Product Management Tips

So you're in a new role as product manager. Where do you begin?  A smart Product Manager would always start with the following:

1. Start with the positioning statement. If you don't have one then get the Pragmatic Marketing positioning template and write a draft. Once you're finished, circulate it among your management. I bet you will find not everyone agrees. If you can get an agreed upon positioning statement it will help everyone understand who the target customer is and why.

2. Take control of the requirements. Somewhere in your company someone (Sales, Development, Support, etc.) is explicitly or implicitly writing requirements. You will want to stem the tide as soon as possible. Hopefully, the positioning will help everyone get a better idea of what's being built. Additionally, you should define some process/document for capturing requirements. Create a form for enhancement ideas and get sales, support, and customers using it. Let all the stakeholders know that they will have a say but you're going to be the owner. Hopefully, you will have the support of your management in this process.

3. Take inventory of your sales collateral and internal sales info. Do you have a good FAQ? Is the outbound collateral all marketing fluff? Sometimes one or two well-written targeted pieces of collateral can help answer most of the questions and reduce time spent in pre-sales support, particularly on the phone. See also Creating Effective Competitive Sales Tools For Your Sales Reps.

4. Try to offload as many of the outbound responsibilities as possible. In my experience, Product Managers are always going to be called on for some pre-sales support, the goal is to minimize it and use it as a process to collect more market problems. 

Personally, I found spending additional training time with Sales Engineers or Field Consultants is the best way to start this process. The goal is to get them to know as much about the product as you. Once you have done this you can/should become less available to your Sales reps. The result should be that the sales reps will find the SE's know their stuff and are much easier to get hold of than you.

Product Management vs Product Marketing

This is one among the frequently asked questions in a company “who owns what in an organization with Product Management and  Product Marketing:”

Typically the title “product manager” is used to signify people who listen to the market and articulate the market problems in the form of requirements. And the title “product marketing manager” is usually assigned to those who take the resulting product to the market by defining a product marketing strategy.

 “A product manager is a member of either the marketing organization or the development organization who is responsible for ensuring that a product gets created, tested, and shipped on schedule and meets specifications. It is a highly internally focused job, bridging the marketing and development organizations, and requiring a high degree of technical competence and project management experience.”

 “A product marketing manager is always a member of the marketing organization, never of the development group, and is responsible for bringing the product to the market place and to the distribution organization… it is a highly externally focused job.”

The survey results show product managers are more inclined to research the market and write requirements while product marketers typically plan go-to-market strategy and write collateral.

The Role of product Management

In the last ten years, the product management role has expanded its influence in technology companies yet we continue to hear the question,

“What is the Role of product management?”

The role of product management spans many activities from strategic to tactical—some very technical, others less so. The strategic role of product management is to be messenger of the market, delivering information to the departments that need market facts to make decisions. This is why it is not surprising that 8% of product managers report directly to the CEO, acting as his or her representative at the product level.*

Product management is a strategic role. Yet as experts in the product and the market, product managers are often pulled into tactical activities.

1. Developers want product managers to prioritize requirements; 

2. Marketing people want product managers to write copy; 

3. Sales people want product managers for demo after demo. 

Its a centric role across the company especially the product-based ones

Product managers are so busy supporting the other departments they have no time remaining for actual product management. But just because the product manager is an expert in the product doesn’t mean no one else needs product expertise.

Product managers bring a powerful combination of skills: product and technology expertise combined with market and domain knowledge as well as business savvy.

=> Marketing people know how to communicate; product managers know what to communicate.

=> Sales people know what one customer wants to buy; product managers must determine if the deal represents a single customer or a market full of customers.

=> Developers know what can be built; product managers know whether it should be built.

Many people are concerned with this release,this model, this deal, this customer. Who in your organization is focused on next year and the one after, the next product, the next market?

Product management is a strategic role focused on what products and markets we can serve in the years to come.