What makes a product manager’s job especially challenging in today’s marketplace:

Six Challenges Product Managers Face

1 – Overwhelming Time Constraints

One of the first things many new product managers notice is the multiple demands pulling on their time that never seem to let up. There is a lot you need to learn in a short time to meet management’s and your team’s demands. After all, the expectation is that you will quickly become the definitive expert on your product and market. Be ready to stay your course as people around you pull in different directions. The sooner you learn to balance needs and expectations, identify promising market opportunities and create a strong vision for your product’s future, the more you will enjoy your job.

2 – Temptation to Be a Reactive Instead of Proactive Product Manager

With so many different team members pulling your attention in different directions, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of running from fire to fire, quelling emergencies as they erupt. In order for you to be an effective product manager, you need to keep your eye on your overarching goals and objectives, the things that are going to have a profound impact for your company and your personal future. A good rule of thumb is to devote 80 percent of your time to the 20 percent of activities that will materially impact your product’s success and your organization’s.

3 – Lack of Control in Product Management

To maximize your effectiveness as a product manager it helps to have profit and loss responsibilities. Yet, many companies do not give their product managers this vital tool. Even if your organization gives you P&L responsibility, you are going to need to work through others to accomplish your goals. You’ll need to be able to build consensus and support from others within your organization. Form as many mutually beneficial relationships with others in key positions as possible.

4 – Tension Between Your Short and Long-Term Product Management Objectives

In order to achieve top results with their products, effective product managers operate with both a forward-looking product strategy and a short-term tactical plan for dealing with more immediate concerns. Be aware: with their shorter deadlines and stronger sense of urgency, short-term tactical projects can steal away valuable time from the important larger vision and long-term objective work you need to aggressively pursue. As a fully engaged product manager, you need to learn to balance your time and obligations and develop strong collaborative and conflict resolution skills. These will serve you well when the pressure is high and deadlines loom.

5 – Varying Opinions About the Direction to Take Products

Everyone on your team is going to have an opinion about the best way to develop your product and get it into the market. Many employees feel passionate about their approach and will defend it with pit-bull-like ferocity. As product manager, you need to keep the team and your decisions centered on facts. Facts must always trump opinion in decision-making. Learn to deal graciously with differing ideas and personalities, and always draw the team back to the facts that will ultimately decide your direction.

6 – Changing Market Dynamics Impacting Product Management

The one thing you can count on in product management and in life is change. New competitors emerge. Product advancements appear from new sources. Your customers’ needs change. All these can impact the success of your product and ultimately your company. Efforts you make to understand the market and its trends and identify potential risks and opportunities will help protect your organization. Always be alert for the unexpected so you can quickly adjust course when needed.

In my upcoming posts, watch for the latest and best tips for dealing effectively with these six challenges product managers face and other ways to improve your effectiveness as a product manager. Together, these ideas can be a road map to your success in product management.

Advancing the Profession of Product Management
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Product Manager Pitfalls  – Initial Transition Shock 

If you came into product management from another department, something that nearly every product manager does, you may find shifting focus to encompass new responsibilities and priorities a challenge. For instance, if you’ve been deeply involved in sales and enjoy the immediate gratification of closing a deal, you may find it takes a special discipline to shift focus to the big picture view needed for product management. Now instead of revving up for the big sales push for your product, you need to stay committed to shepherding the entire product through market analysis, product development, and sales and customer service enablement. You are responsible for all aspects of your product and you can’t afford to be pulled off in a direction that meets the needs of one facet of the team, while losing sight of the organization’s overall goals.

This transition can be especially tough if you deeply enjoyed your former role and were good at it (something that is almost certainly true, otherwise you wouldn’t have been tapped for product management responsibilities). It can be hard to leave the work you know and love for something more challenging, with greater responsibility and a higher profile in the company. Don’t get distracted. This is your road to future success!

Expanding Your Horizons as a Product Manager

As a product manager, you are responsible for leading and cross-functional collaboration. You must interact with internal and external customers, prospects, analysts and business partners. This can entail orchestrating focus groups, advisory councils, conducting surveys and making customer visits. You’ve got to be willing to expand your comfort zone and take on these new responsibilities along with a higher profile in your organization.

The entire team will rely on your expertise and knowledge of the product and market to support the product’s launch and develop content to facilitate the sales process.

Finally, if in the past your role has been primarily tactical – handling customer problems, closing sales, etc., you will have to shift your activities and assume the role as primary communicator with senior management. It is up to you to report how your product is performing against performance metrics.

In the weeks ahead I’ll delve further into the unique requirements of the product manager position and the full scope of this demanding job. Knowledge is power in product management. Stay tuned to learn how you can gain and use knowledge of your product process and upper management’s expectations to secure your value to your company and be key to your organization meeting its highest goals.

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Job #1: Your Product Management Mission 

As a product manager, particularly one who is new to the role, it is easy to get pulled in one direction or the other by staff members that feel passionate about their part in the product development process. They want to make sure their viewpoint and concerns get the attention they feel they deserve.

But, you can never forget: your most important task as a product manager is to maintain a strategic view of the market you serve. While others within your organization will be deeply focused on different aspects of your process, you must keep a global overview of your entire product and how it is created, marketed and nurtured. You must see the entire forest and not get mired in the thick of the individual trees. To do so will cost you the perspective vital to fulfilling your role.

Product Managers Must Stay Focused and Objective 

I cannot over emphasize how important it is for you to keep this global perspective. It’s also far too easy to be swayed by the comments and requests of a single vocal customer. Instead, always remember that the needs of one customer do not necessarily indicate there is a need in your market that your product should fill. You must stay objective and consider all angles of a situation before setting or changing course.

By maintaining this 50,000-foot view of your process, you will be able to recognize and take advantage of market opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. When you regularly are able to seize market opportunities as they arise, you will find it easier to maintain a leadership position in your market and also meet your organization’s financial objectives.

Check back next week when I’ll share a few of the pitfalls new product managers – and even seasoned ones – can encounter when they take on a product management position.

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Product Management’s Scale – Size of Organization Matters and Impacts the Role

Product Management in Small Organizations 

Start-up organizations often rely heavily on the CEO or founder to develop initial products, identify markets and form a team to investigate and pursue potential markets. Because start-up organizations are typically small and often short of cash, the CEO will frequently hold on to the product management role through the early years. Often, a CEO in a small organization will actually have a familiarity with product management acquired earlier in his or her career. As the organization grows, the CEO will usually relinquish the product management role to a successor and devote attention to other more global areas of business concern. Prepare yourself to succeed the CEO in the product management role by personally staying aware of every aspect of the development and deployment process. Think creatively and don’t hold back on ideas you have for streamlining and improving the process. When the day comes for the CEO to turn over the reins of product management, you’ll be near the top of the list to fill the role.

Product Management in Scale Ups and Mid-Sized Organizations 

The CEO still cares deeply about product development in mid-sized organizations, but activities like raising capital, growing the customer base and scaling the size of the organization take on a higher importance. However, as the organization grows, the attention products need actually increases. Only by hiring a competent product manager able to keep abreast of the development activities, costs, market and competition facing the company’s products can the company continue to thrive at this critical stage in its lifecycle. Product management at this stage is primarily focused on effective scaling.

Product Management in the Large Organization

Product management is well established in a thriving, large organization. But that doesn’t mean that the CEO is completely detached. He or she is probably not involved in the day-to-day operations required to manage a product, but the boss never quits keeping an eye on the overall health of the company’s portfolio of products. Excellent product managers are the lifeblood of a successful large organization. At this stage of organizational maturity product management professionals look for growth opportunities organically and through mergers and acquisitions. While this type of activity can take place in organization’s of other sizes large organizations place a premium on these skills as it often becomes more difficult to achieve growth targets via organic growth alone as your company’s size increases.

If you can successfully manage resources, human and material, and keep a product or product line on a steady path of growth, you’ll be an invaluable asset to your organization with a bright future before you. However, it is important to remember that your organization’s size and product management’s scale will have an impact on your role. Wise product managers gravitate to organizations who’s span of responsibilities align with their interests and skills.

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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.

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Product Management is an Equal Opportunity Profession 

Product managers are born out of many different disciplines. Some come from a research background. Others come from operations, sales, marketing or engineering. The point is there is no set career path that leads directly to a product manager position. For this reason, many who accept this role find themselves scratching their heads about what exactly product management entails.

Boiled down to the basics, a product managers responsibilities encompass everything involved with the strategic planning and tactical execution of specific company products. This can be a new product or an existing line of business.

In a very real sense, when you accept a product manager position, your coworkers and senior management will expect to be able to look to you as the central hub of knowledge about the products under your domain.

They’ll also rightly expect you to know your market, your customers and how your products stack up to their competition in the marketplace.

You will be expected to be the guy or gal with the vision for where your product has come from and where you plan to take it. You chart the course for your product’s success. You are the person who creates the plans that will allow your company to achieve its strategic and financial objectives regarding the product or products under your jurisdiction.

Product Managers Are Not Alone 

There’s no doubt, product management can be a daunting assignment. But, the good news is you also have a full array of resources to call upon for support and help, including coworkers who have goals similar to your own for achieving market success. In addition, we’re here to help you fulfill every aspect of your position. The information you will find in this weekly Actuation Consulting blog is a good place to turn for the latest and best research into successful product management practices.

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First a Brief Refresher

A product vision can be thought of as a high-level description of what a particular product aspires to become. In other words, its idealized future state. The narrative description of the product’s idealized future state sets a target for maximizing value and is often supported by an aligned product strategy. While the product vision sets the aspirational goal the aligned product strategy charts a desired path to achieving the product vision and describes the steps needed to get there.

How Do You Know You Have a Solid Product Vision?

• It must clearly articulate a future idealized picture of what the product will look like or be when you bring it to market
• This picture of the future should provide a view of the product at least a year into the future and quite possibly many more years depending upon the type of product
• It should set a high bar in order to drive innovation with an eye toward future market success. In fact, it may even seem unattainable based upon the resources, staff or technologies at your disposal today
• The vision should define who the target customer is and the ultimate problem that your product solves or the need that it addresses
• It should be intuitive and easily understood by internal stakeholders and customers alike
• While a vision stands on its own it should also inform downstream activities such as product strategy, requirements prioritization and product roadmaps
• Finally, the final product should be written in a way that does not require constant change every time your market dynamically evolves

Compare Your Draft Product Vision Against This Checklist

If you are charged with crafting a compelling product vision keep this checklist in mind. If you are able to check off the various bullets once you are complete you will know that you have a strong product vision in hand.

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The Most Common Positioning Statement Format

There are multiple formats to choose from when drafting a positioning statement. For instance, the simile format or the user-story style which we will discuss in a moment. However, I tend to favor the format introduced by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm.

Moore, G. (2002). Crossing the Chasm. New York, NY: HarperCollins

Alternative Positioning Statement Formats

As mentioned earlier there are alternatives to this format. The simile format is quite possibly the quickest way to communicate the message. This approach explains the product by utilizing a concept that is familiar in order to provide a context that is easily understood. “It is like <reference another product here> but for <new use>. An example of this format might be the hover board: It is like a skateboard but without wheels.

Alternatively, many teams utilizing Agile methodologies are increasingly using the user-story format. Here’s an example; As a <persona> I want to <solve a problem> so that <professional benefit statement> plus <personal benefit statement>.

Ultimately the style you choose to use should resonate with your customers and stakeholders and help focus the development and marketing of the product.

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Our continuing market research enjoys the support of a growing list of promotional partners who encourage product team members to take part in the global survey and help us get the word out on our findings.

This year’s promo partners include:

• The Boston Product Management Association (BPMA)
• The Chicago Product Management Association (ChiPMA)
• Orange County Product Managers (OCPM)
• The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA Chicago)
• The American Society for the Advancement of Project Management (asapm/IPMA USA)
• Engineering Leadership Meetup Group in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Silicon Valley Code Camp
• The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)
• Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community
• Singapore Product Camp (Ravi Kumar and team)

You are no doubt wondering why so many different groups support this effort. The answer is that our study enables us, collectively, to uncover great data that is meaningful to product executives and product team members. Once the survey is complete we share the data with an independent statistician who conducts regression analysis. The result of this regression analysis are factors that are highly corrolated with high performance on product teams. We also uncover trends.

A Telling Trend

2015 Actuation Consulting, all rights reserved.

This first illustration displays product development methodology adoption rates for the last four years. As you can see, Blended methods (combining Agile and Waterfall) continue to dominate in terms of usage. Popular belief would lead one to believe that Agile methods currently rule but the fact is last year’s data illustrated a decline in Agile adoption for the very first time since we began tracking adoption rates.

What Exactly Is Product Management Accountable For?

Or consider this graphic which illustrates the metrics that product managers are held accountable to. Respondents tell us that the primary metric used by their organizations’ to track a product managers performance is customer satisfaction. We believe that this is due to the fact that previous studies showed only 19% of product managers have profit and loss responsibility. Less in the technology realm. What is most concerning is that the second highest number is actually “our product managers are not held accountable to any metric.” The remainder of the metrics are tied to revenue, profitability, market share and velocity. All hover from the high twenties to the high teens in percentages.

A Trend in the Making?

Finally, we asked respondents to tell us about where user experience professionals functionally report within their organizations. Our findings are illustrated in the pie chart. Engineering, development and technology currently has the edge with product management following closely behind. However, when we asked a follow-on question regarding “where UX professionals should report to be most effective” we got a different answer. Respondents told us, by a wide margin, that ux pros should report into product (either the product management function or the Chief Product Officer (CPO)).

We Want to Hear From You

All of these findings are from our 2015 study and that white paper is still available. If you have 7 minutes to invest we would like to encourage you to take the new survey in which we explore a whole host of topics ranging from product development methods, requirements management, outsourcing trends, user experience and many more.

We not only want to hear from you – but if you choose to fill out the survey – you will be among the first to receive a copy of the 2016 white paper as a thank you! We are also randomly drawing for a $200 gift card as well.

We hope to hear how you and your product team are performing! (Your responses will be kept strictly confidential.)

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Like a majority of product managers, Mr. Geracie found his way into the field in a sort of round about way. Now, with his firm, Actuation Consulting, he works on an annual study that began in 2012 which has produced great insights into the field of product management and provides groundbreaking statistics and analysis for product managers, project managers, and product teams.

The Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge’s Development

Mr. Geracie discussed with Mr. Kumar what a Body of Knowledge is. It’s an attempt by an industry or profession to codify terminology and processes for that profession. Through the collaboration of PMI, Actuation Consulting, and Mr. Geracie in particular, the development of The Guide to Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge, aka ProdBOK has been completed. A Body of Knowledge (BOK) needs several things to work.  It requires:

• Sponsorship by an industry association

• A consensus of professionals working in that industry

• An attempt to detail the industry’s best practices

The ProdBOK project took three years and had 60 different contributors. It was difficult to standardize the writing, but through the dedicated efforts of Mr. Geracie and Professor Steve Eppinger of MIT the task was accomplished with a very high degree of professionalism. They took a best in breed approach which was why they had some thought leaders in different areas of product management like Roman Pilcher and Greg Cohen discussing Agile development.

Mr. Geracie is not a stranger to successful book writing having written Take Charge Product Management over the course of six months. He says he sort of “sequestered” himself to write the book. The process with the ProdBOK was much different, but no less rewarding. The ProdBOK attempts to cross all industries although there are certain areas that are more applicable to some industries than others.

Ongoing Study of High Performance Product Teams

The study that Mr. Geracie and his colleagues have pioneered began in 2012 and researches the factors that differentiate high producing product teams from the rest of the pack. The results were given to statisticians to do regression analysis. Each year the findings bring further insight and clarity to what makes a product team a high producing product team. In 2016, it will be the fifth year that they undertake this study. Surveys have already gone out to selected product teams. They were distributed in late January. The study, in essence, takes a look at statistically valid factors related to product team performance. The authors of the study, including Mr. Geracie, work with a wide variety of industries, associations and sponsors to distribute the study. The study’s aim remains the same ‑ to find out what, statistically, differentiates high producing teams from the rest. It’s the only study of its kind and it is often used as source material in books and industry‑related articles.In 2012, the survey was distributed to about 1,100 companies. In 2015, it was distributed to 1,500. It grows by about 100 companies a year. This year, 2016, they’re on track for 1,600 companies.

Product managers need product teams. They can’t go it alone even with take charge product management. They need data to make effective decisions. Data trumps opinions. It’s not subjective. To be effective with take charge product management, they need accurate information to make better decisions and better products as a result.

In general, the 2015 study showed that there are four factors of high performing product teams. First, high performance teams practice strategic decision making. About 1/3 of organizations are good at making and sticking with decisions. These organizations’ product teams perform better and so do their products. Take charge product management doesn’t end with the product team’s work. It encompasses sales and marketing as well. It’s a cross‑organizational concept.

Second, Mr. Geracie and his team found that stand up frequency matters. Stand ups are effective when conducted at regular intervals. If a product team conducts regular stand ups, they will outperform their peers.  Third, these take charge product teams practice quick problem recovery. If the organization can rally past unforeseen issues when they arise and nimbly move past those problems, they will have higher performance rates.  Fourth, taking into account the user experience helps product teams create better products. Most organizations do take user experience into account and utilize it during various parts of the product development cycle.

A Look Back at Previous Studies

Mr. Geracie was then asked about findings from the 2013 and 2014 studies.  In 2013, the take charge product development study results showcased the importance of an aligned strategy, business‑unit leader engagement, product manager role definition, an expressed importance in the product launch by having a single point of contact and specific onboarding practices for team members. In 2014, product team culture was important as was an understanding of the sales cycle and optimizing the product team relationships with the sales organization.

Regarding take charge product management, the data showed that teams are more likely to perform at a higher level if these five factors exist:

1) A common goal which unites the team. The team passionately pursues the goal as a team. This solidifies the team.

2) Effective line management. The effective line manager can remove obstacles, provide resources, and facilitate communication. This helps the team get to their goal faster.

3) Strong engineers whose importance is openly recognized helps teams succeed. Sometimes, engineers feel underappreciated in their role. Organizations that consistently recognize an engineer’s contribution have product teams that work better together.

4) Inclusion of user‑experience professionals in the product team is critical. Teams with user experience professionals perform better and have a higher overall success rate.

Take Charge Product Management

Take charge product management also requires that the product team communicate with marketing and sales. It works best when each of these teams’ goals are aligned. Competing priorities can poison the well and make the team less effective. Another trend that Mr. Geracie noticed was that Agile is not being adopted nearly as fast as experts had hypothesized. He notes that currently many organizations do not fully support Agile product development. Many organizations are in a hybrid sort of state.

Many product teams see their failures as the result of the product manager. A take charge product manager can’t please everyone at every time. They have to accept that. However, communication is important. Product managers have to work to ease dissatisfaction. Time is always short, but meetings with the product team to address these issues often help. It’s better to find out about problems quickly and not let them fester. Not addressing problems quickly can create bigger problems later and more hard feelings among the group. An effective, take charge product manager will attend stand up meetings and do walk arounds. However, the product manager should realize that not everyone will be on board all the time, and accept that as a given.

Product managers have difficulties when their organizations don’t empower them. It is difficult to implement a take charge product management style without feeling empowered to do so. Mr. Geracie’s book, Take Charge Product Management, can help bridge some of that gap. Mr. Geracie expressed a concern that customer satisfaction is the only metric that most product managers are held accountable to. There isn’t a second metric that has found wide use. However, organizations and product managers should find other ways to measure success so that they can be held accountable in a more comprehensive way.

For more information on take charge product management and Greg Geracie, visit Actuation Consulting’s blog.

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