bosses deals and code
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BOSSES, DEALS AND CODE - MANAGING UP OUT AND INJay Bourland jay.bourland@gmail.com http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jay-bourland/4/4/499
THREE ROLES OF A PRODUCT MANAGER
Executive
Sales
Technical
EXECUTIVE
Defining a Market - “Is it real?”
Product lifecycle
Operational readiness
IT ALL STARTS WITH A PROBLEM…
What problem are you solving?
Who has this problem?
Who are you selling to?
How many are there?
How much will they pay?
Why will they buy from you?
ACT YOUR AGE…
You have to know where you are in the product’s lifecycle. The decisions we make in the beginning are very different from those of a mature product.
http://www.chasminstitute.com
ALL OF THE RESPONSIBILITY, NONE OF THE AUTHORITY
You need to own (or act like you own) your P&L
Can your organization build, deliver, sell and service the solution?
Do you understand the abilities of engineering, devops/delivery, marketing, sales and pre-sales, finance, support, services, …?
Can you change them if you need to do so?
SALES
Understanding your customers’ needs - “Can we win?"
Turning needs into releases
Turning needs into marketing messages
RELIEVING PAIN
Your product is solving a pain point for your user
The critical question - “If there are two solutions to the problem, how will the buyer decide which one is better?”
FEATURE QUADRANT
Plot each feature based on importance to customer and differentiation in market
The upper right quadrant needs to align with the core of your product team
The lower right needs to be good enough - any more is effort that could be spent on stuff that matters
Find ways not to spend your precious resources on the left side
Importance
Diff
eren
tiatio
n Core
Parity
Partner
Why Bother?
Interview several users/buyers of your product (not just your customers)
Develop a set of features that strike a common chord in the solution description
Survey on the importance of the feature and how satisfied the user is currently
Look for high importance + high gap
Watch out for high importance with small or over-met satisfaction
A MORE RIGOROUS APPROACH
FEATURE IMPORTANCE SATISFACTION PRIORITY
A 9 8.5 9.5
B 8 5 11
DON’T BE THESE GUYS
PLANNING A RELEASE
Lifecycle is critical
Market matters - understand the uncompromisable parts
You won’t really understand what the customers’ need until they get it
Whatever you’re planning - it’s too much
A release starts the work - it doesn’t end it
TECHNICAL
Roadmaps matter - “Is it worth it?”
Bugs and features
Working with the product team
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything”
IT’S NOT SHELF WARE (I HOPE)
One customer does not make a market
Markets are made of single customers
Turn your customers into advocates
Be skeptical of buying-cycle bugs, focus on your customers
EMPOWER YOUR TEAM
Engineering practice will tell you to be available about 80% of the time
Market practice will tell you to spend 50% of your time in the field with customers and prospects
Managing all of the reporting will probably eat another 20%
And then there’s sales, marketing, support,…
PARTING ADVICE…
–Charlie O’Donnell http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2012/7/12/fall-in-love-with-the-problem-not-the-product.html
“Fall in love with the problem, not the product”
REFERENCES
Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore
Dealing with Darwin - Geoffrey Moore
Setting the Table - Danny Meyer
What Customers Want - Anthony Ulwick
Stand Back and Deliver - Pixton, Nickolaisen, Little, McDonald
Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing?: Managing Risk and Reward in an Innovation Portfolio - Harvard Business Review December, 2007 - George S Day
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