In response to big industry trends, tech companies need their employees to play an increasingly strategic role. But how do you know what it means to be a “strategic PM”? What should you be doing, or not doing? And what skills, experiences, or tools are required?

1. PM Becomes Strategic…Are You Ready? Tom Grant Senior analyst,forrester Research

2. Tech vendors are asking PM to play an increasingly strategic role. That’s a good thing as long as you’re ready to take on those responsibilities.

3. Agenda How do we know if PM is strategic? What is making PM strategic? What does this mean for me?

4. Agenda How do we know if PM is strategic? What is making PM strategic? What does this mean for me?

5. How do we know if PM is strategic? Who’s my boss? More reporting to CEOs or GMs What’s my job? Greater clarity and specialization Do I have the skills and experiences? Higher bar, emphasis on people and business skills

6. How do we know if PM is strategic? What’s my deliverable? High-value content for many consumers How do you measure my performance? More directly tied to business outcomes What’s my authority? Less ambiguous decision-making power

7. The new PM archetype CEO, GM, or other executive PRODUCTMANAGEMENT PRODUCTMARKETING Outbound Inbound Customer intelligence Market intelligence Roadmap Portfolio Stakeholders Use cases Adoption Social media Etc.

8. Agenda How do we know if PM is strategic? What is making PM strategic? What does this mean for me?

9. New challenges, common responses CHALLENGES Agile We can develop faster, but can we deliver? Social media Customers expect a two-way conversation RESPONSES Understand the market SaaS/cloud Customers see, try, maybe buy, maybe leave Articulate value clearly Business technology We’re dealing with more stakeholders Invest carefully Deliver, deliver, deliver Recession We need to re-think our business, perhaps taking new risks Portfolio What is the value we’re delivering our customers? Innovation Someone needs to shepherd the process from ideation to adoption

10. Agile: the challenge Customers Partners Sales, marketing, and other externally-facing groups Development

11. Agile: PM’s response PMs must juggle the services they provide to the development team with other responsibilities, including the ripple effects of Agile.

12. Social media: the challenge OUTBOUND INBOUND CUSTOMERS VENDOR Whether or not you invest in social media, customers will be talking about you.

13. Social media: PM’s response “Which of the following would motivate you to participate in social activity — or participate more — for work purposes?” (Up to three responses accepted) Using social media in this fashion is a new discipline (PLOT) that doesn’t come for free. Source: Forrester’s North American and European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey, Q1 2010 Base: 793 BT decision makers at companies with 100 or more employees

14. SaaS/cloud: the challenge BEFORE: ON PREMISE AFTER: ON DEMAND PRODUCT PRICING CUSTOMERS PARTNERS RELEASES MARKETING What’s the same?What’s different? ETC. ETC. ETC.

15. SaaS/cloud: PM’s response Define releases as the interval between when you can deliver new value, and the customer is ready to receive it.

16. Innovation: the challenge CONCEIVE TEST BUILD DELIVER ADOPT ASSESS IDEAS VALUE At each stage, vendors must make critical decisions, based on both business and technical criteria …And are learning to appreciate these stages. Tech vendors have stressed these stages…

17. Innovation: PM’s response PMs must be “innovation coaches” at every stage of the game.

18. Business technology: the challenge Frequency of use, discussion forums/communities as sources of ERP advice, by stage Source: B2B North American and European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey, Q4 2008

19. Business technology: PM’s response PMs must focus more on the social science parts of their job.

20. Portfolio: the challenge OUR PORTFOLIO CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS Finance Manage resources efficiently ConfigurationsIntegrations AdoptionMarketingSales Support Human resources Adapt to marketplace changes Supply chain management Decrease corporate risk Dashboards and reporting Portfolios are a strategic bet that you will provide valuable assistance in addressing business problems. Auditing?

21. Portfolio: PM’s response Make the portfolio the measure of products. Enforce product alignment with the portfolio.

22. Agenda How do we know if PM is strategic? What is making PM strategic? What does this mean for me?

23. Define strategic PM Do a brutally frank assessment of your department EX: In an Agile organization, how can we juggle both tactical and strategic questions? Create specializations EX: Portfolio manager, product manager, product owner Insist on decision-making power EX: No project goes forward unless a PM can explain how it meets the following criteria… Insist on clear boundaries EX: If we’re going to focus more on requirements, or support social media, someone else needs to shoulder sales enablement more

24. Build credibility and leverage Determine what matters to executive management EX: Aligning company, portfolio, product goals Become the guardian of company performance metrics EX: Customer satisfaction, post-launch readiness Build a repository of useful customer and market intelligence EX: Personas, user stories, solutions architectures Propose a new innovation process EX: Rapid market testing and adjustment at each phase

25. Balance authority and accountability Pick reasonable objectives with real business outcomes EX: Shorten sales cycle Make them shared objectives EX: Shared responsibility of PM, Sales, Marketing Measure, measure, measure EX: Frequency of sales bottlenecks Market, market, market EX: Make sales training less about products, more about successful implementations

26. Try some bigger changes Propose field certification EX: Sales training ends with a presentation… Abolish the idea of customer EX: Embrace and evangelize user stories Replace the words “product” and “service” with “value” EX: Shift from product management to solutions or portfolio management Throw out the old concepts of release and launch EX: Our measure of launch is a threshold of value, not just something new

27. Thank you Name +1 650.581.3846 tgrant@forrester.com www.forrester.com Blogs.forrester.com/tom_grant Blogs.forrester.com/product_management @TomGrantForr