Welcome to Product Management Challenges!

06011 ROI and ROR: Return on Requirements (03039)

This article is a reprint of an oldie but goodie about Requirements. It will help you measure the expected return from Requirements so that you can reconcile competing needs and prioritize new capabilities for your product.

Read 03039 ROI and ROR: Return on Requirements for ideas on how to prioritize requirements.

06010 Make Your Product Succeed: What Will It Take?

As a Product Manager, your scope of responsibilities calls upon you to get involved across the board in all aspects of the product. There’s plenty of work to be done for product requirements, Marketing, Sales, Development, and Professional Services.

In order to be effective as a Product Manager, you need to identify those areas in your organization where there are weaknesses or gaps, and bring your talents and efforts to bear to fill in those gaps. In fact, that idea of “filling in the gaps” might be one of the best ways to define a Product Manager and to provide the answer to the question you get from nearly everyone you meet: “What exactly does a Product Manager do?”

But pursuing a strategy of filling in the gaps can be a recipe for working harder, not smarter, if there are too many gaps to fill. And usually there is no shortage of these. As with all endeavors where there’s too little of you to go around, you need to prioritize your efforts and choose the top priorities.

For those of us who do not have the good fortune or luxury of getting to prioritize based on what we like to do most, it becomes necessary to prioritize based on where we can be most effective in making our product more successful. This takes some thoughtful analysis of your product’s – and your organization’s – situation to determine what factors are most important to its success right now. Then focus your efforts on those factors.

Because there was always something I could contribute to virtually every aspect of the product, I struggled for years to try to determine what I should contribute. It’s hard to see through the details and the noise to figure out what will make the biggest difference, what will give you the biggest boost. It’s easy to see why everything could be done, but your challenge is to determine what should be done, and done now before you bother with the finer points.

Read on below for some examples of different products at different organizations and in different phases of their life cycle to understand how you can apply careful analysis to figure out what it will take to make your product succeed.
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06009 Holding a Successful Customer Conference

Note: It has been a month since my last article. Those of you who know me would know that it was hard for me to be silent for such a length of time! But don’t worry, today’s issue is probably one of my longest yet, about an effort that is both hard to pull off and vital to your product’s success.

Few things have more power to build customer loyalty than holding a customer conference. Just as true, few things require as much preparation, on-site work, and expense. The customer conferences your company holds can be critical to the long term health of your product and your company.

The headaches, expense, and staff time required for a conference are guaranteed. But the payoff is not, and that’s why it’s so important to assess your product – and your organization’s – situation and goals and determine what your aim is for a customer conference, then make strategic and tactical decisions accordingly.

Product Managers can provide good input on customer needs and preferences, as well as what your company needs from its customer base, to ensure that important decisions are made to create a successful customer experience.

Read on below for ideas about holding a successful customer conference that enhances the reputation and success of your product.

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