What I Learned in 2012

  • published on10, Dec, 2017
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1) You have to pick your company very carefully. Culture is everything. Don’t pick management teams who are “too nice” or too mean.

2) Know when you’re ready for the next step in your career. Don’t waste your time treading water.

3) Demand recognition for your efforts.

4) Be strategic in your relationship building. Treat senior team members as mentors, your coworkers as allies, and junior team members as mentees.

^^^ A draft I lasted edited December 31, 2012 at 3:05pm. Very entertaining to look back on my apparent mentality at that time, as I publish this unfinished post at 5:52pm on December 10, 2017.

When Customer Service Pays Off

For the first time in my career, I’ve been doing a lot of direct customer service. Initially, this pained me greatly since as a Product Manager I’m really meant to be the third wrung of support (Customer Support Representative > Quality Assurance > Product Management). And as much as I love hearing direct feedback about the product from the customers, I really don’t enjoy dealing with people who write in a simple “FU” or find impossible to reproduce bugs. However, the email below comes from a woman who I helped out a few weeks ago, and I found it very touching, and a reminder of just how little customers mean to so many companies.

Dxxxxx Sxxxxx

Vice President of Products
TV Guide Digital

RE: Stephanie Neill

Dear Mr. Sxxxxx:
For the past several years I have been disabled to the point of bedridden as I undergo testing to determine the cause of chronic pain in my shoulders and lower back. I also have developed an exasperating problem with reading, trying to make sense of what I’ve read, and putting the details together. This also applies to thinking in general as well as memory problems. I can best describe this as trying to think with a brain full of soup. I think all of this is a result of having my spinal cord pinched in a not-very-good way. During this time I have found few people willing to assist me with even the most minor of inquiries or
Problems. Just trying to get an answer to a simple question is often much harder than need be.

This past December my husband, Jxxxxx, got me a NOOK Tablet for Christmas. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted it because I wasn’t sure what it could do. Now I love it, but I’m still having problems learning how to use the darn thing. Questions are plentiful, and trying to get answers is just about impossible. I’m sure you can imagine that Barnes and Noble is very busy when called upon. Making a list of questions and then trying to get them answered by Barnes & Noble seems to fall within the ridiculous.

One of my problems has been with applications. Are they all compatible? Can I download any app to a NOOK and have them all work together? If they don’t, do I still have to pay for that? Where do I find answers to these questions and a person with time to help me understand them? I was getting to a point where I truly figured I would have to take classes to figure out all of this stuff, but I wouldn’t be able to that until after spinal surgery. (I hope THAT will happen in early April!) Until then I expected to remain frustrated with the whole thing.

Earlier this week I came upon an offer to put TV Guide on my NOOK free of charge, and I really want that! But is it compatible? How could I find out? Feeling incredibly stupid, frustrated and aggravated to no end, I sent off a quick question on the TV Guide site which I was positive would never see the light of day. Imagine my shock when I received a reply from Stephanie Neill. Very briefly she explained the difference between IOS and Android. The entire reply probably consists of less than 200 words yet it was more than I had gotten from anyone else, and frankly, it was helpful! Imagine that! I sent back a “thank you” to which she replied again, and now I have an open invitation that should I get stuck on something that I cannot work through and Google cannot answer for me, I am welcome to send an inquiry to her. OMG! Where did this girl come from? What a breath of fresh air in an otherwise exhausting situation!

Let me tell you Mr. Sxxxxx, I am over fifty-years-old, and I can tell you this entire situation since August of 2008 has certainly taught me a thing or two about people. One of those things is that people like this just don’t come around every day anymore! Rudeness has become the norm, and most people believe that if they ignore you, you DO go away. If you are lucky enough to have someone like this land in your lap, you had better take the minute or two to thank them and to try to improve THEIR life in some small way!

Beyond this situation I do not know Stephanie Neill, but I’d be happy to make her acquaintance personally anytime. She is beyond the norm and one of those few people who take the extra step or go the extra mile. I’m quite certain she would tell you that she didn’t even do that much or say that much which is hardly the point. What she did say, how she said it, and the offer of follow up assistance says more than the words she used. I am happy to send this email to you on her behalf. What a pleasant surprise she has been. I hope you will put this in her file and remember it when time comes around again to discuss her wages. This one is a good one, and you’ll want to hang onto her!

I still don’t have TV Guide on my NOOK, but maybe I have something better. (I couldn’t find the information online for NOOKS and TV Guide. When I called Barnes & Noble the person I talked to said she “didn’t know”. Typical.)

Have a Good Day, Sir, and a Happy Weekend to you!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Rxxxx Mxxxx
Bxxxxxxxx, OH

Deep Dive: Product Management Responsibilities

The goal of my basics of product management post was to help inform those who are new to product management (on a high level) what a PM is expected to deliver. Upon reflection, I realized that I should further address the issue of other departments not knowing or understanding the role of product manager, as that can deeply affect your job satisfaction. Sadly, this often results in product management being treated as a “catch-all” or an intellectual janitor — when one department makes a mess or gets in over their heads, PM is expected to come in and clean it up. This is a terrible state for any company to be in, namely because it hinders Product’s ability to be forward-thinking, and thorough in its market research.

You see, PM needs to be forward-thinking at all times — even when analyzing past and current releases, PM must be doing so in the context of the greater product strategy. When PM becomes subjugated in this manner, everyone loses. The more time the product manager is bogged down with jobs that other departments should be handling, the more future product releases will suffer. It may not be evident in the next quarter, or even the one after that…but mismanaged products tend to have far-reaching and long lasting consequences.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not leading Product Management, then DO NOT circumvent your manager! It is their responsibility to effect this change in the organization, and bypassing them will most likely cause you to end up in hot water — or worse.

—

Product Management (PM) – Those who listen to the market and articulate its problems and future needs in the form of requirements.

What does product management do?

Overview:

  • Researches customer need for the product.
  • Evaluates competitive situation.
  • Determines how product would be sold to customers, and develops a support plan to do so.
  • Sets prices for product.
  • Directs development process to ensure product will meet customer needs.
  • Works with sales, marketing, support, and engineering to ensure groups can meet customer needs.
  • Works with marketing on marketing plan; provides information and participates in discussions.
  • Post-launch, gathers intelligence about how product is being received by customers, continues to supply marketing with data, and conceptualizes new products to develop and sell.

Specific activities:

  • Listens to the market and creates roadmap and future product needs in the form of requirements.
  • Works hand-in-hand with product development to ensure product requirements are delivered to spec and on-time.
  • Communicates roadmap to customers/market.
  • Establishes overall product portfolio vision/direction, including Technology Assessment and Architecture.
  • Creates and maintains business case for each product and overall portfolio.
  • Initiates market research and sizes markets.
  • Specifies market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by on-going visits to customers and non-customers.
  • Writes detailed product specifications for use by Product Development.
  • Prioritizes product requirements/specifications based on business case and PD capacity.
  • Maintains product family roadmap and monitors Product Development schedules.
  • Serves as solution/technical expert when dealing with thought leaders, analysts, and press.
  • Provides content/copy for promotional materials and sales training.
  • Provides competitive product analysis.
  • Monitors industry innovations and technology.
  • Analyzes product performance.
  • Documents product profitability and operational metrics by tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
  • Maintains key industry associations, preferably participating in relevant consortiums or standards committees (or by overseeing/coordinating other company personnel that participate).
  • Provides support in development of marketing communications, including sales collateral public relations, industry publications, customer correspondence, trade shows & analyst tours.
  • Writes white papers and technical communiqués as needed.
  • Provides content for product collateral and presentations.

Ownership:

Product Roadmap

  • Product portfolio vision/direction.
  • Roadmap defines:
    • What we build.
    • When we build it.
    • Why we are building it.
    • Who will be buying it.
    • Why they will buy it.

Operational Metrics (Key Performance Indicators)

  • Product financial performance
    • Product profitability.
    • Acceptance Testing
      • Are product requirements meeting goals?
      • Delivery
        • Is product available in a timely, high quality manner after release with availability well-communicated?
      • Support
        • Is Product Support meeting the needs of our customers?
        • Customer satisfaction (based on Net Promoter Score).
        • Not responsibility of PM, but should be asking for this info on a regular basis.

Thought Leadership

  • Product Management are the product champions.
    • Part of their responsibility is to be looking forward.
    • Out-of-the-box thinking
      • Thought leaders challenge the status quo.
      • Always looking for a better way.
      • Maybe disruptive.
      • New market opportunities
        • Discuss with analysts, editors, researchers.
        • Bring technical view to discussions with analysts, editors, researchers.

Technology Assessment

  • Technology Assessment is both responsibility of Product  Management and Product Development / Engineering
  • Product Management performs Technology Assessment in order to:
    • Evaluate potential acquisition.
    • Relevance to market acceptance/adoption.
    • New trends and opportunities.
    • Product Development / Engineering performs Technology  Assessment to deliver required functionality.

The Basics of Product Management

Many people don’t realize that product management is a relatively new role in organizations. Until quite recently, different aspects of product management were performed by a myriad of functions across organizations. Business analysts, project managers, program managers, quality assurance engineers, and customer support all pulled together to fill the void and carry a product from inception to launch. But even now that “Product Manager” has become a common position in many industries (and quite the commodity for recruiters), the role remains unclear to even those who fill it. Many product managers still seem to think of product management’s role as a glorified Project Manager, or some amalgamation of User Experience, Quality Assurance and Customer Support. That’s why I’ve compiled a short-list of product management basics below as a guideline.

An effective product manager is responsible for accomplishing the following things:

Identifying Market Opportunity

We’re the folks who determine whether anyone actually wants to buy what the company’s selling. We determine market problems, investigate the competitive space, and thoroughly analyze industry trends. We are the folks who should be up-to-date on every single detail that could affect what our customer base wants or how it behaves.

We’re also supposed to do customer visits, prospect visits and attend industry events; generally speaking, this is where product management is least successful. Although PMs prefer to send out surveys, pore through customer emails and occasionally take a customer phone call, it’s not only their fault the profession is largely lacking in this area. Many companies are not willing to invest in gathering this (the best) kind of data. Product Managers need to attend events and spend time with current and prospective customers to find out what does and doesn’t work about the product. This is where VPs of Product need to step up and fight for the budget to allow their team to accomplish these tasks, as well as to push their team to do these visits and events on a regular basis. It’s best to set a quarterly quota of visits the team must make — it keeps ’em honest.

Defining the Product Roadmap

Product Managers must define exactly what goes into the product and at what times. We don’t technically decide when each new featureset will be released, considering Engineering determines the product RTM date and Marketing is responsible for deciding the exact GA, but we can heavily influence those dates, if need be.

We define each release to include some business and strategic opportunities, a few customer suggestions and as many bug fixes as we can squeeze in. The only problem when gathering market feedback is that everyone thinks they’re an expert, and each person’s pet peeve becomes a PRIORITY 1 MUST HAVE from their point of view, and the release is a disaster if it’s not included. Product managers must learn to hear the noise, and see the trend. And slap a few wrists.

Gathering Requirements

This is the most well-understood portion of a product manager’s role. Most people would identify writing requirements as the product manager’s domain. What they don’t see is the backend of the PM’s effort. We not only gather requirements, but we define use cases and user flows, argue business cases, and become masters in the black art of pricing.

Monitoring Product Performance

Even after release, the product manager’s job is not done. We spend a big chunk of our time tracking released products, because it gives us better insight into the subsequent releases. We follow market and customer KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to help with forecasting future releases. KPIs consist of various performance metrics, such as regional market performance, market segment consumption, % revenue from new products, % revenue from new customers, ASP (average selling price), customer usage, number of trials and subsequent rate of conversion, and renewals. All the KPIs help inform the Win/Loss analysis, which marks the beginning of another product lifecyle. And then we do it all over again. 🙂

Of course, I recognize that I am leaving out key components of product management, such as interpersonal and communication skills, leading without direct authority, managing up, growing feature backlogs, technical aptitude, and a great many other things, but I’ve touched on the four basic activities an effective product manager must perform in order to launch successful products.