Basics of proDUCT management, presented to PMI-SV for proJECT and proGRAM managers. How are these the same? different? #prodmgmt is responsible for commercial success, while project mgmt marshalls resources and schedules and staff
1. ProDUCT Management
Essentials for ProJECT and
ProGRAM Managers
Rich Mironov
June 18, 2012
1 www.mironov.com
2. About Rich Mironov
Veteran product manager/exec/strategist
Organizing product organizations
Business models, pricing, agile
“What do customers want?”
6 startups, including as CEO/founder
Author of “The Art of Product
Management” and Product Bytes blog
Founded Product Camp, chaired first
product stage at annual Agile conference
2 www.mironov.com
3. Agenda
Backlog of questions / issues from
the front lines
What does a product manager do, anyway?
Product vs. Project/Program Management
7 ways to help your product manager
3 www.mironov.com
3
5. Agenda
Backlog of questions / issues from
the front lines
What does a product manager do, anyway?
Product vs. Project/Program Management
7 ways to help your product manager
5 www.mironov.com
5
6. What Does a Product Manager Do?
For commercial / revenue software…
Drives delivery and market acceptance
of whole products
Targets market segments, not
individual customers
Sets priorities
For strategic internal development…
Resolves competing priorities
Drives acceptance and adoption
6 www.mironov.com
7. What Does a Product Manager Do?
budgets, staff, strategy, forecasts,
commitments, roadmaps,
targets competitive intelligence
Executives
market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, MRDs, Field input,
personas, user stories… Product Market feedback
Management
Mktg & Markets &
Development
Sales Customers
software
Segmentation, messages,
benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
7 www.mironov.com
8. Product Mgmt Planning Horizons
many years
Strategy
years
Exec Portfolio
many mons
Product
Prod
Release 2-9 mon
Mgr
Sprint 2 wk
Dev
Team Daily
8 www.mironov.com
10. Nature of Product Role
No natural sequence for Product Mgmt
Must work all aspects in parallel
Entire planning onion
Intensely interrupt-driven
Bottoms-up shapes top-down,
top-down shapes bottoms-up
Product Management must provide
strategy, judgment and integration as
well as execution
10 www.mironov.com
11. Good product managers
drive customer-relevant
decisions (choices) despite
uncertainty and
contradictory goals
11 www.mironov.com
13. Market Failure Modes for Product Mgrs
Inward-looking failure modes
Weak on real-world value: pricing,
packaging, upgrades, service models,
discounting, competitive dynamics
Disconnected from cross-functional teams
(Marketing, Sales, Support…)
Trading off company-wide product strategy for
product-level features
Belief in rational users and accurate ROI
Generalizing from too few customers
13 www.mironov.com
14. “How Hard Could It Be?”
Imagine that I create a two-day seminar for
“Senior Enterprise Software Architects”
Anyone can enroll
We talk about enterprise architecture
All attendees get a “Senior Enterprise
Software Architect” certificate
Are they senior architects?
14 www.mironov.com
15. Agenda
Backlog of questions / issues from
the front lines
What does a product manager do, anyway?
Product vs. Project/Program Management
7 ways to help your product manager
15 www.mironov.com
15
16. Product, Project, Program?
Disclaimer
No role/title consistency
Execs create novel organizations
Unclear division of labor
Each tech company is uniquely
dysfunctional
Good teams make things work
in spite of titles and roles
16 www.mironov.com
17. In My Opinion…
Product Management: more outward-facing market-
visible decisions
What FEATURES are market segments demanding?
WHICH must-ship feature will we DROP first?
SALES impact of slipped dates? Commitments?
How are we POSITIONED and PRICED versus competitors?
Project/Program Management: more inward-facing
resource allocation decisions
HOW should we get this done? WHO works on what?
WHEN will it actually ship?
Have we defined and met QUALITY goals?
What outside RESOURCES could speed things up?
17 www.mironov.com
18. One Problem, Two Viewpoints
Two sides of the problem:
Project/Program Managers
tasked with how to deliver
Not-so-secretly worry about
market success
Product Managers tasked with
what to build (and when)
Not-so-secretly worry about
delivery, quality, completeness
18 www.mironov.com
19. Understanding Customer Realities
Product managers track the market by…
Helping close deals
Trading off conflicting
commitments
Intervening with complex
customer problems
Sweating price/volume forecasts
Anchoring opinions with lots of Source:
Pragmatic Marketing
first person customer/field input
19 www.mironov.com
20. Agenda
Backlog of questions / issues from
the front lines
What does a product manager do, anyway?
Product vs. Project/Program Management
7 ways to help product managers
20 www.mironov.com
20
21. 7 Good Ways to Help Product Mgrs
1. Push for explicit decisions and trade-offs
2. Ask about use cases and customer problems
3. Don’t demand uber-technical product managers
4. Not every sub-feature gets its own ROI
5. Expect product managers to translate features
into customer-relevant benefits
6. Ask about forecasts, shipments and revenue
7. Channel your inner Product Manager
21 www.mironov.com
22. Contact Information
+1-650-315-7394
rich@mironov.com
www.mironov.com
@RichMironov
www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov
22 www.mironov.com
23. ProDUCT Management
Essentials for ProJECT and
ProGRAM Managers
Rich Mironov
June 18, 2012
23 www.mironov.com
Notes de l'éditeur
Who has PMs? Who doesn’t?Where does PM report up through?What distinguishes good PMs from weak in your org?Categories: technical skills; org power; reporting path; customer knowledge; work products; who’s driving/deciding?; title confusion…
No natural sequence for PMMust work all aspects in parallelPlanning onion as simultaneous equationBottoms-Up Shapes Top-DownCustomer visits inform market viewCompetitive price points drive business modelFeature complexity shapes release planTop-Down Shapes Bottoms-UpMarket segmentation determines customer selection and benefitsProduct strategy drives backlogProduct Management provides strategy, judgment and integration as well as executionOwning market success is an unbounded problem
Earn your pay on days when you make decisions, not just oversee processes
Balanced focus between what markets/segments want and what development team can deliver
Experiential component that’s not well taught or certified. Contrasts with PMI PMP. No governing authority, no rating system other than personal references.Program/project managers see the resource/marshaling part of the product role, but not always the selling/organizational/outbound part.Dev consistently wants to promote good engineers into product roles. Mostly they lack relevant field experience, organizational savvy, customer skills, ability to handle uncertainty.
Valley does not check with me before assigning roles, titles or work mix
Essential question: who worries about market acceptance? Sales targets? Competition?
Not cleanly divided. Good PMs and PgMs are intertwined.
Ask about use cases and customer problemsVs. wanting PMs to settle internal technical/architecture disputesDon’t demand PMs as technical as you areYou have architects and senior devs to be the most technicalNot every user story gets its own ROI Not every field, button, featurelet can be independently justified. Customer-relevant value may roll up dozens of small bits.Expect PMs to translate features into customer-relevant benefitsThey have to turn your how-it-works into a sales team’s why-you-careAsk about forecasts, shipments and revenueShows you care about the business as well as the tech, and you’ll learn somethingQUIETLY sit in on some customer meetingsIf you talk out of turn, you won’t get invited back.Channel your inner Product ManagerOnce in a while, pretend you’re the PM and consider how you’d think through whole product issues. WWPMD?