and then placing them in situations that require nearly 100% focus on execution.  It’s a reality for many product managers and it’s as counterproductive for organizations as it is for the individuals.

On the bright side, the fix is relatively simple.  The key is to recognize the difference between hiring a team of “strategic product managers” and structuring a product management team that’s strategic to the organization.

The Strategy Dilemma

Every organization needs its product management function to be strategic for obvious reasons. Ironically, the manner in which most product managers are directed, evaluated and compensated has little if anything to do with strategy.  Worse yet, too many people believe “the lack of strategy” is a systemic problem within the product management discipline when it’s really an organizational problem that’s amplified in product management.  Unfortunately, it goes largely unnoticed because no one thing seems to be horribly wrong.

Most organizations build a team of product managers with individual goals instead of creating a unified product management team that’s a strategic asset with a single organizational mission, and therein lies the problem. To that end, companies over-treat the symptoms – people, processes, skills, tools, etc. instead of the root cause – the fundamental structure of the product management function.  With a proper structure in place, the right people, processes, skills and tools accelerate and improve desired outcomes exponentially.

A Unified Team Structured for Outcomes

A product management team that’s strategic to an organization consistently meets two criteria that go hand-in-hand. They deliver solutions that help your target buyers/customers advance their strategic agenda in measurable ways, which in turn helps your company advance its market position in measurable ways.

For example, financial services organizations and U.S. healthcare providers have been inundated with regulatory requirements that drive up the cost of doing business and eat into profit margins that are already on the decline.  Strategic value arrives in the form of products and services that help organizations in these markets meet compliance requirements at a significantly lower cost.  Alternatively, solutions that offset those costs in a measurable fashion have equal value.  A strategic product management team attacks the compliance challenge from one or both angles and leverages multiple products and services for maximum impact!

If you consider how incredibly difficult it is for industry issues of this magnitude to be addressed by any one organization, imagine trying to do it with a product or two.  But this is what organizations expect product managers to do when they’re hired to be “strategic” without realizing it’s difficult if not impossible within the confines of an individual product manager.

The Complexion of a Strategic Product Management Function

A B2B product management team that’s a true strategic asset to an organization consists of two complementary areas of focus, markets and products, integrated within a single product organization.  Both elements make significant contributions to a single overarching market & portfolio strategy and both elements own execution of that strategy at a market or product level.  The results of those efforts deliver strategic value to the organization.

The Strategic Part

The market function, 10-20% of the team, uses comprehensive quantitative, qualitative and competitive industry data to “set the table” for the organization’s market strategy by painting a single consensus picture of target markets at a level that transcends all products. Team members in these roles have a full-time focus on markets with no product responsibilities.

The product function, 80-90% of the team, combines horizontal business-practice expertise (e.g. new methods for driving add-on sales via customer service) and product knowledge to “set the table” for the organization’s product investment strategy in each target market.  Individuals in these roles have a full-time focus on aligning new/emerging business practices to product solutions in markets that are strategic to the organization.

It’s a unified team that combines both elements to form the ideal market and portfolio strategy most suited to helping the organization meet its short and long term goals on an ongoing basis.  Senior executives ultimately make the decisions, but they’re doing so with a holistic integrated view of target markets and high-value opportunities mapped to proposed product investments across the entire portfolio instead of many competing versions for each product.

The Execution Part

The market function repurposes the same quantitative, qualitative and competitive information to ensure the organization’s differentiating value is communicated relative to each target market via marketing and sales.

The product function, now armed with comprehensive market data and guided by a single overarching portfolio strategy, no longer has to stress over “finding time to be strategic for my products.” They can more easily budget their time between product initiatives related to high-value market solutions (from the portfolio strategy) and the daily care and feeding of products that keep the squeaky wheels at bay.

As product management goes, so goes the rest of the organization.  When product management is structured with many individuals, each expected to be “strategic”, it results in an organization going in many different directions with competing influences, spreading its resources too thin to achieve a leadership position in any one area of strength.

The burden is on the organization to rethink the manner in which it structures product management if it wants an asset that has real strategic value to the organization. Most anyone who’s talented enough to be hired into a product management role is capable of being strategic.  They just need an environment that recognizes the key difference between a team of “strategic product managers” and a product management team that’s strategic to the organization.  Setting appropriate expectations during the hiring process can only help the cause.

Tweet this: What happened to all those strategic Product Managers we hired?  http://wp.me/pXBON-3g2 #prodmgmt #strategy #innovation

John Mansour is the founder and president of Proficientz, a company that specializes in B2B product  portfolio management. This article was originally published on the Proficientz blog in January 2012.

Related posts:

1. The 3 Biggest Hurdles to Greater Strategic Influence
2. Guest Post: If Product Marketing is so Strategic, why do I always get stuck in the weeds?
3. Questions for Product Managers
4. The Essential Pieces of Strategic Product Leaders

NOTE: The following is a guest post by John Mansour. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information

Wearing the “strategic” label in one form or another has been the Holy Grail for as long as I’ve been in the product management and marketing profession.  But despite years of ongoing group therapy via blogs, meet-ups, associations, ProductCamp, social media, training courses and various other forums, the strategic-influence needle for product managers and marketers has barely advanced, if at all.  Why?

It’s ironic when I think about how the profession has grown in recent years but I have a theory that comes from many years of observation, as both a practitioner and a consultant.  The top three hurdles preventing product management and marketing teams from wielding greater strategic influence are the following:

1. Product Ownership is All-Consuming

Product managers with direct responsibility for one or more products have two chances of being strategic – SLIM and NONE.  It’s not that product managers don’t have the knowledge or skills.  There are simply too many issues coming from too many directions that suck product managers into a rat hole to the point of no return.  It’s not enough to be strategic for a few hours here and there or for the occasional offsite meetings, sales calls or customer visits.  To be strategic in a manner that’s valuable to the organization, it has to be a fulltime job for a select few.

2. A Growing Influx of Technical Skills

More and more product management and marketing professionals are coming from roles with strong technical backgrounds.  While those skills are highly valuable, they don’t make for a “natural” transition into product management and marketing roles where there’s no exact science to most of the activities, extroverted type-A personalities are preferable, and soft skills such as persuasion and schmoozing are paramount.Consequently, teams overloaded with technical skills naturally gravitate to their comfort zone to deal with issues that are more black and white, the tactics.  While tactics are an enormous part of the success factor, the macro effect on the organization is the lack of a unified grand plan that transcends all products.  It’s a root cause of poor execution on all levels.

3. Strategic at a Product Level is a Misnomer

Strategy can only go so far at a product level.  With very few exceptions, it’s difficult to solve problems that have broad strategic impact (as measured by your target buyers) with a single product because the scope of problems and the solutions are limited by the product.  Furthermore, in B2B companies where many products target the same markets, the highest impact solutions usually involve multiple integrated products and address a broader set of related customer activities that go beyond the scope of a single product.  Throw in the fact that product managers are motivated by product performance incentives and you have practices that simply aren’t conducive to identifying and solving problems that have high market value.  The “product CEO” mentality flies in the face of a cohesive strategy that transcends all products.  Result: a team divided!

It’s worth noting that these issues have little to do with the individuals in the roles.  They’re more a by-product of organizations not changing the structure of their product teams to reflect larger, diverse and more complex portfolios.   In one way, shape or form product teams have to be structured to be strategic beyond individual product strategies and unite the organization behind a common strategy that transcends all products.  That strategy has to be defined at a more granular level than revenue, profitability, market share, etc. so that the entire collection of product and marketing initiatives create greater momentum together than they would individually while making the best utilization of resources.  It’s a much easier way to meet the organization’s strategic goals.

What’s your take?

Tweet this: The 3 Biggest Hurdles to Greater Strategic Influence http://wp.me/pXBON-3ec #prodmgmt #strategy #innovation

—

John Mansour is the founder and president of Proficientz, a company that specializes in B2B product  portfolio management. This article was originally published on the Proficientz blog in January 2012.

Related posts:

1. What Happened to All Those Strategic Product Managers We Hired?
2. Guest Post: If Product Marketing is so Strategic, why do I always get stuck in the weeds?
3. Product Management, the new Executive of Influence?
4. Customers – How to Work with Product Management and Influence our Product Direction

Late last year, we had a group post on Lessons Learned in 2011. It was well received so we decided to post another one. This one is also about lessons learned, but focused on mistakes we made in our careers . Hopefully this advice will help some of you avoid making the same mistakes we did.

Veronica Figarella – Wrong analysis, Wrong pricing!

A few years ago I started a new telecom job managing a group of related products. Although I was excited about the challenge, I was working under great stress and juggling too many projects with too little time to prioritize. Typical PM situation.

I was asked to quickly re-launch one of the company’s products (an internet + voice + mobile pack) as its sales had declined quickly in the previous quarter. As I started analyzing what changes needed to be made in order to increase sales, I overlooked some important market information and ended with an uncompetitive pricing strategy.

To make matters worse, my bosses didn’t question my pricing strategy and I didn’t realize my mistake until the changes were ready to go live. I had to stop all the go-to-market activities, admit I’d made a mistake and work hard to correct it.

I learned that no matter how tight your timeframe, you always have to dedicate time to know the market your product is playing in. It is far more expensive to make a pricing mistake than to take an extra month to re-launch. On the personal side, I learned that it takes courage to admit one’s mistakes.

Shardul Mehta – What got me here won’t get me there

When taking on a new role, be it a different set of responsibilities, a promotion or a new job, believing what made you successful in the past is what will make you successful in the new role is a mistake.

“They gave me this job because I’m good at what I do, so they must expect me to do more of it here,” is typically how the reasoning goes. So you focus on doing what you know best, which makes you feel confident, in control and safe. But it’s a delusion. You’re actually setting yourself up for failure and limiting your opportunities to advance your career.

Even accomplished senior executives have fallen into this trap. The terrific book, The First 90 Days, gives the example of Douglas Ivester, who was promoted to CEO of Coca Cola in 1997 and thought to be the perfect fit, only to be forced to resign two years later, because he continued to act as a “super COO” rather than fully embrace the strategic and visionary role of the CEO.

As I’ve enjoyed success in my career, I often go back to that saying, “What got you here, won’t get you there.” This doesn’t mean ignoring past successes, but recognizing that my performance is now being measured by a different set of metrics. I admit, it’s something I’m still trying to crack the code on.

What this means is re-learning how to learn. It means letting go of the past, understanding how past success can actually be a barrier now, and what new perspectives need to be developed. There is much truth in Yoda’s wise teaching: “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

Ninon LaForce – No career focus, no advancement

I am not sure if it is a mistake but it took me a long time to realize that Product Management & Marketing was what really interested me.

I started my career in sales at Dell Computers with no idea of what I wanted for my career; I was only doing sales because I needed a job to pay the bills and all my friends were working there. Dell gave me great product and sales training.

Three years later, I left Dell and joined a startup in a sales role. I made some good money (finally!) but the problem was that management got to know me as a sales person and did not help me in developing my career in other areas. The company was doing well and growing by leaps and bounds.

I wanted to be involved in strategy, in partner development, and in marketing. I just enjoyed being challenged by complex problems and working with a team to solve them. I envied the marketing and product management people as they were dealing with, in my opinion, the most challenging and creative problems.

So, I took marketing classes at night with the hope to move to marketing one day. After many years with that start up, I quit and took a big pay cut to follow my passion for marketing.

I eventually found a good marketing position in a telecom start up.This job was great because I was the first and only employee in marketing so I got the chance to grow a marketing department.

Three years later, the president promoted me to lead for Product Development. I stayed with this company for 9 years until I moved to my current role in Product Development & Marketing.

This is a long story to say: it helps to know what you want early on and to focus on it so you can develop and move up faster.

Saeed Khan – Not understanding how to “manage up” early in my career

The second word of Product Management is “MANAGEMENT”, and its really important to keep in mind that the “Management” is multidimensional.

Yes, the obvious work is the product work, whether related to requirements gathering, working with Engineering or Marketing or Sales or customers or prospects etc.

But when working with executives, there’s a whole set of management skills that need to be applied, and unfortunately, unless you’ve learned them somewhere else, you’re likely to have to learn them the hard way, like I did.

“Managing up” means different things to different people. Some people look at it as doing what your boss says to make her happy. And that actually works for some people. But managing up starts with understanding the context that your boss, or executives work in, and aligning yourself with that context. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, or in fact what accomplishments you feel you’ve achieved, if those aren’t important to the goals and objectives of your boss or the executive team.

In my case, in one job, I did what I believed was in the best interest of the products I managed. But my decisions were not in synch with what the president was looking for. I pushed hard to get investment in an underfunded product, but the president was not interested in investing at all. And I grew revenue, instead of cutting costs as the president wanted, on another. The goal was to increase profitability and my view was that the better way to do it was by increasing revenue.

In the end, I left the company disappointed that my accomplishments were not recognized. Years later, I found out that the next Product Manager implemented my plans for another set of products but did it by managing up and having alignment with the executives. He was rewarded for his efforts. Lesson learned.

Tweet this: 4 Mistakes to Avoid in your Product Management Career http://wp.me/pXBON-3dL #prodmgmt #career #prodmktg

Related posts:

1. 4 Product Management Success Stories
2. 5 Pitfalls to Avoid When Performing Market Validation
3. Career paths for Product Managers
4. 5 steps to building a great Product Management organization

By Saeed Khan

I can’t believe it’s been over 3 year since I first wrote this piece. It was intended as a counterpoint to all the agilists that were decrying how Product Management wasn’t “agile” (or “Agile”). I found (and still find) the whole argument somewhat baseless, but it still persists amongst agilists (look at this example of what “Product Owner” is turning into), and unfortunately, even within the Product Management community.

Those who talk about “Agile Product Management” as some unique form of Product Management are not doing anyone a service. “Agile Product Management”? As opposed to what? “Sluggish Product Management”?

Just because the technologists have latched onto something that seems to be having benefits for them — and believe me, the bar was set pretty low for many of them — that doesn’t mean Product Management needs to latch onto that as well. Yeah, that’s what we always preach– see something and create a “me-too” solution. Right?

Product management, like business management, is dynamic, open to change, should focus on people etc. Those companies that are static, put process ahead of progress etc. quickly die off.

So, here’s the original piece from October 2008. It was originally titled “Is Product Management Agile?” but I decided the new title was a better fit for the reprise.

————

There’s a lot of talk about Agile Product Management these days, and for obvious reasons. The thinking is that because of Agile development, Product Managers need to change how they function and adapt themselves to a new way of developing software and become “agile”.

But the reality is, Product Managers have always been agile, and finally the software developers are coming around to OUR way of thinking!

Yes, you read that right. Agile is the result of engineers finally understanding what’s really important and making a bold declaration that they now understand. But of course, being engineers, they won’t give credit to Product Management. They’re taking all the credit themselves for this tremendous insight and seachange in their profession.

Don’t believe me? I’ll prove that Product Management has always been “agile” using the Agile Manifesto itself.

The Manifesto has 4 elements. They are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

OK. Let’s take one at a time and apply them to Product Management.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Most product management teams are understaffed. In fact, in many companies you’ll only find individual product managers working alone with teams of developers. They have no choice but to interact face-to-face. And not just with Development, but with every other group in the company and many parties outside of the company.

“Hub of the wheel”? You know what that translates to in the real world? Meetings, and lots of them, with the primary objective to keep all teams aligned and aware of progress, status and plans. Those cross-team meetings aren’t for the benefit of Product Management!

As for processes and tools…well, most PMs will tell you they do what it takes to get the job done, and the only tools they have are usually email, Excel, PowerPoint and Word, possibly some crappy (free) wiki software and Post-it notes. No fancy (or even basic) requirements management tools for most Product Managers. Individuals and interactions: Yes. Processes and tools: Not much. Score: 1 for 1!

Working software over comprehensive documentation

What PM doesn’t want working software? If only the final product that came out of Dev and QA was guaranteed to always work as expected. PMs want working software so much they perform QA, file bugs, run beta programs and hound the testing teams to ensure all the important use cases actually work.

How many times have we taken a pre-release build and found that it doesn’t install properly, or fails when upgrading from a previous version, or has licensing problems or runs really slowly using real world data sets. Ensuring working software gets out the door is top of mind for every PM, and even though helping QA the product is not technically part of our job, many of us do it anyway to raise the probability of actually delivering working software.

Regarding comprehensive documentation, we don’t tell Dev teams to create 50 page spec documents. They choose to write them and then PMs are forced to sit through endless “spec review” meetings to ensure Dev has taken the requirements and translated them properly into something THEY understand.

As for creating comprehensive documentation, PMs can never be accused of that. What’s the most common complaint from Engineering about Product Management? Answer: “The requirements aren’t detailed enough.” ‘Nuff said. Score: 2 for 2!

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Too easy. Really, do I have to explain this one? OK, I will. “Product Management: Voice of the Customer”. How often have you heard that phrase? Meaningful phrase or not, Product Management focuses extensively on customer insight and collaboration. It’s another core aspect of the job.

But, there are countless true stories of Engineering VPs who exhibited disdain for what customers actually want or need. These people are so smart they know what customers need, with little if any input from the customers themselves. Case in point.

A survey of 500 customers showed clear priorities for a number of big ticket items that needed to be added to a product. Capability <A> was ranked #15 by customers but was a pet project of the VP Eng. Capability <B> was ranked #2 by customers. We only had the resources to do one of those 2 items, along with everything else that was planned.

PM: We’ve laid out the requirements in priority order. < B> is critical for the next release and given the target release date, resources and survey results, we’ve deprioritized <A>.
VP: Hold it a minute. Are you saying that <A> is not important?
PM: Well, it’s not as important as <B> and the other things we’ve prioritized for this release.
VP: I was talking to MegaBankCorp last week, and they really emphasized the need for <A>.
PM: Yes, I spoke to them too. But they’re one of only 3 companies who have indicated they have an urgent need for <A>. I’ve got 50 companies that need <B>. <B> is more important than <A>.
VP: I don’t think you’re talking to the right people. I hear people asking for <A> all the time. Our major competitor has <A>, and we’ve lost deals to them.
PM: We’ve lost 1 deal to them on <A>, The sales team agrees that <B> is much higher priority than <A>, and the 500 hundred customers I surveyed agree as well.
VP: Don’t you realize <A> is strategic? Don’t you even read the industry news? You know what the problem with Product Management is?
PM: I’m sure you’re going to tell me.
VP: You talk to too many customers! You don’t talk to enough people who don’t use our product.
PM: People who don’t use our product also don’t tell us what they want added to the product. But, if you have the resources to do both <A> and <B> in this release, then be my guest. But <B> is top priority if you can’t do both.

Result: VP storms out of the meeting. Sends and email the next day indicating that after analyzing the effort and resources, both are not possible in the coming release so only <B> can be done.

Of course, not all Dev leads and VPs are as stubborn. But when it comes to wanting to work with customers, as opposed to sitting in meetings trying to get Engineering to buy-in on what is needed, Product Managers have always advocated for that. Score: 3 for 3!

Responding to change over following a plan

Next to “The requirements aren’t detailed enough“, the most common complaint that Engineers have of Product Management is that PMs regularly “change their mind“. Most PMs don’t simply change their mind about things, but reprioritize what is important based on new data, new market conditions, new company objectives, or other external changes that take place. That’s core to the role of Product Management. The world is a dynamic place, and when your competitor is bought out by and industry giant, or you find that you’re losing deals because of product gaps, action must be taken.

Yes, there are some flaky PMs who don’t have a clue about things, but that can’t be helped. Most capable PMs are reasonable people who need to focus on the business and leverage the engineering resources to help drive business benefit. It’s hard enough to predict what will happen 3 months from now, let alone 12 months from now.

But if a development cycle will take 12 months to complete, Product Management must be collecting the data to define that release many months in advance. Hey, we’re smart, but we’re not the Oracle of Delphi. We make decisions. Decisions are based on the information we have today. If something material happens after a decision is made that requires a change in product plans, the change must be made. Product Management always understood that. Engineering seems to be finally realizing that. Score: 4 for 4!

Conclusion

So there you have it. QED — quod erat demonstrandum.

Product Managers have been living, breathing and advocating the elements of the Agile Manifesto for years before the Manifesto was even a firing synapse in the brains of any of it’s authors. Developers though were set in their ways, with an “engineering” mindset, pushing back on Product Management for changing priorities, not providing enough detail in requirements etc.

I’m glad, even if they don’t want to admit it publicly, that Engineers are finally seeing the light. Now, if we could only get Management to allocate more headcount to Product Management, life would almost be perfect.

Saeed

Tweet this: Product Management has always been “Agile” – http://wp.me/pXBON-3cA #prodmgmt #agile

Related posts:

1. Is Product Management Agile?
2. Worth Repeating: Rules of the Product Management Jedi
3. Worth Repeating: Devil’s Dictionary for High Tech
4. Agile/Scrum Software Development and Product Management part 2

NOTE: The following is a guest post by Shardul Mehta. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

In my previous post, I talked about the challenges of introducing Product Management into an established organization. Here I share hard learned lessons on how to avoid common pitfalls and start laying the foundation for long-term success.

Start with why

If you’re an organization looking to bring on product management, start with the most fundamental of all questions:

Why?

Seriously, why do you really need product management? What problem are you expecting it to solve? Innovation? Improved product development processes? Better requirements writing? Writing feature lists? Being the demo guy?

The why question is critical because it sets the expectation for the value Product Management is expected to bring to the organization. It also crystallizes whether there are ways to solve the problems the organization faces through its current structure. Perhaps the existing departments could take on various Product Management functions, or could be re-structured, and appropriate processes can be developed around them to ensure continuous innovation. If this is not possible, then perhaps introducing a Product Management department does makes sense.

Prepare the organization

The fact is product management is a disruptive force, a radical change to the way the organization conducts its business. The introduction of a centralized product management department will do just that: centralize many functions that were previously diversified. Senior leadership must think carefully if this is something they want to take the organization through, and must prepare to shepherd each of the other departments through their change curves.

Who is your first hire? And where do they sit?

A senior product management individual will bring the experience and know-how to take on a more leadership role, quickly formulate the product strategy and develop a roadmap, be better able to articulate the value of product management, and when the time comes, leverage their personal network to bring in additional product management talent.

Understandably, though, the company may not have the budget to hire a seasoned executive. It may also be in more of a crisis mode where it needs someone to step in to pick up activities that are getting dropped. In either case, the company may decide to opt for a more junior product manager. The question becomes where to place this individual in the organization. Because it doesn’t make sense for this person to report to the execs, they are typically put into marketing, sales or engineering.

The dangers with this approach are well documented – they become a support role for the primary function of that department, providing content for marketing materials, doing product demos for sales, or writing requirements and project managing deliverables for engineering. No time to do the critical work of understanding market problems and formulating the product strategy.

Who to hire and where they sit are critical decisions to ensure long term success. I once worked for a company that rotated through five directors and seventeen Product Managers in just six years. A total of twenty two. Twenty two!

Ensure senior sponsorship

Ensure there is someone in a senior executive position who is willing to be the sponsor and champion for product management. I’m talking someone at the SVP+ level. In my experience, this has the greatest impact on product management’s long-term success. You need someone at that level to evangelize the value that product management brings to the organization, and provide the necessary air support when political attacks threaten to disrupt it in its formative stages.

Do you feel lucky? Well… do ya?

So far I’ve talked from the organization’s point of view. What if you’re the first product management professional into the company? The Product Management Journal has some great tips on introducing product management into a startup. I expound on those to encompass any organization:

Clarify your role
Because expectations may vary widely, it’s important to clarify your role upfront. For example, if you’re joining a startup, an enterprise with a visionary CEO, or a company with established lines of business, the CEO or line of business may want to continue to act as the product visionary and retain control over the product direction. In this case, product management may play a more tactical role, working more closely with engineering on product releases, perhaps supporting marketing and sales activities.

Clarify expectations
You need to clarify how your performance will be judged and reconcile it with the scope of the role. If you’re expected to play a more tactical role, yet deliver product innovation, or if you’re measured on the number of defects and customer complaints, yet the role is about market insight and setting the product direction, these are signs of expectations being incongruous with the role.

As stated earlier, product management is an agent of change, as it changes existing business processes and takes decision making and responsibilities away from current owners. This creates uncertainty. To the extent reasonable, talk to everyone. Understand their expectations. Share these findings with your hiring bosses to clarify expectations and the role, and ensure they are congruous. Doing this has the added benefit of helping you establish key relationships and build your credibility.

Ensure senior sponsorship
Same as discussed above, except now from the individual’s lens. Regardless of whether you are coming in as the VP or a rank-and-file product manager, be sure there is a true believer at the senior executive level.

Focus!
Look, you simply can’t do everything. If you’ve done your homework on the role and expectations fronts, identify what you think are the most pressing problems, share them with your stakeholders, gain their buy-in, and focus relentlessly on the top priorities. Lower level priorities and new problems will of course crop up, but at least you’ll either be able to fall back on the agreement you reached or have a constructive conversation on re-assessing priorities based on new realities. This gives you a much greater chance to get things done while keeping your credibility intact.

Introducing product management into an organization can be fraught with ambiguity, unreasonable expectations, and threats from every corner. But with foresight and planning, it is possible to set it up for long term success. Either way, it’s going to be roller coaster. So saddle up, buckle in, and get ready for a wild ride!

Tweet this: Introducing Product Management into an Organization  – part 2 – http://wp.me/pXBON-3aj #prodmgmt #innovation #career

—

Shardul Mehta is a simple product guy whose passion for great digital experiences is only exceeded by his love for chicken curry. He is the Founder of ProductCamp DC, and his blog can be found here.

Related posts:

1. Introducing Product Management into an Organization
2. 5 steps to building a great Product Management organization
3. How to Create an Effective Product Management Organization
4. 5 Steps to Building a Great Product Management Organization

NOTE: The following is a guest post by Shardul Mehta. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

If you are considering introducing Product Management into your organization, or are the first Product Management employee hired into an established business, then tread carefully! Having twice done the latter, I can attest there are fewer professional situations more fraught with ambiguity, unreasonable expectations, threats from every corner, and high likelihood of failure for the Product Manager and the organization.

Why would a successful business decide to introduce Product Management into the organization at all? In one of the companies I had joined, the business had been extremely successful selling variations of essentially the same product for years and years. But with potential new clients drying up, the execs decided what the company needed was more “innovation” and their answer was to create a Product Management department. Other reasons could be:

• With everyone in the company focused on marketing, selling, customer service, managing operations, hiring, and a hundred other things, the organization finds no one is focused on growing the product portfolio.
• On the other hand, the product portfolio may have grown like wild fire, and now there are multiple versions of the product, causing customer confusion and inefficiencies within the organization. Time to consolidate.
• The product itself has become so “feature rich” that sales and marketing no longer know how to position the product to customers, customers cannot be serviced efficiently, and delivery dates keep slipping as each additional piece of functionality adds exponential risk to development and testing.

For any of these reasons, the company executives decide its time to bring in Product Management.

Buyer beware

Although these situations may seem ideal to introduce Product Management, they abound with pitfalls for the unaware. It’s important for both company execs and Product Management to be mindful of numerous land mines:

Unfounded unreasonably high expectations.Product Management is suddenly looked upon as the silver bullet answer to all the company’s problems.

Not all expectations are created equal. Expectations are also different across each department:

• Engineering/IT expects Product Management to write requirements, project manage the delivery, conduct UAT, manage defect resolution, and make release go/no go calls.
• Sales expects Product Management to be available for every sales call, produce sales collateral, do product demos, commit to product features that will help them close the next big deal, and have them available by the date they already promised to the client.
• Marketing expects Product Management to provide the content for marketing materials or, worse, wants nothing at all to do with Product Management.
• Execs expect Product Management to come up with the “next big thing,” have a solid business case behind it, deliver it on time, and ensure it makes a ton of money.

What does Product Management do? Most times folks don’t understand the role of Product Management and the value it brings to the organization. Let’s see…

• Salespeople close deals.
• Marketing does market research and advertising.
• Operations manages call centers and business processes.
• Account management manages client relationships.
• IT takes care of “all that technical stuff” the rest of the organization would rather not be bothered about.

Pretty straightforward. So what exactly does Product Management do? And here’s the fun part: even the executives of the company – the same folks who decided to introduce Product Management – may not be clear on what exactly it does!

Why do we even need Product Management? Infinitely worse is when folks secretly question the decision to bring in Product Management. This is typically prevalent at the department head and rank & file levels.

The thinking goes this way: “We’ve been successful all these years without it, so why do we need it now?” Product Management represents a disruption to tradition and the status quo. As such, it is seen as a threat. We human beings typically don’t embrace change so readily. In one company, IT had historically written the business requirements and the business was more than happy with this arrangement. When Product Management came into the picture, the battle lines were drawn!

The scapegoat syndrome: A popular way for other departments to deal with the threat is simply to blame Product Management for anything and everything wrong with the product. Suddenly Product Management is getting blamed for deals not getting closed, because the product does not have the features desired by the last “hot” prospect.

If the product has holes, Product Management is called to task for writing poor requirements. If customers don’t respond to marketing, Product Management is accused of not understanding the customer. If customers report bugs in the product, Product Management is asked to immediately identify fixes. Product Management becomes everyone’s favorite punching bag. It’s amazing how fast this happens.

The bottleneck syndrome: Somewhat related to the scapegoat syndrome, except this one is often self-inflicted. The new Product Manager declares, “Product Management owns the product.” And sure enough, soon he or she does indeed own everything to do with the product. All decisions, all issues, are swiftly sent to the Product Manager, who quickly gets swamped with putting out one fire after the next. Pretty soon, no department is getting the support it expects, the backlog piles up, delivery timeframes get jeopardized, the execs are still waiting on the product strategy, and everyone is pointing to Product Management as the bottleneck.

Eyes wide open

So before you introduce Product Management into your organization, or sign up as the first Product Management employee, be mindful of these traps. In my next post, I’ll share hard fought lessons on how you can avoid them and prepare for long-term success.

Have you ever been one of the first product management employees hired into an organization? Please share your story. I’d love to hear from you!

Shardul

Tweet this: Introducing Product Management into an Organization http://wp.me/pXBON-37M #prodmgmt #innovation

—

Shardul Mehta is a simple product guy whose passion for great digital experiences is only exceeded by his love for chicken curry. He is the Founder of ProductCamp DC, and his blog can be found here.

Related posts:

1. Introducing Product Management Into an Organization – Part 2
2. How to Create an Effective Product Management Organization
3. 5 steps to building a great Product Management organization
4. Guest Post: Measuring Product Management (part 2)

It’s been quite a while since I wrote a What’s the Deal piece.  The last one was called “What’s the Deal with Software Product Management?“. So it’s kind of fitting, that I’m following it up (albeit almost 4 years later) with one on Product Marketing.

Recently, there have been a few posts on other blogs related to the Product Marketing role and the viewpoints caught my eye.

• What’s the difference between Product Marketing and Product Management?
• The End of Product Marketing
• The Rise of the Product Marketer

The “What’s the difference” article attempts to delineate the functions of Product Management and Product Marketing.  You should read the whole article, but here are a couple of snippets of the definitions of the two:

Product management usually “listens” to the market and then works with the internal team to develop products to meet the needs that are articulated.  They do not usually to interact much with the market on a day-to-day basis  in a direct way, but rather listen to feedback obtained by sales and marketing.

…

So if that’s product management in a nutshell, where does product marketing differ?  Well, product marketing is a more externally focused role. The product marketers “talk” to the market more.  They evangelize what the company’s product offers the world, and help the company focus their messaging to the market.

We need to get away from these “complementary opposite” definitions of the roles. i.e. one listens, the other other talks. One is inbound, the other outbound. One focuses on putting products on the shelf, the other focuses on getting products off the shelf etc.

The roles are are definitely complementary, but are definitely not opposites. These kinds of definitions, while short and easy to remember are incorrect and only help to further confuse those who aren’t clear on their relationship.

Now, in The End of Product Marketing, Dave Wolpert (guest posting on A Random Jog) describes a death spiral he sees happening to Product Marketers. Caught between Product Managers, Marketing and Sales, Product Marketers are losing responsibility for any strategic activities and are becoming tactical, siloed content creators.

At many companies, product management has already replaced the inbound function I described earlier. At others, product marketers have evolved into field marketers by focusing mainly on sales tools that are only used internally; development of externally-facing content marketing tools, like technical white papers, are sourced to others.

In what seems to be a bit of a rebuttal of Dave Wolpert’s piece, Josh Duncan (the main blogger on A Random Jog), states the following in the Rise of the Product Marketer.

In most businesses, there is a gap between marketing and product that must be filled. Without an audience, a great product has nowhere to go. Likewise, a great marketing strategy can’t save you from a woeful product. I believe that business success can be found when you match a great product with a great marketing plan and this is where Product Marketing can have the most impact.

So with that preamble, here’s my take on the situation.

1. Product Marketing is not dead, but it’s also not on the rise.

I currently work with some really good product marketing folks. I’m not saying that just to be nice or polite. I’m saying that because it’s true. But it’s not like that in many companies.

Part of the problem is that many companies don’t understand what Product Marketing is. So they define the role incorrectly, or hire the wrong people, or both. And what happens then? You have ineffective Product Marketing and little need to expand on it.

A lot of companies look at the role like this – product MARKETING. i.e. they focus on the second word and thus create conditions like those described by Dave Wolpert. i.e. Product Marketing becomes a tactically focused sales support role.

2. Product Marketing is usually ridiculously understaffed.

I’ve been in Product Management for a LONG time. And while most companies I’ve worked in have small Product Management teams, they have tiny, and sometimes non-existent Product Marketing teams. Ratios of 5:1 (Product Managers to Product Marketers) are not uncommon.  Why? Because companies don’t understand the role so don’t hire properly. Or they feel that the work can simply be done the “the Product Manager”.  Yes, it can be done, with the right people in place, but at what cost? Having individuals splitting time between all the different tasks of both Product Management and Product Marketing is simply a recipe for mediocrity at best, failure at worst.

3. “Marketing” is viewed very differently than it was 20+ years ago

The word “Marketing”,  if you look at the business school definition of it, is very different than how it is understood in most technology companies today.

Marketing used to be viewed as a strategic business function. Remember the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Promotion, Place)? Notice that “marketing” included “product”. Today of course, the term “Marketing” is mostly understood to cover only “Promotion” – i.e. advertising, PR, events, campaigns, awareness, lead generation etc. It has become specialized and focused heavily on demand creation.

Product Management has taken over “Product” and “Price”. “Place” — i.e. sales/distribution channels — has been taken over by Sales and to a lesser extent Product Management. Thus the “Marketing” part of “Product Marketing” is viewed in this context. Not as a strategic business function, but an outwardly focused partner to Sales.

Perhaps we need a new name for Product Marketing to better align with the changes that have happened in Marketing over the last 20 or so years.

So, what does that mean for “Product Marketing”?

In short, I see the clear need for what I would call “strategic marketing”.

This covers the basics like positioning and messaging, but also other areas where market, customer and product knowledge are required. This could include (but not be limited to) the following:

• evangelism
• analyst relations
• sales funnel analysis and optimization
• working on product, market or competitive strategy
• high value content creation

So where does Product Marketing fit within a company? This role does NOT belong in Marketing and definitely not in Sales. Product Marketing should be part of the overall Product Management organization.

OK, Product Marketers, hear me out before you think I’m out to assimilate the role into that of Product Manager. I’m not. In fact, I’m advocating the opposite.

I’ve written and presented on the topic of How to Structure a Product Management Organization as well as The Need for Differentiated Roles in Product Management.

The fact is that both the roles of “Product Manager” and “Product Marketer” are poorly understood and implemented in the industry.  e.g. There’s too much focus on what a “Product Manager” does vs. what “Product Management” does.

Far too many companies have Product Management organizations that are populated solely with people with titles of “Product Manager” at varying levels of seniority. e.g. Technical Product Manager, Product Manager, Sr. Product Manager, Product Management Director, VP Product Management etc. Is there any other department that looks like that? No.

All departments have a spread of roles that have particular complimentary (there’s that word again)  focuses (foci?) and that work together to achieve common goals.  Why should Product Management be different?

There’s little disagreement that Product Managers and Product Marketers should work closely together, yet for some reason, there is pushback (mostly from Product Marketers in my experience) to be functionally within the Product Management organization.

Take a look at the following presentation. I delivered it last year at ProductCamp Boston. In it I present my case for the various roles, the place of Product Marketing within overall Product Management, and the problems this structure solves.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Saeed

Tweet this: What’s the deal with Product Marketing? http://wp.me/pXBON-371 #prodmgmt #prodmktg

Related posts:

1. What's the deal with BizDev? pt. 2
2. What's the deal with BizDev?
3. Should Product Management and Product Marketing be parts of the same department?
4. Open Question: How did you get your first Product Management or Product Marketing position?

NOTE: The following is a guest post by Ninon LaForce. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

I was asked  to formulate a 90-day plan for a new Product Manager role. This role was created to drive the strategy around the “right mix” of partners and solutions in a new emerging technology area. A 30-60-90 plan shows a potential employer how you plan to hit the ground running and can set you apart during a competitive interview process.  Here is my plan:

Before The Start Date

• Obtain all information relevant information I can find to get up to speed on what is happening with the organization (e.g. annual reports, website, press releases, internal contacts if I have them). Also get a good understanding of what is happening in the industry.

Day 1-30: Learn my way around and get to know the team

• Meet with my manager to identify top priorities for my department and what is expected of me. Set up a time for weekly status meetings.
• Meet with each member of my team to learn their role, challenges and opportunities. Find out what they expect of me and how I can help them.
• Meet with as many top influencers as possible and ask them valuable suggestions about my role and about navigating the
  organization.
• Learn the corporate systems, the internal workings of the company and read the company policies and procedures.
• Attend any orientation or training offered.
• Review the list of existing partners and study what is known about them, how they have been performing, etc.
• Subscribe to industry online news, thought leadership, and any other industry online resources.
• Go to lots of meetings and offer to help on small initiatives.
• Read as much as possible and study to continue to improve industry and product knowledge.
• Draw up the logical value chain (ecosystem) for the industry and find out as much as possible about each value step and how the organization adds value (or could add value).
• Listen and take lots of notes.

Day 31-60: Take ownership

• Meet with my manager for a first 30-day review. Ensure I am focusing on the right activities and adjust as necessary.
• Take ownership of some projects.
• Contribute my thoughts/ideas on how to streamline industry partners and programs.
• Make a list of activities/project that will contribute to meeting the department objectives and set up a plan to reach the goals.
• Go to lots of meetings and begin to run some of them.
• Continue to build relationships.
• Begin to write materials (drafts)
• Continue to learn and read as much as possible.
• By this time I hope to have uncovered some promising unexploited opportunities for growth and have begun to figure out how to exploit them.

Day 61-90: Begin to take on more of a leadership role

• Check-in with my manager for a first 60-day review. Discuss how things are going, review progress on projects I am involved in and offer new ideas. Reach agreement on how to move forward and secure sufficient resources to get things done.
• Obtain constructive feedback from team members on my progress.
• Start to recommend new partners.
• Use my integrative thinking and propose new solutions or better ways to add-value to partners or programs. Ensure the
  strategies I am proposing match the business environment.
• Share my ideas on developing new ways to reach out to partners and engage with them.
• Start making decisions.
• Take a fuller leadership role.
• Start being a resource to others.
• Keep a focus on problems/projects/activities that are priorities. Create some momentum in a positive and collaborative way.

I consulted the following resources for the formulation of my 30-60-90 plan. They are:

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
by Michael Watkins, Soundview Executive Book Summaries, 2004.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/06/leadership-pink-careers-cx_ag_0906ninetydays.html

http://www.thedailymba.com/2010/06/21/your-first-90-days-at-a-new-job/

Thoughts on my plan would be appreciated. Please do not hesitate to comment.

Ninon

Tweet this: A 90-day Plan for New Product Managers – http://wp.me/pXBON-34i  #prodmgmt

—

Note: This article was originally published on Ninon’s blog – Product Edge — in 2011.

Related posts:

1. Questions for Product Managers
2. Guest Post: Do you have a roadmap for your Product Managers?
3. What Happened to All Those Strategic Product Managers We Hired?
4. Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 2)

Note: This is a guest post by Fred Engel. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

I was in the San Francisco airport looking for a book when I came across the Steve Jobs section.  I think I saw 5 books on Steve jobs. One of them “I, Steve – Steve Jobs in his own words” seemed like an interesting read so I bought it.  Quotes from Steve Jobs are always interesting.

The quotes inspired me from cover to cover, reminding me of how much I like to build products and how much my strength gets sapped in all the places that are not set up to build great products.  There are many companies that build great products and many that do not.

Here are 10 quotes that I found particularly helpful in thinking about what it takes to have a company that builds great products:

1. “You need a very product-oriented culture… Lots of companies have great engineers and smart people. …..there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.”

It’s just so much harder to build  good products when the company does not have a culture focused on that.

2. “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on.  But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas…”

Think of all the products that have way too many features. Do you know your customers well enough to be able to say no?

3. “Sure what we do has to make commercial sense, but it’s never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience.”

This is really a very challenging way to look at it all.  It takes a lot of support in the organization to get people to have the patience to work out the economics later.

4. “What happened was, the designers came up with this really great idea… and the engineers go, “Nah, we can’t do that, That’s impossible.” … the manufacturing people…go “We can’t build that!” And it gets a lot worse… And I said “No, no, we’re doing this.” And they said, “Well, why?” And I said, “Because I’m the CEO and I think it can be done.” And so they kind of begrudgingly did it. But then it was a big hit.”

How many CEO’s have the guts to do this? How many are good enough?

5. “There is a classic thing in business, which is the second-product syndrome.  Often companies that have a really successful first product don’t quite understand why that product was so successful. And so with the second product, their ambitions grow….[and] they fail.”

You really have to understand your customers.

6. “My model of business is the Beatles.  They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check…. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”

Given all the negative spin on working in groups, I find this refreshing?

7. “At Apple we come at everything asking, “How easy is this going to be for the user? How great it is going to be for the user?”… Everybody says, “Oh, the user is the most important thing,” but nobody else really does it.”

How many products do you see that have really not focused on the user?

8. “Quality is more important than quantity.  One home run is much better than two doubles.”

9. “When we create stuff, we do it because we listen to the customer, get their inputs and also throw in what we’d like to see, too. We cook up new products.  You never really know if people will love them as much as you do.”

How many of the products you deliver do you really love? Are your chances of winning better or worse?

10. “The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about. Process makes you more efficient.”

I love the clarity of these comments.  It is worth fighting to get the organization to really focus on good products.

Fred

—

Fred Engel is founder and CEO of Westerly Consulting, a management and advisory consulting firm based in Rhode Island.

Tweet this: 10 Memorable Steve Jobs Quotes for Product Success http://wp.me/pXBON-33c #prodmgmt #innovation #apple #stevejobs

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: 5 Innovation Lessons from Steve Jobs
2. 7 things you’ll never hear Steve Jobs say during a presentation
3. The secret to Apple’s success?
4. Shop Talk Q&A with Steve Johnson

Tweet this: It’s that Product Owner (er…Backlog Manager) debate again http://wp.me/pXBON-2U3 #prodmgmt #agile

By Saeed Khan

There was a vibrant discussion on the Twitter Product Management Talk yesterday. The topic, a common one for Product Management types – the roles of Product Manager and Product Owner.

The discussion was lead by John Peltier who writes on Agile Product Management. Geoff Anderson who also participated, wrote a post on his blog – Tralfaz - about an exchange he and I had.

Geoff wrote about some of the issues he’s seen when companies add the Product Owner role.

These issues can be summarized as:

• Putting very junior people in as Product Owners.  How junior? They “almost need to ask permission to use the bathroom”.
• Organizational problems with Product Owners being part of Engineering. i.e. Putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
• The required frequency of communication needed between a Product Owner and Product Manager.

Here’s my take on these topics.

What is the right level of experience for Product Owners (or as I’ve advocated – Backlog Managers)

This one is easy. Put an inexperienced person in any role, and prepare to be underwhelmed. There is a trend to create junior “transition” titles — e.g. Associate Product Manager, Technical Product Manager — for people who are entering Product Management. Now there is nothing wrong with these types of titles, but the problems occur when there is a mismatch between the skills and the responsibilities for those roles.

Given the responsibilities of a Backlog Manager, such as ensuring the Eng teams stay focused on the right functionality, facilitating information flow, helping resolve problems as they are encountered, providing technical guidance when needed etc.  a junior person is the last person you’d want in this role.

The role needs a strong technical background, good judgement and decision making abilities, a persuasive attitude , and good communication skills. Doesn’t sound like a junior person to me. IMHO, the best person for this role, particularly in a company with a strong technical team, is an experienced ex-Engineer who wants to move into Product Management.

Where should the Backlog Manager reside

Without question, this role DOES NOT belong in Engineering. Plain and simple, it should be part of the Product Management organization, seated along with the corresponding Product Managers and Product Marketers who work on the same product.

Being part of the same team and sitting with them leads to the next point.

What is the right communication frequency

I’m always amazed at how much of a sticking point this can become in online discussions. What is the right frequency of communication between a Product Manager and a Backlog Manager? Well it’s quite simply the right frequency of communication. i.e. whatever is required.

Sometimes it could be several times in a day. Other times it could be a few times a week. Other times, it could be once per week or even less. The reality is that there is always ebb and flow with information demand. But the question is how mature is the Engineering team and what kinds of day-to-day decisions are they making? Immature teams need constant care and feeding. Mature teams with experienced development management can work without daily guidance.

I personally have worked with remote teams (e.g. team is in India with me in North America) and aside from a weekly synchup call, other communications were primarily handled via email or if needed, a mid week phone call. And guess what, those teams delivered great products and didn’t lose their way because of any lack of communication.

So in short, what can companies do to succeed when implementing a Backlog Manager (or Product Owner)?

Get the right people, with the right level of experience, in the right organizational model and communicating the right amount and everything will work out fine. Easy!

Saeed

Tweet this: It’s that Product Owner (er…Backlog Manager) debate again http://wp.me/pXBON-2U3 #prodmgmt #agile

Related posts:

1. Good Bye “Product Owner”, Hello “Backlog Manager”
2. A new (and better) definition for Product Owner
3. The Scrum Title “Product Owner” must die!
4. Why the “Backlog Manager” fits best for Scrum focused ISVs