Real-World Tips and Advice for Software Product Managers
Successful product managers call upon a number of skills which are outside their core specialty but which are essential to their success, such as people skills and the ability to present and sell their ideas.
Of the many activities at a software company, customer support or customer care is one of the toughest to provide. Sometimes I think that to avoid burnout, you need to approach the whole business the way an athlete deals with a sport. Realize that it's a team effort, and that you will win some and ...
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.
It seems that one of the quintessential traits of most Product Manager positions is that you are required to manage by influence. You're trying to make things happen through people who don't report to you and don't have to do what you want. Product Managers end up using a combination of charm, psychology and prodding to ...
Product Manager. It's the job where you get involved with everything, managing by influence across departments rather than direct authority via direct reports. This is a job where you really, really need to figure out how to achieve goals. There are too many tasks coming at you from too many directions and priorities pulling you every ...
If I could point to a common trait of Product Manager positions, whether the focus is technical or marketing, it's that Product Managers spend much of their time in what I call interruption mode. Interruption mode is when it seems like everyone, from the CEO to the UPS delivery man, pops into your office to ...
Some of you may be familiar with Sisyphus, the Greek king who was punished in the afterlife by being condemned to roll a boulder up a hill. Whenever he neared the top of the hill, the stone would roll all the way back down to the bottom again. For those Product Managers who are only just ...
Product Managers are tasked with managing a product. Yet they do not have control over the many departments who do the work of building, marketing, selling, and delivering the product. This means that Product Managers must learn to manage by influence. For Product Managers, having to manage by influence can lead to a mindset where they ...
One thing that gets clearer with every new discussion I have with a Product Manager is that there may be nothing more important than your soft skills. You may find they're the only tool you can rely on to create change, improve coordination between Marketing and Engineering, prepare the sales force to effectively sell the ...
We're all familiar with the problems that come from not documenting requirements, designs, plans, and expectations. You wind up with slipped deadlines and disappointment. Most of us have learned the hard way that we're better off writing down important agreements and plans. In fact, so much of product management depends upon written documents to spell out ...
When you're a software Product Manager, using soft skills is critical to success as you work to make things happen between groups and individuals with agendas, perspectives and personality types that are at odds with one another. CEOs and executives find themselves faced with the same challenge. It's a case of same planet, different worlds, ...