Product Management Toolkit – Why Recreate the Wheel?

Each product management toolkit that we offer consists of worksheets, matrices, and templates that are adaptable to nearly every product management project that you may face. Our toolkits are produced in-house by the members of our highly experienced team of product management consultants. The Actuation Consulting team has several decades of combined professional experience in the field of product management and our founders and partners are highly respected thought leaders of the product management industry who regularly consult, speak, and write on the topic of product management. A product management toolkit is the perfect way for anyone interested in becoming a better product manager to establish a strong foundation of tools and techniques from which winning product management projects can be launched.

One product management toolkit that we offer is the Multi-Year Product Strategy toolkit, which features seven templates aimed at helping you capture the strategy for a product management initiative and at communicating the strategic direction that would benefit your product the most. Another toolkit offered is the Clarifying Roles and Hands-Off toolkit, which was designed to help you clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the members of your team and to develop cross-functional hand-offs to promote efficiency throughout the product management process. We also offer a Project Management Essentials toolkit and a Project Survival toolkit – both of which include some of the most important and helpful information for product professionals.

Most of the toolkits that we offer include 30 minutes of personal consulting with a member of the Actuation Consulting team. This personal consultation is designed to help you understand how to best apply the toolkit. Toolkits are designed to be highly focused so you may apply them to specific aspects of product management – more toolkits are planned for release in the future and current toolkits will be updated as changes become necessary.

For more information on a product management toolkit that we offer, or on any of our other product management consulting services, get in touch with Actuation Consulting today.

Advancing the Profession of Product Management
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Most of the dialog from those who commented upon last week’s post centered upon ROI’s use as a measure to examine “the relative value of a potential investment versus other existing or potential products.” Additionally, there appeared to be an emerging consensus that the value of ROI, as a measure, decreases as the product moves further downstream and becomes increasingly tangible.

This week I want to share one other learning we gleaned from our study.

Of the organizations that responded that they did actively utilize ROI we asked a follow-on question regarding how long the team had in order to demonstrate a return on investment.

The Actual Question We Asked and The Responses

ROI

For those organizations that do determine success by measuring return on investment, how long is the timeline to demonstrate return on investment?

Results were fairly even for the top three responses to this survey question. A return on investment was expected in 12 months for 35.29% of the respondents. The second most frequently given answer was an expected three-year ROI, which garnered 26.47% response and coming in at 24.51% of response was the indication that ROI was expected within 18 months of launch. Almost 14% of respondents were expected to show a return on investment as soon as six months after launch.

Conclusion

Product professionals are often told by executives that a product needs to show a return in 12 months and the data appears to support our observations about standard practices. However, while 12 months may be the most frequently cited payback period organizations must keep in mind other factors as they set the expected payback period. 12 months may work for a product where the market dynamics are well understood and where customers don’t need to be educated about your product’s unique attributes – but this same payback period may not work for a product entering a new market where the dynamics are likely very different. The data appears to reflect that the organization’s that are actively using ROI are taking market dynamics into account when establishing anticipated payback periods – which is a good thing.

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This industry-wide problem presents a unique challenge to those who aspire to become product managers. So here are some tips that can tilt the odds in your favor…

Consider Jumping into the Shallow End of the Pool – Look to enter the product management profession in a domain you have deep industry experience in – the bar is lowest there. Trying to get your first break as a product manager in a domain that you don’t thoroughly understand will make the task more difficult. Remember, the bigger the domain, example healthcare, the more likely it is that you can swim in it for your entire career. Picking a smaller domain will mean that you will likely have to change domains later in your career – which can be just as hard as getting your first chance! Choose wisely.

Develop Connections in the Field by Contributing to a Product Management Association – Join a local product management association and actively participate. This will give you some product management cred to point to on a resume and it will also provide you with opportunities to establish professional connections while increasing your knowledge. Additionally, many product management associations are places that recruiters and companies search for product management candidates.

Take Product Management Training Courses to Enrich Your Knowledge of the Profession – Because of the lack of commonly agreed upon industry standards for the practice of product management each training course is unique. Regardless, this should not dissuade you from taking one or more training courses in an effort to enhance your knowledge of the field and to learn the language of product management.

Read Product Management Books to Enhance Your Knowledge and Increase Your Functional Vocabulary – Organizations are tribal by nature so make sure that you speak the language of those who are familiar with product management. This can raise the odds in your favor. A casual reference to a well-known author and their approach to solving a particular problem can to help establish both credibility and a connection during the interview process.

Call Out the Achievements In Your Profile and Resume That Align to Your Product Management Goals – Product management is about creating and maintaining value throughout all stages of the product management lifecycle. So make sure to demonstrate that you understand the value of the role and reinforce it by pointing to the things you have done in your previous positions that align to your aspirations.

The good news is that very few people begin their careers as a product manager. The majority start in another function (e.g. engineering, sales, marketing, etc.). If you make the necessary investments to build out your skills, master the terminology, and make the right connections while relentlessly pursuing your objective things should ultimately break your way.

The ball is in your court.

Greg Geracie is a recognized thought leader in the field of product management and the President of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management consulting, training, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. Greg is also the author of the global best seller Take Charge Product Management. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on high-tech and digital product management. 

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Several months ago we conducted an informal survey of product management toolkits. Hardly scientific, we were very interested in understanding perceptions of their value. Why? Because as authors Steven and I commonly get requests for “workable” templates from our books. Up until that point we tended to respond by sending a PDF of the tool in question to whomever asked. However, the frequency of these requests hinted at a larger market opportunity.

The polls we conducted spanned a variety of LinkedIn discussion groups since no single poll would give us sufficient information to generate a reasonable sample. As I said, less than scientific.

However, the findings were insightful if not statistically significant. To summarize, we found that approximately 60% of respondents were open to purchasing product management toolkits and may or may not have already done so. The other 40% were less inclined to do so favoring tools that they had created themselves (often based on Microsoft Office products).

Today’s product managers have largely had to develop their own tools and learn through “trial by fire” as our industry continues to be underdeveloped. Think about it, how many universities can you name that teach product management to undergraduates?

I’m an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media and I’m told that there are only a couple other folks who actively teach undergrads in the US. Compare that to adjoining professions like engineering or project management. This single data point illustrates that we’re still early on the curve as a profession.

So we tend to rely heavily on our own ingenuity and creativity. Product managers by and large are resourceful people.

While self-reliance got us this far it’s pretty clear that 6o% of the respondents have looked beyond their own tools and are open to other options that can save both time and money. To me, that is one of the key benefits of incorporating thoughtful product management toolkits.

Several weeks ago Hakan Kilic related his experience implementing one of our product management toolkits. Hakan pointed out that toolkits, no matter how good, need to be localized based upon the needs of the business. I happen to agree with Hakan.

Prior to founding Actuation Consulting, I led product management for three separate organizations. While we developed many of our own tools I continued to evolve them over time and across different organizations. However, I also evaluated and purchased other tools that could enhance our efforts, streamline a manual task, solve a specific business problem, or help drive consistency. In these instances, it made sense to rely on others expertise. Why reinvent the wheel?

This brings me back to the point of the poll. We conducted the poll as a supplemental data point since we were being asked to make our project and product management tools available to folks that had purchased our books or taken our training courses. Before we took the plunge, and devoted production time to doing this, we wanted more information. The polls results helped nudge us down the path.

Things have turned out better than we had projected. In fact, we’re rather pleased with the outcome and will be expanding the set of tools we offer in the very near future.

I think the bottom line on product management toolkits is that while they’re not a panacea  for structural or organizational issues – they are very useful in the following instances:

1. Solving specific business challenges that the team has not faced before – for example, clarifying roles, transition points (hand-offs), and responsibilities in your product’s production process or on your core product team
2. Creating a standard terminology and common set of tools across the product management team
3. Speeding implementation – assuming you buy into to the methodology that underlies the toolkit (some kits don’t actually have one)
4. Focusing more of your time on creating value as a product management professional and less on developing tools

I have yet to meet a single product manager that professes to be an expert in all aspects of the product management life cycle (ranging from the conception of an idea to the products ultimate retirement). Product management toolkits have a roll to play in helping spread knowledge and best practices.

It’s good to see that 60% of the poll respondents are open to evaluating their options. In today’s environment of lean teams and limited time and resources inexpensive tools that improve product team performance can make a difference.

Greg Geracie is a recognized thought leader in the field of product management and the President of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management consulting, training, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. Greg is also the author of the global best seller Take Charge Product Management. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on high-tech and digital product management. 

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Most of these opportunities result from the success of our books. In fact, I’m pleased to say my book is number one in the UK and Canada and number two in the US on Amazon.com as of this writing (in the field of product management).

Almost every week someone asks what led me to write Take Charge Product Management? The truth is, I never had a grand plan to write a book.

I actually started in sales a number of years ago and made my way into the product management profession over time. I honestly believe that most people eventually end up doing what they enjoy – even if they start out somewhere else. You tend to be good at what you enjoy doing.

My path included running product management for three separate organizations before the opportunity presented itself to form Actuation Consulting and write my first book. I was contacted on a crisp winters afternoon by an editor associated with McGraw Hill and asked if I would be interested in putting my thoughts and experiences down on paper. I had never contemplated doing this, so I had to give it some thought before agreeing to submit a sample chapter.

The rest is history and a lot of hard work. Writing a book, at least for me, requires singular focus. Something that is harder to do today with all of life’s complexities and interruptions.

What drove me to write the book? I had witnessed firsthand the struggles organizations have in effectively implementing product management. I realized that, as a three-time leader of Product Management, I was continuously stepping into organizations that were struggling to effectively implement product management and that each time I was asked to run product management I had to reteach the continuously evolving material to my team of product managers.

I started to wonder if perhaps there was a way to reach a broader audience, share what I had learned, and help individuals to acquire skills and knowledge that would make them ultimately more successful.

That was the impetus for the book.

Product managers come from almost every function and we all end up learning as we go. This won’t always be the case – but those are today’s realities. My book was intended to help new product managers effectively step into the role and not have to recreate the wheel.

Speaking of which, a friend of ours Hakan Kilic is sharing his thoughts about some new product management toolkits we recently introduced based upon our books and popular demand. If you’re interested in reading his review click here.

Steve picks up the Agile enterprise-wide transformation trail again in our next post. Stay tuned…

Greg Geracie is a recognized thought leader in the field of product management and the President of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management consulting, training, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. Greg is also the author of the global best seller Take Charge Product Management. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on high-tech and digital product management. 

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Project Management, Product Management it’s all basically the same thing, right?

Well, I’m embarrassed to admit that I have actually considered this to be true for years. I always practiced what I called “womb to tomb” project management, which meant that a project manager had to consider and manage “everything” that needed to be done to assure that the project was a success.

The challenge, it turns out, was I never really understood exactly what “everything” includes. I managed a medical diagnostics project ($26 million) but my primary focus was on Cost, Schedule, and Quality – as a project management professionals should be!

In retrospect, I realize I didn’t give much thought to the myriad of “other” critical activities that would ultimately decide whether my project was truly a complete success. Things like, sponsor awareness, market analysis and marketing, logistics, user interaction and involvement, pricing, life expectancy, government agency approvals, insurance acceptance/coverage, competitive conditions, etc.  After all, these were not the job of the project manager!

Then I met Greg Geracie.

Given my “expertise” in project management, he recruited me to contribute to his effort to publish a Product Management Body of Knowledge Standard document and the rest is history. Through my research and the creation of material to support the collaboration and cooperation of two roles – project management and product management – I had an epiphany: traditional project management, as I had known it for four decades, was clearly NOT the same as Product Management.

Now I recognize why my medical diagnostics project had encountered so many difficult challenges. At that time I was managing the project, but nobody was actually managing the product. Had I comprehended then what I know now the importance of these two distinctly different, but frighteningly similar roles, would have been clear and my time could have been much more productively spent focusing on managing the Project, while someone with a much more holistic view would have been managing the Product and all the nuances associated with its successful completion.

Both roles exist. Both roles have distinct responsibilities and both roles add substantial value enroute to delivering SUCCESSFUL outputs. BUT, it’s my opinion that it’s time to recognize the importance of these two roles and to admit that they exist and that they must establish and maintain carefully orchestrated communication and collaboration processes throughout the distinct but overlapping project and product management life cycles.

The upcoming publication of a Product Management Body of Knowledge will finally enable people to understand these two roles and how they must coexist to assure a steady stream of useful and profitable products continue to find their way to the market.

Lee is a Past President  Central Ohio PMI. Lee authored two books and more than 30 professional articles/whitepapers. He is also PMI SME for the EVMS Practice Guide and the Project Estimating Practice Guide. Educated in Engineering Design at Utah Technical College. He’s a holder of a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. As the creator of the “Stealth Learning” concept, no other educator/speaker can contend with his uncanny technical knowledge, unique material content and refreshingly entertaining delivery. Lee takes the saying; “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt” to the next level as he continues to “make a difference” in his chosen field. 

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If the definition of a project revolves around it being unique, why do we try to standardize our approach so much? Checklists, templates, a PMO mantra of “this is how you should do project management” isn’t necessarily well received, especially during the early stages of product development.

Think about it – we approach a project with a bunch of standardized, project management lingo, asking a bunch of questions and it’s no wonder that, out of all the stages of product development, Conceive is where we find the role of the project manager the most underutilized. It’s as if our friends in product management want nothing to do with us. And because there is so much unknown during Conceive, we can quickly fall into the trap of thinking they’re right – there’s not a lot for us to do here – and be resigned to waiting until requirements are further along.

Product managers, on the other hand, often view themselves  as solely responsible for figuring out all the answers during Conceive. This perspective can lead to a lot of unnecessary pressure.

Having project managers asking a lot of questions can be viewed by the product manager as challenging their capabilities, authority, or performance. We, project managers, often have a long list of questions. “So how are you going to go about figuring it out? What steps are you going to take? How long is it going to take you? Are you dependent on anyone or anything else to complete your tasks?” These are the typical questions we would probably start to ask – right?

In our mind completely harmless; in their minds, somewhat challenging. Product managers can become defensive and respond with statements like “there’s lots going on here!” Trying to figure early stage product development activities out isn’t necessarily a task by task process. Innovation isn’t something that can simply be put into MS Project. We’re going to be involved with market research and customer surveys figuring out our strategy for where we’re taking this product. A lot is going to change and be in flux over the course of this stage. Managing a task by task schedule won’t make sense.

So what do we do? How can we help, if no one is willing to talk to us? Perhaps it’s time to change our approach.

My background is in science. I was raised as a scientist long before I ever became a project manager. So, my perspective of the Conceive stage of product development is a bit different. To me, Conceive looks like this:

• Formulate hypothesis
• Test hypothesis
• Record data
• Evaluate hypothesis
• Repeat

Those of you scientists out there might find this approach resembling the Scientific Method. The scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford English Dictionary says that the scientific method is “a method or procedure consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.” The chief characteristic which distinguishes a scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, and contradict their theories when those theories are incorrect.

Doesn’t this sound a lot like the Conceive stage of product development? We, as a product team, are trying to understand a perceived problem for which there is no identified solution. Customers may be telling us one thing, but their behavior may be showing us another. Markets need to be explored and data must be collected to either confirm or deny assumptions. All of this data must be validated before any true business case for the product (or project) can be developed.

Here are four tips that I use with product managers as I try to help them understand and plan their approach to Conceive:

1. Use your experience: consider the problem and try to make sense of it.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state the explanation, to someone else.
3. Deduce a prediction from the explanation. If you assume #2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove #2. Is it a logical error to seek #3 directly as proof of #2.

This approach takes the technical project management jargon out of the conversation and centers the conversation around the importance of what the product manager is trying to accomplish. You have to remember, most people, although familiar with the profession of project management, really don’t understand the language, nor should they have to.

Remember, your goal as a project manager during this early stage is to provide your team a foundation – a foundation built upon clear performance objectives and success criteria centered on targets and measurement. Using the scientific method gives you a collaborative approach to achieve this goal.

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For the purposes of the study we defined “core team” as being composed of product, project, and program managers, business analysts, product owners, brand managers, engineers, and product design professionals.

The question we posed was “In which of the following ways does your organization support aligning members of a core product team?” Global respondents were offered five choices.

1. Strong executive support for the core product team
2. Shared organizational goals and objectives linking the team
3. Bonus compensation linked among core product team members
4. Product production process mapped so that all the team members understand their role and hand-offs
5. None of the above

Based upon the responses there are three mechanisms that are commonly used to achieve alignment and one that is used less frequently.

The most common response (31%) was shared organizational goals and objectives linking the team. In other words, a reliance upon the good will generated by shared goals and objectives that reach across the respective functions in order to drive improved alignment. In actuality though, we often see mixed results using this mechanism as the primary driver of alignment.

While this mechanism can work, it can also be trumped by the “functional” goals and objectives of the department an individual reports in to. In essence, individuals often choose between which of these goals are more important – the functional or the cross-functional – based upon their perspective of which is most important.

The second most frequent response was strong executive support for the core product team at 25%. Active executive engagement with the product team can be an effective way to ensure product team alignment. This mechanism can quickly surface resource issues, functional versus cross-functional conflicts, and a variety of other challenges that can undermine the teams alignment and ultimate success.

The third response was mapping the product production process so that all team members  not only understand their role but the handoffs (20%). This is an effective way to ensure tactical alignment across the entire product team. Many organizations do not have a clear definition of product management’s role and responsibilities (we see it all the time!) and don’t take the necessary steps to map out how all the roles fit together. This is important as the product moves through the various production steps (from conception to ultimate retirement).

The fourth response is a controversial one. Approximately 6% of organizations report that they use bonus compensation stretching across all the various team members to drive performance. In other words, pay for performance linking the cross-functional team members to a common goal. The reason I mentioned that this is controversial is that opinions vary widely about the effectiveness of this approach.

The camp that is against the pay for performance approach commonly site a Harvard study that points out that this approach is ineffective. The pro camp states that putting “at risk” compensation at the center of alignment drives increased focus on the cross-functional goals as opposed to the natural bias of individuals to lean toward the functional goals (and the person they report into).  In our experience we’ve seen bonus compensation work but it needs to be carefully thought out to ensure it’s an incentive and not a disincentive!

Finally, almost 18% of organizations report that they use none of these mechanisms to drive alignment! Presumably, this means that these organizations are operating solely based upon functional goals to the detriment of the team.

Greg Geracie is a recognized thought leader in the field of product management and the President of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management consulting, training, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. Greg is also the author of the global best seller Take Charge Product Management. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on high-tech and digital product management. 

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The answer to this question was never very clear to me early in my career. In my search for clarity, I read “Surfing the Edge of Chaos,” an article by Richard T. Pascale from the book Strategic Thinking for the Next Economy.[1] In his article, Pascale wrote about “complex adaptive systems,” which I translated into meaning “products.” He noted, “What makes a system complex and adaptive is the ability to anticipate and be proactive.” Said another way, human beings are complex and adaptive, and it’s our ability to anticipate and be proactive that allows us to survive.

Pascale helped me connect a project team’s ability to survive and be successful with its ability to anticipate change and be proactive. Pascale also wrote, “Stable equilibrium equals death.” For any system to survive, it must cultivate variety into its inner workings. If it fails to do so, it will fail to adapt to change successfully when it comes externally. While equilibrium endangers living systems, it often wears the disguise of an attribute. Species (people) are innately drawn toward stability and equilibrium – and the further they drift toward this destination, the less likely they’re to adapt successfully when change is necessary.”

We see this in products that have been on the market for several years.  A once market leading product starts to show signs of aging, declining quality, and issues with customer retention. How do you cultivate a successful project team and prevent a once-functioning team from falling into the trap of complacency, unable to adapt to the new project?

The answer lies with something I like to call creative disruption. Creative disruption is the ability to periodically create a bit of disruption or change in the team to keep them fresh and functioning. It’s is a method to stop or disrupt the monotony of the everyday. Just because something worked for a team on a prior project doesn’t mean it will work on the next project. Keep the team on their toes and in a mode of constant, critical thinking. Your project results and team dynamics will dramatically improve as this technique prevents stagnation and complacency.

This change can be something as simple as co-locating team members or changing the development approach to the project. Implementing team change has got to be something that becomes natural and understood. Large, sweeping team changes rarely go well because the team isn’t used to and hasn’t recently experienced this type of change. The team has allowed itself to become stagnant, and big changes are perceived as completely disruptive. Small, steady streams of creative disruption in a project team can lead to better efficiency and productivity of its members and are better received than change introduced in a big-bang approach.

Creative disruption can also provide continuous improvement throughout the project. Often, project managers wait until conducting a lessons-learned exercise to identify opportunities for improvement, and then they don’t implement the lessons until the next project. By that time, the project is different, the team is different, and the lessons are old and may no longer apply.

Stop waiting and start addressing!

Continually evaluate the project and implement small changes to improve team efficiency and delivery during the project. Be creative if you have to. Creative disruption will have a very dramatic effect on building team bonds and furthering team integration as you strive to create that adaptive “ideal” team.

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The word “innovation” can be interpreted in many ways. The image persists that innovation is some mind blowing new thing, which often produces high value, high return, and commercial success. Webster’s simply defines “innovation” as the “introduction of something new; a new idea, method, or device.”

Strong product managers are market focused and are usually considered innovative. They tend to be entrepreneurial in nature, inspire cross-functional teams, and drive innovation. However, the concept of “innovation” is not frequently associated with project managers.

Many would argue that project managers are not required to be innovative. They’re trained to work within the limits of the project and focus on managing the central aspects of  the project; scope, schedule, and cost. Disruptive or breakthrough innovations may be difficult to achieve in the scope and time frame of a project manager’s role. Project managers may be perfectionists, good at improvising, and handling people issues; but innovative? Not really!

However, I’ve found that most of the great project managers are, in fact, innovative. I would go so far as to say, if you want to be a great project manager, then being innovative is a pre-requisite for the job. In fact, there is growing market acceptance of the role that project manager play in the innovation process.

Innovation starts at the idea generation / conceive stage of the project. A tight collaboration must exist between project and product managers during this stage if the product development project is to be successful. Leveraging the expertise of project managers at the earliest phases of a project helps to get this definition correct by bringing their best practices and lessons learned to the table at a critical juncture – the start of the project.

Engaging project managers early has additional benefits: (1) Project ownership is now ingrained into its leaders because they’ve helped shape the execution approach; (2) By working together to form the overall project definition in the beginning of its life cycle, the foundation of a team dynamic is put in place that favorably impacts the rest of the project as it’s delivered.

Project managers have the best overall view of an entire project, and, as their teams are tasked to improve metrics (cost, timing, quality), the project manager is definitely an excellent starting point to look to for ways to improve the overall process for driving those metrics.

With defined leadership roles, they’re key assets to getting these early innovation stages correct. They’re more in touch with the business drivers for the project and can be your evangelists for managing teams through the entire project.

Specifically, here are five ways that I believe a project manager can and should be innovative and add value during these early stages of innovation:

• Development of the process of product development, including the initial steps, marketing analysis, user and customer research, product design, and post development work, like operations and commercialization. Nothing ensures maximizing ROI more than getting the definition correct at the onset of a project. Knowing where you’re going and how to get there, at the beginning of the life cycle, eliminates waste by avoiding unnecessary course corrections throughout a project.
• Making sure the right constituents are in the game at the proper points of the life cycle minimizes later back-tracking. Any junior project manager can take notes and plot dates, but key project leaders allow the product manager and development team to focus on what they do best – create value.
• Exploring divergent exercises and tasks where new options are created and explored in an un-biased manner. The first solution, may not be the correct one – finding the best solution should be the project manager’s goal (project managers are typically taught to settle on workable solutions not the best solution).
• Understanding core problems and needs and tasks where customer  problems are evaluated. This includes expanding on the initial set of “high-level” goals, quantifying the business case, etc.
• Managing the “idea” to insure it receives enough attention. This may include joint facilitation sessions in the writing of the concept document for a new idea.

When project managers incorporate these behaviors into their leadership activities, they’re applying project management to the fuzzy front-end and becoming an  innovation manager. These front-end innovation managers typically have exposure to new efficiencies found in Agile techniques, modified timelines, or improved processes around tracking deliverables. All of these items should be considered during innovation AND qualify as innovative activities.

Innovation suggests risk and many of today’s project managers view risk as a career limiting factor. However, to be successful in today’s product development world, project managers must be innovative to enable their team’s success.

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