Welcome to Product Management Challenges!

04008 What Is a Product Manager For?

When I tell people at parties that I’m a Product Manager at a software company, the response is usually: “Oh, that’s nice … what exactly is a Product Manager?”

That’s only natural, but what’s pretty unusual is that you’re just as likely to get that question from a software company colleague. I suppose this stems from the nature of the product - software, in an industry that is not mature. I don’t think this is the same issue in other, much more mature, industries like household products.

So I find myself explaining what a Product Manager is for, and I try not to launch into an article-length speech. My answer always boils down to something along these lines:

“A Product Manager fills in the gaps between different functions and departments in order to make sure that the product develops and makes progress, with the aim of making the product perform better relative to the competition.”

So what are some of those gaps? Read on for a list of potential gaps you’ll encounter at your company.
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05005 Built to Order: Making Product Management Fit

In the previous issue, Fits and Starts: Creating Product Management at a Startup, I explained that Product Management is a custom solution every time. While it would be great if you could pick up the established methods and launch cycles that worked so successfully for you at a prior company, and plunk them down ready-made into your new environment, it is highly unlikely that such a cookie-cutter approach will work. There’s no getting around the fact that each new company, product, or team may require customizing the way you conduct Product Management in order for it to take hold and succeed.

If you have had to serve in a consulting role at any point in your career - implementation consultant, advisor to a project, person who has been called in to clean up a messy initiative, etc. - then you have had the experience that most consultants face at the beginning of every project. You must first convince the people you are called to help that you truly understand what makes their situation unique, that you appreciate the importance of their situation, their likes, dislikes, and goals, and finally that you are going to deliver a solution that takes all that into account. Only when it’s clear that you’re not planning to just dispense advice without tailoring it to the situation at hand will the inevitable resistance to your ideas begin to diminish.

You can probably point to some notable failures where the Product Manager didn’t wind up getting anywhere, despite ideas that in the absolute were good. You may even have been that Product Manager. Chances are those ideas didn’t take into account some critical component of the organization.

It is critical that you tailor the Product Management function to suit your current company, product, market, and team. Read on for tips on going about the process of developing a Product Management approach that fits the present situation and is therefore successful.

04007 How Can Product Managers Help Development?

Product Managers are in the unique position of having dual citizenship, with passports for both Marketing land and Development land. In fact, you find you can’t predict whether a company will have its Product Manager positions reporting into Marketing or Development.

It’s a sign that companies have a difficult time figuring out where product management fits. The truth is that a fully mature product management function is independent of both, while being knee-deep in both Marketing and Development activities.

Regardless of where Product Managers are placed in the organization, they can provide vital assistance to Development in its goal of building a great software product. They provide an outside, business-focused perspective, but in a level of detail that reflects an interest in and understanding of the technology that is used to build the product.

Read below for some ideas on how a Product Manager can help Development do the best job it can.

04006 Knowledge Transfer: Starting It Out Right

When a new version of the product is in the works, and the Product Manager and the rest of the team is making the checklist of everything that needs completing for the product launch, it’s easy to remember some things. Usually documentation and online help get done on time, as do press releases, maybe some sales training, and perhaps updates to collateral. But there’s one important thing that companies forget to build into their plan time and time again: knowledge transfer.

It seems like a basic thing that after a whole lot of work is done to build great capabilities into the software, there will be an organized and thorough effort to roll out an understanding of those new capabilities to the entire organization. Yet I have rarely seen this to be the case.

It’s as if Development was focusing on existing and future external customers as the only customer, when a major group of customers are those people at your company who serve its external customers: trainers, consultants, custom programmers, customer care reps, and sales engineers.

Read on for tips on putting together an effective knowledge transfer effort for each new release of your software.
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