Checking out the job description

Why refer you to the job description? It’s where your boss has put in all her hopes and expectations of what you’ll bring to the role. And companies often define product management differently. You may see items that are usually part of project management, sales, or user experience that are included.

Because you’re providing product direction, expect to see a reference to product strategy in your role. If it isn’t there, you may actually be in a junior role or managing a very customized B2B product where your customers are more likely to dictate your every move. If neither of these is the case, your company may not understand the benefits of strong product management. You aren’t alone. According to the 280 Group’s 2013 LinkedIn survey of product management professionals, 75 percent of executives didn’t understand product management. And Actuation’s team performance survey confirmed that about half of companies had a poorly defined product management role.

If this is your situation, talk to your manager about the lack of responsibility for strategy as discussed in this chapter. In some rare instances, strategy isn’t part of the product management role.

Pinpointing product management on the organizational chart

Product management can report into various parts of the organization. In tech-heavy roles, it sometimes reports into engineering. In more consumer-oriented companies, it sometimes reports into marketing. More and more, companies recognize that a synthesis of what the customer wants and what the business can provide is best placed at the highest level of an organization. So VPs of product management now often report into the CEO or the executive manager for a division. See Figure 2-1 for an organization chart example.

If you’re part of an organization that doesn’t understand product management well, it may not be able to operate as effectively. This isn’t a theoretical difference. A study by Aegis Resources Inc. found that when a company empowers product managers, products get to market 50 percent faster. That’s a lot of profit left on the table.

You may need to start educating your co-workers as to the best way to take advantage of product management. There are resources available on the 280 Group website (www.280group.com) that help you in transforming how your company can best take advantage of product managers to grow their business.

Drafting your product management manifesto

Someone once compared product management to refrigerator function. You don’t notice when it’s running well, but when it’s broken, things start to stink. Remember that when you do your job well, the company hums much better — even if it doesn’t know you’re the source of the humming. There is less confusion and more direction. Getting to function this well comes from really knowing how you fit in and how you drive your vision forward. With this idea in mind, try to draft your own product management manifesto. This document is your guiding philosophy on how you do your job and provide direction.

Here are a few guidelines:

• The Is have it. This manifesto guides your actions. Start each sentence with “I”: “I am committed to… ,” “I have a plan… ,” “I will do… ,” and so on.
• It’s a 360-degree view. List all your stakeholders and determine what your stance is for each of them.
• Balance is key. The one constant in being a product manager is that it involves a lot of trade-offs. Make sure you have a plan for communicating how you will decide between two courses of action. For example, “When in doubt, I will focus on validating my opinion using customer feedback.”
• Know your decision-making plan. In fact, the entire decision-making process underpins your success. How will you make a decision? For example, write “I will be open to many opinions before I make a final decision.”

The manifesto should be no longer than one page and, because you’re giving direction to other people, provide the philosophical support for how you approach your job. See Figure 2-2 for a sample of a product manager’s manifesto.

Checking out product marketing

Creating or updating a product is always such a great feeling. One small problem: Your customers need to learn about it, too. That’s where product marketing managers come in. Their primary goal is to create demand for the product through effective messaging and programs. If these people do their jobs well, your product has a shorter sales cycle and higher revenue.

The product marketing manager role is broken down into four parts:

• Market strategy expert: Market strategy lays the foundation for market success. It is the high-level thinking, planning, and research that happens before a product goes to market. The product marketing manager has an in-depth knowledge of the market and how the product should enter that specific market. In practice, this idea means knowing which customer segment to target, how to reach it, and what combination of messages will drive these customers to buy (see Figure 2-3). Note that in the figure, the messages aren’t the taglines, and the benefits are stated in the language of the customer. Then the strategy is executed through the launch and eventually marketing plan.

• Marketing expert: After the product marketing manager analyzes market opportunities for your product, he then creates key messages that guide marketing efforts. In conjunction with marketing communications (also known as marcom), the product marketing manager’s goal is to generate customers that demand or pull your product through to sale. This comprehensive market understanding is one reason that the product marketing manager participates in or decides on pricing.

  In many companies, pricing is part of finance or is a specialty function. But it can also be in the hands of product management. Wherever it is, product marketing should at the very least participate in the decision making so that any market forces are understood before a final decision is made. Involve your product marketing manager in any pricing decision that takes place.

  Product marketing managers ensure that all the messages are consistent. Consistency builds awareness, layer by layer, in the customer’s mind. And she works with marcom to make sure that what product managers decide to say about a product translates correctly into web, mobile, or printed materials.

• Marketing program guidance: This piece is the traditional core of the product marketing role. It’s here where a product marketing manager, in conjunction with the product manager, outlines the product positioning which articulates the value proposition. On the basis of the positioning, he works out the messaging and links each feature to a customer-oriented benefit. Chapter 10 has more information about creating compelling marketing messages.

  Value proposition is a clear statement of what problem your product solves and why customers should choose your product over someone else’s.

• Supporting sales: Product marketing managers can create a library of marketing collateral, which should generate market pull. However, your salespeople may need to work harder for a sale. They’re the ones who generate market push by convincing customers to buy your product. To do so effectively, sales needs great sales tools. For example, they often need good product training, a solid product presentation, and a compelling demonstration. A product marketing person knows what salespeople need for them to get their jobs done and what points to emphasize so that the sales pitch is more successful.

Some companies expect you to do both product management and product marketing plus the entire marketing role all by yourself. If that’s your situation, read Marketing For Dummies by Alexander Hiam (Wiley) to see how the responsibilities of product management, product marketing, and marketing all fit together.

Looking into program management

Program management is typically a department dedicated to managing the critical internal processes of an organization so that it meets internal targets. For example, program managers might work across the company to develop a new way of delivering a product to market. Or they may track how much is being spent to deliver a new product platform. In companies that are regulated or in which precision is very important, program management ensures that the important processes are reviewed and complied with. In some instances, project managers report into program management, but this isn’t universally the case.

Because the term program management is used inconsistently, get clarity with your program manager about what program management folks are specifically supposed to do. In your interactions with them, they’ll continually be looking at process and control issues. You may need to explain that the strategic and integrative parts of the product management role aren’t quantifiable in the way that those people like to look at work, but the output from product management is generally very beneficial to the company. Use the promise of the key product management deliverables (market strategy, market needs, and business case) as a measure of items to be checked off their list of tasks that need to be completed as part of the process of deciding which products to invest in. Then you only need to worry about making sure what you’ve written makes sense and will create great products.

Exploring project management

Project managers are a product manager’s alter ego. Product managers keep the customer and the big picture in mind under all circumstances. Project managers make sure that all team members are doing what they promised to do to keep the project on track and that each detail is completed on time. There are two models of project management. One is the project manager reports into engineering and helps with keeping the product on track until it is completed and available to the market. A second, if you’re very lucky, is your company has adopted a more complete view of the role of project management and makes sure that every aspect of the product is completed. This includes marketing, sales, operations, and support teams, which are all ready to deliver the product to market successfully. Ask which model your company uses so that you can set your expectations of what the project manager is willing to do for and with you. Often they know what even the most obscure tasks are that are necessary to bring a product to market, and their information can be worth its weight in gold.

Both product management and project management functions are necessary to effectively get a product out the door and into customers’ hands.

In smaller or growing companies, the role of project manager can be assigned to the product manager. If this is your situation, as product manager, you find that you are spending all your time filling in spreadsheets of tasks that have been done or need to be done. You have little or no time for strategic work or reaching out to hear the voice of the customer. As project and product manager combines, you may be perceived much more as a doer than a thinker and generally have less influence within the organization to develop new concepts and markets.

Companies have project managers to manage risk. By communicating often, project participants can voice their opinions and concerns. The project manager must consider not only the technical skills of each person but also the critical roles and chemistry between workers.

Key duties include the following:

• Assembling a complete list of tasks required to complete the project, including those from other departments, and incorporating these items into a project schedule
• Creating and managing the project schedule (as part of the overall master schedule)
• Monitoring and tracking progress against the schedule and reporting progress, slippage, and changes in the schedule to the company
• Identifying and managing potential risks in the schedule, ensuring there are contingency plans if something doesn’t go to plan
• Managing the project documentation, especially the latest versions of plans and schedules
• Defining project milestones: entrance, intermediate and integration stages, alpha, beta, and final product release
• Being the expert in the product development and delivery processes
• Leading project team meetings
• Coordinating sign-off at the completion of each stage
• Analyzing development progress, including defect resolution
• Managing resource allocation and load balancing

If you work in an Agile development environment, the role of project manager either disappears or is elevated to oversee schedules and plans for several development teams. If the role disappears, it’s because Agile environments have less need for project tracking. A core definition of Agile is that the teams organize themselves. The development team and the scrum master split what is left. And the software that tracks product backlog items allows anyone to easily see the project status. If any issues are identified during the regular planning and review meetings that Agile prescribes, the product manager (or product owner), the scrum master, and the development team have to bring a project back on track.

For larger development efforts where there are many scrum teams, there are different organizing methodologies. Under a commonly used one, named SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), the role is renamed as a release train engineer. For more information, look at the “Agile-specific roles” sidebar earlier in the chapter.

Knowing what other roles you interact with

As product manager, you touch almost every part of an organization and may not even realize it. Only many years after you’ve left a product management role and find someone in an obscure part of the company who recognizes you do you realize the extent of your reach. It’s a humbling thought.

One excellent practice is to swing through the building once or twice a day checking in with key functions. If certain functions are remote, check in with them via email, a meeting, or a phone call at least once a week. You can address any issues and concerns while they’re small.

The following sections emphasize how your relationship with various roles in the company works. Working with this many different people requires excellent people skills. Look to Chapters 17 and 18 for tips on dealing with varied personalities on a day-to-day basis.

Marketing

In the sequence of getting product into customer’s hands, marketing is the next function over from product management and product marketing (see Figure 2-4). Though over time you communicate with the entire company, marketing translates what you do into the overall context of the company messaging for all products and brands.

The marketing role includes generating customer demand, helping product marketing and sales respond to competitive moves, taking care of public relations, planning events, and creating material that supports the sales force and channel. You’ll spend many productive and thought-provoking hours with marketing.

Business acumen

You know that product managers need to focus on getting the product right and listening to customers. However, your company needs to make money to survive. This hard-core business acumen is what it takes to make profitable products. Business acumen includes careful consideration of the following topics:

• Pricing a product at the level that leads to a safe profit margin. You need to know the complete cost structure of your product and offering, including corporate overhead.
• Double-checking all contractual business terms to make sure you haven’t given too much away to your channel, your partners, or your customers.
• Being aware when a business negotiation with an internal and, especially external person or organization isn’t proceeding with your interests in mind. You need to balance both sets of needs.

You don’t pick up business skills in a vacuum. You get them from more experienced people in your company. Luckily, most of your negotiations focus on internal exchange of resources like people and money. Prior to any serious negotiation, get as complete a list as possible from your manager as to what is allowed to be part of the discussion and what is outside of the discussion. Then walk in with a list of the boundaries that you can operate in. Don’t lead with those boundaries. If you’re uncertain, stop and double-check to make sure that you haven’t given up something that your department shouldn’t commit to. Safe is better than sorry.

Industry knowledge and expertise

Many product managers come from the industry that they serve. They’re industry specialists first and product managers second. In general, this attribute is great because you’re already familiar with your industry and the key business drivers.

What happens when an industry is in transition? As you use your industry knowledge and expertise in a product management role, keep an eye over your shoulder for industry disruptors. Imagine you were a product manager for the taxicab industry. Would you predict that a service like Uber would transform the taxi industry? You then need to shift your energy to convincing your company that it’s time to move — or possibly watch your company die.

Technical knowledge

One of the fun parts of the product manager role is having a technical conversation with someone even more technical than you are. Yes, you need to know the core technology that supports your product. So ask a technical person to give you an in-depth briefing on all the ins and outs of your product. As the briefing continues, add your own notes as to the difference this information makes to the customer. Your goal is to know the technical terms and translate that into the value that the technology delivers to your customer.

The “Why is this important?” part is where you add critical value as a product manager. The world is filled with products that have a great deal of technical coolness but don’t deliver real value, such as the self-stirring coffee cup that ensures the mocha or sugar in your coffee stays thoroughly mixed. On the surface, this technological innovation is wonderful, but from a customer’s point of view, the additional value may not warrant spending $10 more to buy each cup.

People skills

Look at the many business books on the shelf at a bookstore. Now calculate how many are about the ins and outs of business dealings and how many are about working in the best possible way with other people. The ratio is strongly tilted toward books on people skills versus books on spreadsheets or business plans.

Good people skills underpin much of your success as a product manager. The earlier sections in this chapter present a long list of different departments and functions that you need to bring into alignment with your job description. As much as you spend time analyzing and planning your next product, you need to analyze and plan your strategies in working with your co-workers.

The basics are simple: Listen carefully, ask open-ended questions, and make sure you communicate requests and delegate clearly and succinctly. Chapters 17 and 18 go more in depth on strengthening your people skills.

Decision-making skills

The reason product managers have such a large impact on their companies is that they’re one of the key functions that is asked to make forward-looking decisions on a regular basis. This is great if the decisions you are asked to make are ones where you have expertise. For example, which target markets and customer groups to pursue with your product are topics that should be your call.

The problems product managers face can have many possible right answers. The question you have to answer is, “Which is the best answer with the amount of data I have available right now?” You’re trading off an early decision that creates forward movement with a more certain decision you could make at a later date. Some useful questions to ask yourself include these:

• When is the last responsible moment to make a decision?
• Can I make progress and leave some flexibility down the road?
• What happens if I don’t make the decision now?
• What are my risks?
• What are possible rewards of moving sooner or waiting longer?

In Part 2, you become familiar with tools that help you make decisions with more confidence.

Problem-solving aptitude

Product managers are known for adopting a can-do attitude. Actually, it’s probably a bit more than that. Obstacles that are placed in your way are just opportunities to succeed regardless of the odds. Keep in mind that obstacles are boundaries. Give yourself permission to expand your area of control past the boundaries that seem to be in your way.

When you’re faced with a difficult situation, whether it be a holdup in the life cycle of a product, a misunderstanding with another department, or any number of issues that can arise, start by gaining a good understanding of the problem. Write down all the parameters and invite other people to help you figure out where the obstacles are slightly lower (see Figure 2-5). Keep working on them until you can see a way through the problem. Many barriers are put there by organizations because they had a purpose at one time or another. If they no longer serve their original purpose, dig deeper to understand all aspects of the problem and you can find your way through.

This mental toughness of not stopping until a problem is solved is an important attribute of a product manager. It’s related to another critical attribute: optimism. No matter how bad the situation is, your ability to believe that you can solve problems gives you the opportunity at getting the best possible outcome.

A cool head

Product managers spend a lot of time under the kind of pressure that breaks many people. Product management is now considered the fourth most important job in corporate America, according to a 2013 CBS News poll. That just means that what you’re doing is highly visible and very hard to do well.

Many roadblocks can crop up as you prepare a product to go to market; how you deal with the problems is a measure of your character. Every person finds a way to cope with the stress. The ones who do it best are like ducks, outwardly calm, but paddling like crazy under the water. Here are a few hints for keeping your cool:

• When you get bad news, it’s okay to leave and take a short walk — outside if possible.
• A deep breath (or two or ten) makes a big difference in your ability to respond calmly.
• Meditating regularly in whatever way you find productive is very helpful. So are gardening and long walks.

The main idea is to look for the gap between your surprise and your reaction. In that gap, you can choose to be calm and cool, taking the mental space to call on all the other skills that we cover in earlier sections. You’re going to need them all — and a smile to go with them.

Leadership chops

A product manager needs to have leadership skills. When you’re asking others to go above and beyond their comfort level, you need them to trust you.

You can read about leadership for the rest of your life, but learning to actually be a leader takes time and practice. Leadership is a practice of kicking all the traits in the preceding sections up a notch.

• Business acumen: Do you know everything your decision will mean as it rolls out into the real world?
• Industry expertise: How confident are you that what you know to be true today will be true as your market evolves?
• People skills: Are you really listening?
• Decision-making skills: Once you listen deeply to people, can you integrate all the information to come up with a truly creative decision?
• Technical skills: Is the technology really going to evolve in the way you believe it will?
• Problem-solving aptitude: Can you find a solution no matter how dark the situation seems to be?

When all else fails, rely on the following four qualities as part of your leadership chops:

• Can people trust you?
• Do you instill hope?
• Do you have compassion for your people and your customers?
• Do you make people feel safe?

Scoring your product manager traits

Check out Table 2-1 to see how you rank you as a product manager. For each product manager attribute, choose the box which you feel most represents your skill level. For example, for business acumen, you could score yourself as “I’m Wonderful in This Area,” “Most of the Time I’m OK in This Area,” or “I Really Need Some Work in This Area.” Set personal goals in the areas that you want to improve in. And give yourself a pat on the back where you are wonderful. These skills are not ones that you develop overnight, so creating a development plan with a coach, your boss, or even on your own will take you far in your career.

Going the RACI route

A key concept that solves the responsibility part of the puzzle is called RACI. The acronym stands for the following:

• Responsible: Who is responsible for participating in completing an action?
• Accountable: Who is accountable for making sure an action is complete?
• Consulted: Who is consulted during the process of completing an action?
• Informed: Who is informed about the state of an action?

An example is planning a company potluck beach party. Preparing for an event means that anyone responsible for bringing food or other materials as part of the event is listed as responsible. Volunteers for food, blankets, and so on are accountable for making sure that commitments are met. Executives are consulted on key matters as the event is rolled out. And anyone who isn’t a volunteer is simply informed as to the state of affairs.

Table 2-2 shows a completed RACI chart for an Agile development group that uses scrum methodologies. Creating this chart as a group will allow the product manager or product owner to clarify who is responsible for which tasks and decrease confusion among group members.

Taking a DACI direction

For many organizations, creating a RACI chart like the one in the preceding section works well. Product managers face further complications. They’re trying to move forward on various fronts. Without clear decision making, entire projects can stall while everyone gets to the point of saying yes. This situation is why many product managers turn to a DACI chart. It’s just one letter different, but the organizational impact is dramatic when all levels in the company adopt it.

DACI stands for

• Driver: Who drives a decision to a conclusion?
• Approver: Who approves a particular decision? For best results, keep the number of approvers low.
• Contributor: Who contributes to a decision?
• Informed: Who is simply informed about the final decision?

The DACI model is great for clearing up decision confusion. For the picnic example in the preceding section, the vice president of human resources is the driver. She wanted a team building event for the company. The CEO is the approver for the plan to have a picnic, and the contributors are the employee activity council who helped the vice president of human resources with decisions like inviting employee family members or not. The rest of the company employees are informed about the event.

It’s the same event, but there’s a world of difference between who drives and who is responsible. Multiple people can be responsible, but only one driver is allocated in the DACI model. Who is in charge is crystal clear. Who is allowed to approve, who can contribute a point of view, and who can stop the project is also very clear, as shown in Table 2-3.

Using RACI and DACI effectively

The best time to create a RACI and DACI chart is at the beginning of a project. Program management would be called in to assist in working through the details since this is a company process If you wait to create this agreement after conflict arises about who does what and who can decide what, agreement is harder to reach. Depending on which issues you expect in your project, plan a working meeting to detail every task that needs to be finished and then clearly allocate responsibility. If your team is having difficulty making and sticking to decisions, hold a DACI meeting and hash the issues out. You may need a facilitator. Human resource personnel or trainers often have training in facilitation. Ask them to run the meeting for you so that you get impartial results. And a key decision maker is always welcome at the meetings to provide weight in a tie-breaking situation.

Once you have agreed on a DACI or RACI configuration, you can reuse it from project to project. If you find yourself in disagreement again or there’s a large turnover in the team, it might be worth hashing out a new one.

One last benefit: If you’re drastically overworked, a RACI chart makes this imbalance obvious to everyone. Then you can negotiate taking certain tasks off your plate.