If you are in a technology company chances are you have at least one person with the title “Product Manager”.  This post is my view on the role of the product manager and why their role is misunderstood, and I’m talking to the CEO.  You are probably frustrated with your product managers because your not quite sure how to measure them and make them accountable for the things you find most important.

The Role of a Product Manager

Product managers are CEOs of their products.  It means that product managers are responsible for the success of their products as it supports the goals of your organization.  For most it’s revenue, market share, and margin.  It is an inbound marketing role.  By inbound I mean product managers are responsible for observing what is happening in their markets and learning what problems are worthy of addressing.

Do your product managers manage their product as a business or are they experts on features?

Your product managers should be experts in the markets their products serve.  They should understand the problems that exists and how their products address those problems.  They should understand the impact those problems have on the people who experience them.  They are messengers of the market.

Your product managers are people who must spend a lot more time outside the building than they do now.  Why?  You’re not going get any meaningful information about the market from inside the walls of your building.  Ever.  And you should budget accordingly for product managers to get out of the building.

If you are trying to grow market share, why are you spending so much time talking to the people who have already bought your product?

Product Managers who are not visiting at least 10 visits to non-customers per quarter and documenting their experience are not doing their jobs.  You can start by making this activity part of how you measure them and make them accountable.  This single activity will increase their understanding of the market and their credibility within your organization on an order of magnitude.  If they can’t or are unwilling to get out of the building and call on non-customers you may need to move them into a role other than product management.

Which Group Owns Product Management?

This is a fuzzy question for CEOs.  Product managers will usually reside in Development, Marketing or Product Management.  If you have product managers reporting to Sales, you have it all wrong and need to reset the table.

Development

When product managers are in Development they won’t succeed at being CEOs for their products.  Development is about features, users and schedules, and that is what your product managers will end up doing.

Product Management

When product managers are in Product Management, they have a chance to succeed provided they have the executive leadership to go head-to-head at the executive table.

Marketing

When product managers are in Marketing they also have a good chance of succeeding.  But let me share a little secret with you.  The marketing VP in your organization probably came from a marketing communications background and doesn’t have a clue about the role of a product manager.  Your marketing VP spends his day worrying about providing support to the sales channels, corporate branding and the design of the new ad campaign.  Product managers in this kind of Marketing environment end up as glorified sales engineers and never have time for product strategy or gaining important market insight.

What’s Best?

You want your product managers to be market driven and whatever group helps that happen most effectively is the right choice.  While I’ve seen product managers thrive in all of the above environments, the least likely is in Development.  My preferences is in Marketing first and then as a stand alone group.

What the Role of a Product Manager Isn’t

Let me share with you what activities your product product manager shouldn’t be doing:

• Demo Dolly - if you have product managers doing demos, stop that activity today and hire sales engineers.
• Product designer - that’s a role that belongs in Development not Product Management.  If your Development team lacks product design skills then hire them.
• A project manager for Development - if your Development team can’t manage their own projects then you have a Development problem, not a Product Management problem.
• A sales engineer - if Product Managers are going on sales calls you are making them part of the Sales team.  Stop that today and hire sales engineers.

The reason that the role of a product manager is misunderstood is they are expected to do the things no one else wants to do.  Product managers hop around from crisis to crisis filling gaps that exist in your organization.

I just completed the slides for a webinar I’m giving tomorrow morning at 10am Pacific titled Product Launch Readiness: Planning for Sales Velocity.

The topic originated by asking the question, “Why do some products takeoff at launch (sorry, bad pun) and others appear to start strong and fizzle out like a lawn dart?”

I’ll address specific ways to stack the deck and create an environment that ensures Sales Velocity.

You won’t get any boring death by PowerPoint.  I’ve got lots of visual slides that will move quickly, so you will need to fasten your seatbelt and put your tray in the upright position.

To signup for the Planning for Sales Velocity webinar go here.  It will be recorded and available for playback on the same day.  I’ll write another post with the details when the recording is available.

with David Daniels
Instructor at Pragmatic Marketing

 

Lack of organizational readiness is the #1 killer of successful product launches. You’ve identified a market problem that is pervasive, urgent and the market is willing to buy. You’ve developed a great product that satisfies the need. You are ready to go to market, but are you confident that the rest of your organization ready to sell and support your new offering? You could easily lose an entire quarter or more while the rest of the organization catches up. Learn some of key secrets to a successful product launch that can set the stage for sales velocity.

Register here

Over a series of weekly posts I want to create a story around a product launch scenario.  I thought it would be a useful exercise for me personally, but more importantly I believe it will be of value to those of you who are in various stages of launching a product.  Your comments will help drive the direction of the story and its outcome, so the more comments that come in the better.

You see the thing is we didn’t have access to a class in school on how to plan and execute a launch, and there is a nearly infinite number of permutations of what can go right and what can go wrong.  Experience becomes our compass to navigate this dangerous and unforgiving territory.

Even with all the planning and rationalizing of what will work great and be cool,  “No plan survives contact with the enemy” - to paraphrase Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke,

Widget Software and Chen

Our story begins with Chen, the product marketing manager for Widget Software.  Widget Software is a $30M software company that builds enterprise scalable, open, extensible, and state-of-the-art solutions (insert your trite and meaningless adjective). Chen is responsible for the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and execution of a new product, the Widgetizer.  Chen is in unfamiliar territory.

He has lots of experience in point activities around product marketing - positioning, presentations, demos, packaging and the like - and doesn’t consider himself technical.  He hates being called a “Demo Dolly”. Chen spends most of his time working with marketing communications (Marcom) people. He has good working knowledge of Widgetizer but relies on the Widgetizer product manager for technical information.  This is the first time Chen has been given the responsibility of developing a GTM strategy and been held accountable for the results.  The only GTM tools at his disposal are:

• What Widget did for the last launch
• What can be derived from how competitors have launched
• Hit or miss information from searching online
• Plenty of unsolicited ideas from the Sales team

Robin the Product Manager

Robin is the Widgetizer product manager.  She has done an impressive job of identifying a need in the market and translating that need into requirements for the Development Team.  Robin is counting on Chen to launch Widgetizer in such a way that it generates the revenue that was projected in her business case.  This will be an important personal win for Robin.

Up until now Widget Software has largely been a Development-driven organization.  Meaning that Widget developers would decide what would be built and product managers would largely be project managers.  Robin was determined to change this approach and be Market-driven. The success of Widgetizer would set the stage for the transition.  Even with a great product, Robin knows that if the market doesn’t know about it and if Widget Software isn’t operationally prepared to sell and support it, her efforts will have been in vain.

A History of Bad Launches

The CEO of Widget Software conducted an audit of previous launch efforts and found what they already knew.  Widget has done a great job of engineering products and lousy job of bringing them to market.  But the excitement of finishing a new product would quickly give way to the disappointment of missed revenue projections, followed by finger pointing and blame.  You’ve probably heard it before.  The product sucks.  The price is too high.  The sales guys are useless.  The customer’s don’t get it.

There is cautious optimism for the Widgetizer launch from the management team.  The product quality is high and the early feedback from evaluators is better than expected.  With a history of  bad launches, the management team is concerned of a repeat of history.

What’s Chen’s Next Move?

If Chen can pull off a successful launch his personal capital within Widget will go up significantly and he will build a strong ally with Robin.  Robin will prove the value of being a Market-driven organization. There could be promotion or a big bonus in Chen’s future as well as Robin’s.

So where does Chen start?  What should he focus on next?  What misteps could he take now that will doom the launch?

In the old days when a software product reached a state where it could be sold, we referred to it as General Availability (GA).  You might still be using some of these terms in your shop: Beta, Release to Manufacturing (RTM), Release Candidate (RC) and GA.  These are states to help us understand where the product is in the development process.

We used the term "launch" to represent something big.  It meant more than a press release and a Powerpoint presentation.  But over time the marketing guys have hijacked "launch" and have overused it.  A new website is "launched".  Translation: a new design of our website has been uploaded to our server.  The get-rich-quick internet marketers have diluted "launch" to something quick and tactical.  Very smart on their part, I have to admit.  We still have a psychological connection to "launch" as being something big.  We launch ad campaigns, cars, drugs, beverages, airlines, ideas, programs, and all sorts of things.  Maybe "launch" should now be added to the gobbledygood of overused terms like scalable, enterprise class, robust, state-of-the-art, extensible, open architecture, cutting edge, and mission critical.

We borrowed the term "launch" from NASA.  NASA use "launch" in two ways.  One to refer to launching a mission (the big idea) and another to refer to launching a vehicle (the event).  When the rocket leaves the launch pad, the mission isn’t over, it’s just starting.

What are you launching?

I recently did a presentation at AIPMM’s PMEC West conference in San Diego and had the opportunity to speak with a lot of smart, energetic product managers and product marketing managers about product launch. It struck me that there’s a conventional wisdom that needs to be changed. Radically changed. It has to do with where product launch fits into the grand scheme of things.

It has to do with something I discovered a while back. Product launch IS NOT the end of the development process. It is the BEGINNING of the sales process. Noodle on that a little and then re-read what I just stated.

You probably have been in the situation where you scramble at the last minute to get ready to “launch”. To make matters worse you probably encountered a delay of some sort. It doesn’t really matter what it was. What’s important is that you discover late in the game there are material changes to the product that radically change the original assumptions you had about your product launch plan.

Now you have a serious delay. Marketing materials have to be revamped. In some cases a whole new approach is required. The sales team is up in arms because - yet again - the organization isn’t ready and they’ve already been given their quota. Of course it’s the marketing team’s fault again.

This is “end of the development process” thinking. Now change it to a “beginning of the sales process” thinking. Your goal in a product launch is generate momentum. What would you do differently?

Technorati Tags: product launch,launch clinic,selling process,development process,marketing

Day 1 at Product Management Educational Conference (PMEC)

AIPMM is the world’s largest professional organization of product managers, brand managers, product marketing managers and other individuals responsible for guiding their organizations and clients through a constantly changing business landscape. AIPMM represents those who manage the entire product life-cycle.

We are hanging out at the San Diego Sheraton Towers and Marina. Here’s a summary of Tuesday’s presentations I attended. There were two tracks so I only have a summary on what I attended.

The Art of the Demo

John Mansour - ZIGZAG Marketing

Tips on how to approach and orchestrate a demo. Made me laugh by reminding me of stuff I’ve been guilty of in the past. Demo styles included the old “Show Up and Throw Up” and the “Spray and Pray”. The point is that a one-size-fits-all demo doesn’t sell. Find out a little about your prospect’s business problems and needs, and then adjust accordingly. Oh, and drop the 50 slides about your company at the beginning.

Pricing Models

Linda Merrick and Mara Krieps - Pivotal Product Management. Linda and Mara provided good information on how to approach pricing.

Segmentation and Position

Lee Shaeffer - PLM Associates

Very nice presentation by Lee. I liked his methodical approach and use of graphics to illustrate important concepts. It was clear from audience response and the full room that this is an important topic to AIPMM members.

Science of a Successful Product Launch

David Daniels (Me) - Launch Clinic

Hot. Very hot. It was fun because the audience was great. Awesome questions and they were kind enough to laugh at my jokes. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that about 20% of the audience had documented launch processes. Very nice.

Technorati Tags: product launch,marketing

Failure to prepare the Sales team to sell should be a crime.  A lot of effort goes into the design and build of the product.  Marketing does its best to create demand.  Public Relations is working hard to get ink.  But is your sales team ready to sell?  Do they have the essential tools they will need to start closing business right away, or will they be left to their own devices to figure it out? Your organization could easily lose a quarter or more in lost revenue opportunity while this thrashing about is taking place.

It should be no surprise that the relationship between Sales and Marketing can be tenuous at best.  In some organizations it doesn’t matter how hard the Marketing team works to support the Sales team.  There always seems to be some complaint about how Marketing isn’t doing enough.  That dynamic has existed for years and will continue to exist into the future.  So my best advice is to get over it.  The objective is to sell more stuff, and everyone has to do whatever it takes to sell more stuff.  Period.

(more…)

I have come to embrace the use of cross-functional teams for product launch as being vital.  But my initial exposure to cross-functional teams was frustrating to say the least.  I was working for Viasoft in Phoenix.  At the time Viasoft was rocking and rolling due to Y2K hysteria and we were loving every minute of it.  Viasoft had grown to a size where bringing a new product or version to market was getting complex, and being a publicly held company there were more T’s to cross and I’s to dot.

For the most part the company was winging product launches. Diving catches in the end zone with seconds before the game ends were the norm. Wisely, the management team adopted the cross-functional team (CFT) approach.  We started a project office and a small team of people with no previous product launch experience were given the task of defining a company standard project template for product launch.  These folks were talented project managers with a commanding knowledge of MS Project, but they just weren’t familiar with the nuance of bring a software product to market.  There are lots of variables and gray areas that aren’t always easy to represent in a project plan.

I was given responsibility of a product line and walked into my first CFT.  The attendees were already designated and of course we had someone from the project office to oversee the process.  I walked into a conference room filled with 22 people.  These were people from every nook and cranny of the company and believed they had a stake in the process.  I conducted the meeting and smiled, but knew that this would never work.  This many people in a room at one time is counter productive.  Period. The first meeting went for several hours. The expense to the company on an hourly basis was immense.

Keep in mind that although the company wanted CFTs to improve execution, we didn’t receive any training on how to use CFTs effectively.  Every product manager approached their CFTs differently.  Some refused to use them at all.  I decided to lean into it.

I started by setting some ground rules.  First, there could only be one representative from each functional area.  That person must have the authority to act on behalf of their department.  That one took a little finesse to make happen, but it worked. OK, now the number of people was cut down considerably.

Second, I limited CFT meetings to 1 hour.  This was a status meeting.  Anything that started down the path of problem solving or brainstorming was tabled and scheduled as a separate meeting.

Third, I developed a standing agenda that was distributed in advance of the CFT meeting.  Everyone had what they needed to be prepared for the meeting.  And they knew if their participation was mandatory or optional.

Fourth, I schedule a standing meeting.  Same day of the week.  Same time.  Even when I was traveling we conducted the meeting. No excuses for not knowing when the meeting was scheduled.

Fifth, it became apparent that these meetings could easily be dominated by the development team going over the status of the most minute feature details that had no relevance to a number of the CFT members.  To address this  I scheduled a separate, standing meeting with the product development group just to cover product development status.  Established members of the CFT could attend if they wanted, but it wasn’t mandatory.

Sixth, I designated someone to take meeting minutes.  That freed me up to drive the meeting and keep the flow going.

I still had challenges and learned many more ways to make CFTs better, but these 6 simple things enabled the team to be more effective, more attentive and more committed to achieving results.

Rick Sklarin and Ling Gee of Crimson Consulting have written an important paper titled “Four Pillars for Product Launch, Best Practices from World Class Companies“.

You invested millions of dollars developing your new product. You followed a tried and true product development process. And you have created significant buzz for the features and functions anticipated in your new product. But have you invested similar resources in your product launch? How do you maximize your chances for success?

Poor product launches cost your company in lost revenue, missed market share gains and diminished competitive advantage. The market moves fast and is not kind to those who don’t execute well.

But many product and marketing organizations still approach product launches as art instead of science. While the entire product team assures the diligence applied to development details is “A” quality, the same cannot be said for the product launch details. Failure to commit enough people, technology, and management results from a lack of understanding of what makes up a successful product market launch.

As a result, many launches don’t achieve expectations for your product’s profitability. In a world of shorter product life cycles, you can’t afford months and years to recover from a launch that falls short or misses the mark.

The paper is to-the-point and doesn’t beat around the bushes. World class companies pay a great deal of attention to product launch planning and execution.

The four most important product launch things they do are:

• Assign dedicated resources
• Don’t Over commit their product
• Implement a scientific launch process (hmmm… sounds familiar)
• Leverage collaboration tools

Get a copy of the article here

Technorati Tags: Product Launch,Launch Methodology,Product Launch Plan,Product Launch Manager

The Launch Clinic think tank has been hard at work developing a list of things you can do to improve the launch performance in your organization this year.

2008 Todo List

#1 - Implement a launch methodology or framework - forgive me for being a little self-serving but we know it works.  We hope you use our approach but what’s most important is it should be on the top of your 2008 list.

#2 - Use a dedicated Launch Manager - product managers are often the go-to-guys for managing a launch but they have too much on their plate.  As a result launch planning suffers and so do sales.

#3 - Start a blog - be sincere and talk about what you are passionate about.  A blog is a great way to build a following and get feedback.  It’s so easy to start a blog nowadays there’s just no excuse.  If your IT guys are in the way then use an outside service.  The information you share and gain is just too important to wait.

#4 - Start using cross-functional teams - CFTs work and successful companies know it.  All it takes is a little know-how and some patience but the rewards are immense.

#5 - Get better acquainted with your sales team - this are the guys who are on the front lines every day and have direct feedback with customers.  Get out in the field with them at least once a month to see what’s going on.  What you’ll learn will amaze you.