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Leadership in Product Management

Ivan ChongSVPMAMay 7, 2003

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Informatica Corporate Overview

Corporate Founded (1993); Nasdaq: INFA (1999)

Over 800 employees worldwide

Financials 2000: $154 million revenue; 147% growth

2001: $197 million revenue; 28% (YoY) growth

2002: $195 million revenue; Flat in a down economy

Partners Over 300 sales, marketing and implementation partners

Including: i2, IBM, JDE, PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP, WebM

Products

Industry-leading solutions for deploying business analytics across the extended enterprise: - Data integration - Data Warehouses - Business Intelligence - Analytic Applications

Customers Over 1700 companies worldwide

79 of the Fortune 100 and 80%+ of Dow Jones

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What does it take to be a Great Product Manager?

Winning in the Marketplace?

Writing great MRD’s, Functional Specs, or Product Availability Matrices?

Infinite bandwidth?

Giving great demos?

Running flawless beta programs?

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Good is the Enemy of Great

Customer Visits/Meetings

Partner Visits/Meetings

Beta Programs

Product Requirements Documents (PRDs)

Strategic Competitive Analysis

Benchmarks

Concepts Documents

Demos

Features and Benefits Documents

Platform Availability Matrices (PAMs)

Product Presentations (PowerPoint)

Roadmaps

Technical Briefs

Release Management

Training

Industry or Partner Conferences

Usability Requirements Documents

Functional/Design Reviews

Product Marketing Coordination

Support Coordination

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Ideas/BusinessTheory Values

EEmotional

Energy/Edge

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C 2000 by Noel Tichy The University of MichiganTeachable Point of View and The Leadership Engine are registered trademarks of Tichy Cohen Associates

A Teachable Point Of View ™

Product Management TPOV

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Ideas, a Product Manager’s political capital

Be the expert on

the CustomerBe the expert on

the Product

Be the expert on

the MarketBe the expert on

the EngineeringTeam

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Be the Expert on the Customer

Study the Research Reports

Identify Customer Pain Points…do not merely relay requests

Understand the Customer Mindset What drives their decisions? What other choices do they have?

Communicate Customer Anecdotes

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IT Headlines (from searchCIO.com)

“Tips for Legacy System Integration”

“Going offshore is the IT thing to do”

“New Code Red Variant is even more dangerous”

“When CIO’s and CEO’s disagree”

“The ‘real-time enterprise’ needs a fast network”

“Who’s responsible for security problems? – that’s right, you are”

“Forrester: CIO’s should beware the penguin stampede”

“Study gives IT in UK an ‘F’”

“IT drives productivity growth”

“ERP consolidation efforts may cost more than you think”

“Study: BI not being used intelligently”

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Be the Expert on the Product

Install Your Product

Use Your Product

Demo Your Product

Adopt New Releases of Your Product ASAP

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Be the Expert on the Market

Know your competitors

Know your partners

Know about other products that touch your product

Know about other products your customers use

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Be the Expert on the Engineering Team

Stay on top of reality in the project Rely on multiple sources of information: QA, Project

Manager, Architects, Coders

Understand the Engineering mindset How are decisions really made? How much detail is needed to gain traction?

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Ideas/BusinessTheory Values

EEmotional

Energy/Edge

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C 2000 by Noel Tichy The University of MichiganTeachable Point of View and The Leadership Engine are registered trademarks of Tichy Cohen Associates

A Teachable Point Of View ™

Product Management TPOV

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Operational Values

Definition Criteria under which decisions are prioritized Should encourage behavior successful to the business

Prioritization Must be able to make tough calls and be decisive on

tradeoffs

Alignment of Values Critical for Gaining Traction

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Foundational Values

Traits of an Exceptional Leader- based loosely on Good to Great, Collins Copyright © 2001

Passionately dedicated to the success of the product Exceptional Work Ethic Quick to deflect credit when things go well Quick to take responsibility when things go poorly Display compelling modesty, are self-effacing/understated

Can you inspire those that you lead?

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Product Management TPOV

Ideas/BusinessTheory Values

EEmotional

Energy/Edge

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C 2000 by Noel Tichy The University of MichiganTeachable Point of View and The Leadership Engine are registered trademarks of Tichy Cohen Associates

A Teachable Point Of View ™

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Emotional Energy and Edge

Goal: Motivate Cross Functional Team Members

Enthusiasm and Work Ethic

Vision Case for Change Vivid picture of how much better things can be Realistic roadmap for how to get there

Edge: Ability to make tough Yes/No Decisions

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2 Teachable Points of View

1) Your Product

2) Your Responsibilities

i.e., Define your role as Product Manager, or else someone else will.

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Example: Information Supply Chain

Product Strategy

Product Management

Engineering

aProduct

Marketing

aCorp/BrandMarketing

Sales

ProfessionalServices

Sales Support

TechnicalSupport

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Example: Information Supply Chain

Work Proactively

Streamline Work Efforts

Educate Cross Functional Team on Breadth of Responsibilities

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The Leadership Imperative

Not so GreatProduct Manager

GreatProduct Manager

Information Incomplete view on the situation

Information comes to you

Decisions Left out of the loop

Decisions require your input

Team Interaction Relegated to “gopher”

Do’ers come to you

Ideas/BusinessTheory

Values

EEmotional

Energy/Edge

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