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Making sure you hire the best Product Manager for your business

When it makes sense to hire a Product Manager

As an ex Product Manager myself, I now work as a mentor with startups and scaling SMEs and one of the most common questions I get asked is:

When is it time to hire a Product Manager?

The answer to this is not necessarily straightforward and really depends on how you define product management. Product Management, although pretty widely adopted as a discipline in organisations is still quite misunderstood.

If your organisation has adopted an Agile development methodology then the engineering team will likely be pushing for the business to hire a product owner:

A Scrum Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Development Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals.

https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-product-owner

The primary goal of the product owner is to maximise the value delivered by Agile Scrum teams. For this reason, they need to understand and be respected by engineering and quite often they have an engineering background or technology focus. Because product owners lean more towards engineering than marketing they tend to be quite inward focused. The majority of their time is consumed by the agile development process – attending to the backlog, supporting sprint planning meetings etc. They typically have very little time (or inclination) to focus on market analysis or strategy.

The problem is that once a business hires a product owner they often feel that they have product management covered. My view is that this is often not the case and let me explain why.

In many early stage businesses the CEO/Founder is often the person who understands the target markets better than anyone else. They will have clarity on the vision, the target markets, the competitors and market needs and they will guide product strategy. If there is an established agile process in the business they will influence the product backlog. As the business scales they will find it harder to work directly with the engineering team so will likely push to bring in a product owner to do this. In early stage businesses the CEO/Founder will also guide and influence strategic marketing and sales.

As the CEO/Founder becomes increasingly busy just dealing with the day-to-day requirements that come with being a CEO of a scaling business they won’t have the same capacity to share their market expertise with the senior leaders of the business.

So who takes on the role of delivering clarity on the vision, target markets, competitive landscape, buyer personas, market needs, etc. when the CEO is too busy to do this to the same level as before? Who provides clarity on direction to the sales, marketing and engineering teams?

Many believe this should be the product owner – but as we discussed earlier they are generally pretty busy just keeping on top of a backlog of product development requirements. They have little time to focus on elements of strategic marketing. I ran a Product Management function in a large software development company myself so I understand how challenging it can be for product owners to take on both the strategic and tactical elements of product management.

Fig. 1: Key Product Management Focus

So if your product owner is too busy or too technical to focus on strategic marketing, then is it worth considering a supporting hire that has the capacity and capability to do this?

Someone with the title Strategic Marketer or Strategic Product Manager could add real value at a senior level in the business. Although closely aligned with the product owner, this role would be more strategic and outward focused and would perform many of the strategic marketing tasks that the early stage CEO/Founder undertook – articulation of vision, target market segmentation and prioritisation, competitive analysis, capturing of market needs, articulation and dissemination of a value proposition, etc.

I believe that at a certain point in a business’s growth there are signs it is time to take on someone with a strategic and market focused approach – read on for my view on what these signs are …

“Inside-Out” rather than “Outside-In” Product Management

Is your business having ad-hoc conversations with the market – often in broadcast (sales focused) rather than listening mode (strategic alignment, capturing market needs)? Are these engagements typically driven by a a handful of the senior leadership team?

If so then it is likely that no one person has responsibility for feeding back what they are hearing to the product development team or for owning how this is captured and framed in a value proposition for sales or marketing purposes. It may be the case that your product owner may not even be aware of these conversations! As a result the engineering backlog is likely driven by hunches and an internal view of the world as this is the only view the product owner has.

Although your business may have a Digitial Marketer, a Marcoms team, a Website Developer – are these resources typically in broadcast mode and focused on lead generation? Are they taking a strategic focus to market development?

Does your business have a high level understanding of target or addressable markets but not enough detail at a competitor, customer or market level to support a focused and prioritised approach to sales and market engagements?

If the product owner is focused inward then in reality product requirements will only tentatively link to market needs and it is likely that your product is being developed in a vacuum.

Product Manager not aligned with organisational functions…

Where it was once easy to align everyone, is this now becoming increasingly difficult as the business scales?

If the senior team are travelling more and required to attend more external meetings to grow the business then they will find it even more difficult to align functions across the business.

Have your engineering, marketing, finance and sales teams grown organically? If so then they are likely operating in silos with little cross-functional alignment and it will have become more difficult to benchmark or measure the effectiveness of these teams.

If the CEO/Founder is finding it increasingly difficult to align the senior leadership team on a market-focused approach to driving the strategy then it may be time to find a supporting resource to help with this – don’t assume the product owner has the capacity to do this.

Hunches setting the product strategy…

As an early stage business you had no option but to focus on strategy. Investors demanded it! As the company has scaled, has it been all hands on deck to deliver project commitments and has strategy had to take a back seat to tactical delivery?

Are Senior leaders in the organisation making product strategic decisions that are driven more from personal hunches rather than a validated view of the market?

To drive revenue, are you chasing every business opportunity even if it only has tentative links to your strategic vision?

Is this leading to confusion and an unhealthy lack of focus? Are business priorities unclear and is there a lack of focus across different functions?

If this is the case then it is likely that a culture of  priority du jour has developed. If your business is evolving chaotically then it is likely that the product backlog is often re-scoped to suit tight deadlines or sales demands and key market-focused features may be omitted or neglected. This could have a direct impact on your ability to attract and retain broader market interest.

A tactical rather than a strategic approach to product strategy…

In order to win business have you been driven by customer demands and do you have a tendency to approach each sales opportunity as a tactical bespoke deployment? Are solutions tailored to each customer’s exact needs rather than being taken off the shelf?

If this is the case then you likely have a lack of repeatability across customer deployments and your service deployment team is growing.

As a consequence, your software solution may become difficult to manage across customer sites and the development team may struggle to manage an increasing number of customer quality issues. This could have a direct knock-on impact on your ability to service the needs of the broader market through regular quality product updates.

Your product strategy is failing to attract or retain buyer interest …

Many technical companies have a strong product development heritage. Although your company may have mastered the competencies to deliver a high quality and technically masterful product are you failing to articulate its value to the market? Do you find that your business is struggling to understand and speak to the challenges or problems that your target markets are experiencing?

It’s hard to be heard when everyone is broadcasting to rather than communicating with the market.

Research has shown that people spend 60% of conversations talking about themselves. And this jumps to 80%  when communicating via social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.

Are you spending more time talking about your own business rather than your customer’s challenges? Is your message unintentionally encrypted for your target market?

Although it is so tempting to begin broadcasting about your products to anyone who will listen, it is so important to clearly speak to challenges your market can resonate with. You often only get one shot at making an impact when you broadcast – try and make it count by hiring someone whose job it is to understand your target markets really well and to support marketing and sales to create messages that will resonate.

Finding it hard to understand return on investment from Product Strategy…

If your business is winning lots of projects, are you assigning resources arbitrarily with little focus on “return on investment”?

It can sometimes be difficult to justify the investment in a project if the organisation cannot align it with a strong market demand.

Is your sales organisation chasing deals that are driving revenue but these deals are often once-offs and have loose ties to the overall strategic drivers of the business?

An active but misdirected sales team can consume organisational resources at a significant cost to the business.

Also, if product development activity is not carefully managed and aligned with a clear market strategy it can cost the business dearly. We would be foolish to invest in a large home renovation project, for example, without the guidance of an architect. We need their help to ensure our exact needs are met, to design the best solution and to ensure that the builders stay within budget. Product development projects are no different – strategic product managers ensure projects are well architected and align with market need. They manage and control investment in engineering development and work with product owners to ensure the business gets bang for buck!

Innovation is at a standstill….

Do you find that there is no clear process for capturing or prioritising new ideas?

Do you have a mechanism for gating ideas or preparing for what is beyond the next horizon? Does your business have the opportunity or capacity to seek out adjacent market opportunities and to fund blue sky thinking?

Every business needs time to plan for the future and to anticipate and react to industry trends and market needs. This requires foresight and investment and is a key part of strategic marketing.

Struggling to stand out in a competitive landscape …

Is your competitive landscape crowded and the market is finding it difficult to find compelling reasons to select your company’s products? Do you struggle to identify unique selling points for the products or solutions and it has become increasingly difficult to position your company competitively?

Although it is very difficult to maintain sustainable competitive advantage in a world where technology and market needs evolve quickly it is really important that every business focuses on what makes them great and what makes them stand out against the competition. Someone in the organisation needs to keep a close eye on the competitive advantage that your organisation can drive and maintain over time.

Although these indicators can manifest themselves to varying degrees in companies, depending on their stage of growth, they are a useful litmus test for the need to consider hiring someone who is focused on strategic marketing or strategic product management and who can support you to align everyone in the business around your vision.

How can IntegratedThinking Help you with Product Management?

Helping you to understanding what strategic product management or strategic marketing means to your organisation. Applying a step-by-step Insight2Value process that helps you to:

  • Create scalable and repeatable service, products or solutions that customers truly value
  • Drive future growth through the continued progression of innovative ideas
  • Remain focused – making sure everyone is marching not only in the “right direction” but in the “same direction”
  • Work to a clearly defined business model that meets corporate strategic objectives
  • Allocate your finite set of resources to the right projects and achieve maximum return on investment

It is so important though that you seek support when establishing the product management discipline – making any kind of change in an organisation requires alignment from the top down to ensure you draw a line in the sand and take the right approach moving into the future.

Contact: email siobhan@integratedthinking.ie for more details


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When is the Right Time to Get Strategic with Product Management?

The Importance of Product Management

As a Product Manager, or senior leader responsible for Product Strategy, it makes sense to take a step back and assess your approach to Product Management once in a while.

Every battle is won before it is fought

Sun Tsu

What might Product Management look like in an Early Stage Business

Early stage companies are typically led by strong founders with a clear vision of where they want to be – they are not afraid to take risks, they see the bigger picture and they have the ability to lead others to deliver their vision of the world.

These successful founders aim to foster an environment of innovation and creativity that will ensure that their vision is executed and that projects with the highest potential are prioritised.

To get initial investment the founder creates a clear business plan articulating the market opportunity, the competitors in their space, the problem or need the company is going to address, the technology they will use to solve this problem and how they will make money.

The founder will generally start by hiring a few engineers to deliver their vision. They might have one or two sales and marketing people but predominantly the company is focused on executing a defined product strategy.

What happens when the business starts to scale?

As the company grows the founder can sometimes move into a different role in favour of a “professional” CEO (often appointed by the board) or they may become more focused on general business development, with perhaps less time for defining the product vision.

In this hiatus, where there is potentially a lack of market strategic direction, one of Sales, Engineering or Marketing may step up to fill the void.

However, allowing any of these groups to dictate the product strategy brings risk:

  • A company that adopts an engineering-led strategy runs the risk of focusing too much on the “next cool technology” with little understanding of the needs of the market.
  • A sales-led strategy may simply focus on the needs of each individual customer leading to “bespoke” and “one-off” solutions and driving the company down a services route.
  • A marketing led strategy may focus too much on external messaging with little understanding of technology innovations or the needs of the customer.

When is the right time to adopt a more strategic approach to Product Management?

CEOs like Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple managed to scale their companies and remain involved in core product strategy. As their companies grew they ensured they played a key part in defining the “vision” for the product, whilst ensuring that they built a strong team that were equipped to address their core strategic vision. These CEOs knew that, without innovation and the right product vision, the company would die.

The success of early stage technology companies is often a result of a founder CEO who has managed to get the balance “just right” with product and market strategy. To ensure the product strategy meets their vision they maintain an active involvement in:

  • Articulating the problem they are trying to solve
  • Understanding the competitive landscape
  • Defining the market opportunity

They also have a deep knowledge of the technology that will help them to successfully address the market need.

Continuing to get that balance right as the company grows is crucial for continued success.

Although Steve Jobs was actively involved in defining the vision for Apple’s products, he recognised the importance of adopting a supporting framework to deliver on his vision so that he could also focus on other aspects of business development. He is quoted as saying:

“You need a very market-oriented culture… Lots of companies have great engineers and smart people. …..there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.”

Steve Jobs

As the company grows and the CEO has less opportunity for acting as the  “gravitational force”, adopting a product management discipline is an important next step –  it is never too early to ensure it is part of the DNA of the company.

Successful CEOs naturally adopt aspects of the product management discipline from the moment they write their first business plan but ensuring it is engrained in the organisation takes focus and alignment across the leadership team.

As the CEO becomes increasingly involved in other aspects of business development, it is so important that they have adopted and resourced a framework for product management that will ensure their vision continues to be executed.

Rather than usurping the CEO, Product Management supports them by understanding their vision and ensuring that a product strategy captures and articulates that vision. They help the CEO to understand the market opportunity, they maintain oversight of the creation and delivery of the product through engineering and they support the positioning of the product to market through targeted messaging and sales execution. Product Management listen to many stakeholders and help the organisation to make decisions based on the “right data” – they are the “gravitational force” that pulls everyone together to drive the organisation’s strategic objectives.

Whether the CEO is the ultimate product visionary or whether this is driven from within the organisation it is essential that there is an established discipline for managing product strategy.

Finding and nurturing the right product management team will enable the CEO  to “get it just right” and to allow them to maintain the right level of engagement on product strategy.

To be really effective the relationship between the Product Manager and the CEO must be strong and bi-directional

  • The product manager must be able to understand and reflect the CEOs vision and objectives through a clear product strategy. They are a critical resource in supporting the CEO to deliver on their vision.

For product management to become part of the DNA of an organisation it needs the support and “buy-in” of the CEO from the start. 

 

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Building Bridges – Product Management

Product Management – Managing Up and Across

One of the more difficult challenges for any Product Manager is “managing up” or “managing across” the organization. The ability to demonstrate the soft skillsrequired to effectively communicate and work with multiple people in the organization is often an underestimted part of the product manager’s role. This is not about becoming the bosses best friend, it is about stepping through the sometimes subtle political minefield that exists in most organizations.

Few of us receive specific training on what is a very important part of what we do. We don’t often discuss the negative impact of this aspect of our role with others for fear of showing weakness and the training to deal with political interactions is often “on the job”, with many of us bearing the battle scars.

So what are my top 5 approaches for managing up and across (although like all of you I’m still learning!)

Build a relationship of trust with your key stakeholders

Difficulties in establishing a strong relationship with other stakeholders can stem from a lack of trust and a lack of understanding of the other person’s role. People can sometimes have a tendency to retreat to their trenches and adopt a stance based primarily on mistrust.

Making an effort to understand the value that each group in the organization brings is crucial. We all think we are brilliant and are clearly adding the most value but in reality we are all part of a bigger team. All stakeholders have the potential to add value – no man is an island, you need other people as much as they need you. In your communication with others show how you can support them in their role and how they can support you. Great companies are built with great people who develop strong relationships.

Understand your counterpart’s objectives and their management style

Conflict can often occur when you don’t understand or care about your peer’s objectives. Although we may be working to different team KPIs at the end of the day there must be some common ground – do we not all aspire to create successful companies?

Rather than going head-to-head with someone over a position they have taken, try and understand their motives and objectives. If you are new to the role, try and speak to others in the organization to understand the different “management styles” that exist in the organization. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes first – it can help to avoid conflict if you know what motivates the other person and what they are trying to achieve.

Take advice from others – work with a mentor

Product management is a multi-faceted role – it requires good communication, a strong focus on commercial aspects of business development, an ability to multi-task, the capacity to lead and above all the capability to deliver order from chaos. Often the product manager is a solitary figure with no direct reports but they communicate with and require support from many people in the organization.

I found huge benefits in working with a mentor in my early days of product management and today I find it hugely satisfying to mentor product managers in their role. Product Management can be a lonely place but it is an immensely rewarding role if approached in the right way. Take advice from as many other people as you can, especially those who have faced similar challenges to you. If you have a product manager in your team, ensure they are receiving the right supports from inside and outside the organization.

We are all on a journey of continuous learning – reach out to others who have made mistakes, learned from those mistakes and who can guide you in your approach.

Adopt processes that support better communication and interactions

Misunderstandings are more likely to occur when there is no formal process in place to guide how people work together. In the absence of a process for communication things can fall between the cracks and one side can blame the other.

Using something like the RACI model to understand who is responsible, accountable, consulted or informed for key projects can be hugely beneficial and can support positive cross-team interactions.

Keeping lines of communication open outside of your own group and establishing forums of communication can be hugely beneficial.

Understand your leadership team’s strategic objectives

It is important for product management to have a “voice” at the leadership table – they support alignment, guide decision-making and ensure everyone is moving in the same direction. As much as possible they try to reflect the CEO’s corporate strategy in their product strategy. Sometimes the leadership team may disagree with or do things that undermine the product manager’s strategy. Dealing with this situation can be a political minefield.

Managing up is such an important part of what we do and sometimes our passion for “doing the right thing” can override our ability to recognize that sometimes there are people more senior than us, who (for the best of reasons) may not agree with our vision. Product Management must tread a fine line between giving good counsel and dictating strategy. We have to ensure that we can see the bigger picture and that we recognize that there are often many contributory factors to good decision-making. As long as we enable our leadership teams to make informed decisions, with the right data, then we are doing our job. It’s important to realize though that we may not always agree with every decision that is made.

Although product managers may feel like they have no authority they do have the ability to lead and guide good decision-making and that is where they can add true value. Remember, don’t bring problems to the leadership team without some well thought out potential solutions.


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Product Management: How can you make sure investors love your strategy?

What Investors Care About?

Investors hate missing out on a great opportunity but equally they fear making a bad investment. For Product Management it is essential that they consider the needs of this crucial stakeholder.

So what are some of the things that investors think about when investing in product companies…

  • The challenge the product is trying to address and the evidence you have captured that this is a challenge the market wants solved
  • The size of the market opportunity
  • Any early traction you have obtained for your product
  • Your articulation of the value you bring to the market and how you will monetise this value
  • Why your business is uniquely different and how you compete with others?
  • Why you think people will be compelled to buy from you? Who your buyers are and what do they care about?
  • What team is in place to execute on the product strategy and how effective are this team?
  • Your strategy for marketing communications and sales
  • Your strategy for partnering with others to gain market traction or to execute on your product strategy

If this is what investors want to understand about your business, then how much attention do the leaders in your business, including Product Management give these areas?

As someone who has helped startups with their business plans and product strategy I understand that to capture the interest of the investor community it is hugely important to articulate the growth opportunity for your business through a business plan and associated Product Strategy.

Articulating the market opportunity and your value proposition for each target market is crucial. Clearly representing the challenge you address for your target market, capturing insights from this market and understanding how you will capture market interest to drive revenue growth is essential to ensure you get the kick-start of investment you need to scale your business.

Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.” 

Robert Kaplan and David Norton (Strategy Maps)

Of course your Product Strategy needs to consider areas such as your mission and vision (with associated metrics of success), segmented market opportunity, your pricing strategy, your positioning of value for each target market, your competitive differentiation, any partnership strategy and a link to any sales and marketing strategies. You also need to highlight the key metrics that you will monitor to ensure product success – recurring revenue goals, customer acquisition rates, etc.

Everyone in the organisation needs to have sight of the key objectives (OKRs or SMART metrics of success) that the business is aiming to achieve at a high level so that they can define and align their own metrics of success to drive these corporate objectives.

A company that has captured initial investment through a clearly defined business plan and product strategy will move quickly to focus on the execution of this plan – hiring engineers, marketers and sales personnel. Keeping these resources aligned to deliver on the promises made to investors is now crucial!

It is really important that you can demonstrate to an investor that everyone in the business is aligned around the product strategy and that you can show how cross functional goals and initiatives are aligned. So it is important to define clear corporate goals and objectives that can be cascaded throughout the business. This ensures that you:

  • Create an aligned and collaborative organization that shares a common understanding of how the business will create value
  • Ensure the organization remains focused on corporate strategic objectives
  • Maximize ROI for corporate resources and ensure all resources are delivering effectively
  • Support decision making for all employees
  • Enable Sales and Marketing to clearly position the products and solutions to the target market and thereby drive revenue growth

How can you make sure you are investor ready?

Whether you are a startup or SME you should take the time to ensure that you have captured the right insights from the market to create a clear and compelling Business Plan and Product Strategy.

There are so many things that Investors care about but you need to focus on what is key in the context of your industry.

I have recently spent time running strategic insight gathering and value proposition workshops with companies across multiple industry sectors. The exercise has been enlightening for everyone – particularly those companies that have spent a lot of time focusing on the “execution” rather than the “strategic” side of product management and for those companies that have a requirement for near term investment. These workshops support the company with the insights that are needed to create a compelling product strategy.

Contact me siobhan@integratedthinking.ie for more details on how your business can capture market insights to drive future opportunity.


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Mentoring: How to stay energised, be the best you can be and actually get results!

Product Manager Mentoring Product Management Product Strategy
Product Management Mentoring

Applying a market focused discipline is core to what Product Management is about. Product Managers should feel energised by helping organisations to find and prioritise market opportunities. Finding market challenges and then aligning their company’s products or solutions to address these challenges. As a Product Management mentor, I find that quite often the reality is a little different. Product Managers are often struggling and they don’t receive mentoring. They feel accountable for everything to do with the success of the product but they are struggling to manage the depth and breadth of the role. Most of them learn on the job and don’t really have mentors outside of the organisation to support them.

A lot of companies have attempted to establish a product management discipline in their organization. Many are struggling to make it effective.

The executive team understand that to be successful they need to:

  1. Create products or services that customers love.
  2. Ensure the organization is marching not just in the “right direction” but in the “same direction.”
  3. Work to a clearly defined business model.

They hire a Product Manager. They should be focused on influencing and aligning CEO, sales, marketing and engineering strategies to address market opportunities. However, they are often floundering:

  • Some are solely focused on the engineering side of the house – helping to prioritise product development.
  • Others get consumed with sales engagements – supporting the sales teams in closing deals.
  • Many become consumed in what is effectively Product Marketing – creating content that will drive leads into the business.

So, how do you ensure that any Product Manager you have hired hits the ground running? How do you ensure they receive the right level of mentoring. What elements of the Product Management discipline are most important for your business? How can you ensure your Product Manager balances strategy, marketing, technical and tactical?

What comes up in mentoring?

In my role mentoring strategic Product Managers, I have found that most often they want to talk about how they:

  • Influence at a leadership level – how can they align sales, marketing, engineering and the CEO when they don’t have accountability for those functions and they are not even on the leadership team?
  • Remain strategic and influence others if they are not on the leadership team?
  • Achieve the right level of visibility in the organisation?
  • Create a compelling product strategy? How can they align their strategy and roadmap with organisational goals? How can they get buy-in for their product strategy across the leadership team?
  • Stop the CEO or head of sales from undermining them by going directly to the engineering team to influence the product backlog?
  • Build trust with engineering and keep a market focus?
  • Stay engaged with the market and remain strategic when they need to balance the needs of lots of functional groups in the business?
  • Work effectively with other leaders in the business – managing their own and other’s behavioural styles? How can they learn to negotiate and influence?
  • Get the leadership team to be more market focused and to prioritise market opportunities using market data rather than being scattergun in their approach to revenue generation?
  • Ensure they are involved in strategic decision making in the business and are not just seen as receivers of the outputs of the decisions?
  • Positively influence leadership alignment around the goals of the company?
  • Drive a culture of strategic rather than tactical revenue generation?

These are just some of the areas that come up in our mentoring sessions. The importance of thinking about professional development skills was the reason I did an Executive Coaching diploma and why I now spend time teaching about the benefits of working on our emotional intelligence and leadership skills. Understanding the benefits of effective collaboration for Product Managers is why I became certified as a team coach. I don’t lead with these elements in my practice but they form part of how I offer support to the clients I work with in Product Management and Strategic Marketing.

Mastering leadership development and high performing team development skills, not just functional skills, is what makes some product leaders stand out from the crowd!

When I previously worked as the head of a team of Product Managers, I had access to an external mentor – someone who had performed the role before. This person was a safe sounding board for me as I developed in the role and they felt like a trusted advisor. Giving me time to talk about what I was really finding challenging. They didn’t judge! They gave me the space to explore how I was developing as a leader and to unpack some of the challenges I was experiencing.

I did not feel safe to be this open with anyone else at a leadership level and that made things a little lonely sometimes!

I didn’t feel the psychological safety to raise issues I was having and feared exposing what I perceived as my weaknesses to the leadership team.

Finding someone to mentor and coach your Product Manager, Strategic Marketer or any key resource in the business is so important. Give them the space to explore their approach to leadership. Help them to examine their role and their challenges in a way that feels safe to them – no matter how open your organisation is. Find opportunities to get insights from people who have been in their position before and who understand them best.

Product Management can be a minefield!

It can be challenging for a Product Manager to settle into a new organisation or for an existing one to be effective. There can be many political obstacles that need to be addressed. Professional development skills are crucial to help the Product Manager to navigate interactions with other leaders. This needs to be considered when a Product Manager is hired – how well do they balance professional development and functional requirements of the role.

Consider how clearly you have defined the role and ensure it takes into account the elements of strategy, technical, tactical and marketing.

The Product Manager has the potential to lean into one specific area of their role where they feel most comfortable. They need guidance and help to take a more balanced approach.

To help with getting the balance right, you might consider pairing a strategic Product Manager with a more technical Product Owner. This is not always possible in an early stage business as funding can be a challenge to resource two roles. However, be mindful that having one person covering strategic and technical can be really challenging and they will need guidance and support to pull it off!

What can help?

Many new and established product managers exist in a state of bewilderment and despair! Even Product Managers who have been with a business for a few years can feel like this. The enormity of their role can be overwhelming.

Underlying this is a lack of clarity on what is expected of them and where they can add value.

Sometimes the leadership team sets unachievable expectations or there are no expectations at all. Everyone is scrambling to understand how the discipline of product management applies to their business. The overwhelmed Product Manager has to juggle the demands of a sales and engineering team who expect their undivided attention 24/7.

This situation can spiral and the Product Manager can become increasingly disillusioned as the leadership team begin to dismiss the product manager as ineffectual.

Things do not have to be this way! Understanding how the Product Manager can add value in your organization is a starting point. Then clearly define the role and boundaries for each organisational function. Help the Product Manager to understand how their skills and capabilities will align with the other leaders in the organisation. Help all the leaders in the business to understand how they add value and the part they play together to achieve the goals of the business. Get outside help from others who have established a discipline of Product Management before. Make sure that whatever way you apply the Product Management discipline that it aligns with your company’s stage of growth.

Don’t assume your product manager will hit the ground running – ensure they have access to mentoring

The Product Manager is an important resource in your company but don’t assume they know it all! It is not just the Product Manager who can be struggling with the discipline of product management. I often see frustration from the CEO as they try to understand how to embed the discipline in their business. Just because a product manager has previous experience, don’t assume they will hit the ground running in a new company. Sometimes it can take time and support to establish the discipline and to build the trust and respect of other leaders.

It makes sense that the new Product Manager is offered mentorship so that they can hit the ground running.

In my previous roles in Product Management, I learned quickly that applying structure and discipline ensured myself and my team could work effectively. We can all read books or attend courses. These will give us a good grounding in product management. However, the application of this discipline and the understanding of what works in reality comes with experience.

Don’t wait until either you or your product managers have reached the point of despair! Seek the support and help of those who have done this before and who have been at the coalface. It makes sense to talk to someone who understands the demands of the role.

Irrespective of whether you are new to the role of Product Management or have been doing the job for years, look to get as much insight as you can from those around you. Product Management is a continuous learning path.

Contact me @ siobhan@integratedthinking.ie for more details on how I can support Product Managers or Strategic Marketers in their role!

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5 ways for a Product Manager to make a positive impact when working with other leaders

Product Mentor Product Manager Product Management
Work with a Product Mentor

One of the more difficult challenges for any Product Manager is “managing up” or “managing across” the organization. The ability to demonstrate the soft skills required to effectively communicate and work with multiple people in the organization is often an underestimted part of the product manager’s role. This is not about becoming the bosses best friend, it is about stepping through the sometimes subtle political minefield that exists in most organizations.

Few of us receive specific training or work with a product mentor on what is a very important part of what we do. We don’t often discuss the negative impact of this aspect of our role  with others for fear of showing weakness. The training to deal with political interactions is often “on the job”, with many of us bearing the battle scars.

So what are my top 5 approaches for getting results when working with other leaders (although like all of you I’m still learning!)

As a Product Manager, build a relationship of trust with your key stakeholders

Difficulties in establishing a strong relationship with other stakeholders can stem from a lack of trust and a lack of understanding of the other person’s role. People can sometimes have a tendency to retreat to their trenches and adopt a stance based primarily on mistrust.

Making an effort to understand the value that each group in the organization brings is crucial. We may think we know it all and that we are clearly adding the most value but in reality we are all part of a bigger team. All stakeholders have the potential to add value – no person is an island, you need other people as much as they need you. In your communication with others show how you can support them in their role and how they can support you. Great companies are built with great people who develop strong relationships.

Understand your counterpart’s objectives and their management style

Conflict can often occur when as a Product Manager you don’t understand or care about your peer’s objectives. Although we may be working to different team KPIs at the end of the day there must be some common ground – do we not all aspire to create successful companies?

Rather than going head-to-head with someone over a position they have taken, try and understand their motives and objectives. If you are new to the role, try and speak to others in the organization to understand the different “management styles” that exist in the organization. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes first – it can help to avoid conflict if you know what motivates the other person and what they are trying to achieve.

Take advice from others – work with a product mentor

Product management is a multi-faceted role – it requires good communication, a strong focus on commercial aspects of business development, an ability to multi-task, the capacity to lead and above all the capability to deliver order from chaos. Often the product manager is a solitary figure with no direct reports but they communicate with and require support from many people in the organization.

I found huge benefits in working with a product mentor in my early days of product management and today I find it hugely satisfying to mentor product managers in their role.  Product Management can be a lonely place but it is an immensely rewarding role if approached in the right way. Take advice from as many other people as you can, especially those who have faced similar challenges to you. If you have a product manager in your team, ensure they are receiving the right supports from inside and outside the organization.

We are all on a journey of continuous learning – reach out to others who have made mistakes, learned from those mistakes and who can guide you in your approach.

Adopt processes that support better communication and interactions

Misunderstandings are more likely to occur when there is no formal process in place to guide how people work together. In the absence of a process for communication things can fall between the cracks and one side can blame the other.

Your product strategy and product roadmap are a great way to communicate your vision for the product. Ensure that each are communicated in a way that is relevant and understandable to the stakeholder you are engaging with.

Even if you don’t report to the CEO as a Product Manager and you do not have a seat on the leadership team ensure you have a forum for engaging with this team in relation to product and corporate strategy – this is essential. As a strategic Product Manager, reporting through someone else to the leadership team is never ideal.

When engaging with other stakeholders involved in executing on the product strategy, use a tool like the RACI model to outline who is responsible, accountable, consulted or informed. Product Management may be accountable for the success of the product but they cannot be responsible for everything that goes in to making products successful.

Keeping lines of communication open to all groups in your organisation and establishing forums of communication can be hugely beneficial.

As a Product Manager, understand your leadership team’s strategic objectives

It is important for product management to have a “voice” at the leadership table – they support alignment, guide decision-making and ensure everyone is moving in the same direction. As much as possible they reflect the CEO’s corporate strategy in their product strategy. I love OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) – particularly when they are outcome focused. Ensuring that your product strategy and your product roadmap are aligned with the strategic OKRs of the business is crucial. OKRs are a great way to achieve leadership alignment on strategy and to cascade strategic objectives right through the business.

Sometimes the leadership team may disagree with or do things that undermine the product manager’s strategy. Dealing with this situation can be a political minefield but use the product strategy or product roadmap as the mechanism to bring everyone back into alignment where possible.

In summary:

Managing up is such an important part of what we do and sometimes our passion for “doing the right thing” can override our ability to recognize that sometimes there are people more senior than us, who (for the best of reasons) may not agree with our vision. Product Management must tread a fine line between giving good counsel and dictating strategy. We have to ensure that we can see the bigger picture and that we recognize that there are often many contributory factors to good decision-making. As long as we enable our leadership teams to make informed decisions, with the right data, then we are doing our job. It’s important to realize though that we may not always agree with every decision that is made.

Although product managers may feel like they have no authority they do have the ability to lead and guide good decision-making and that is where they can add true value. Remember, don’t bring problems to the leadership team without some well thought out potential solutions.

 


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September 2014 – Scala CEO – Create High Value Companies through Great Products

Brochure CoverDelighted to be working with great companies as part of the Irish Software Skillnet’s  Scala CEO programme. This programme is targeted exclusively at the CEOs/Founders of Irish technology companies and focuses on product management driven approaches to help these companies to scale and grow.

Through this programme participating companies are learning how the application of a product management discipline across their organization can help them to:

  • Create scalable and repeatable revenues through products that customers value
  • Ensure future revenue growth through the continued progression of innovative ideas
  • Ensure the organization is focused and moving in the same direction
  • Ensure that the organization works to a clear business model that meets corporate strategic objectives
  • Prioritize the finite set of resources available and deliver the right projects

The programme incorporates a corporate capability assessment, two day workshop for the CEOs and two separate 1/2 day mentoring sessions with each individual company.

IntegratedThinking are delighted to be delivering this programme for ISA Software Skillnets and we are very much enjoying the interactions with the participating companies to date.

 

 

 

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Articulating your Value Proposition – Not Just for Startups

The Challenge

As someone who has helped startups with their business plans I understand that to capture the interest of the investor community it is hugely important to articulate a compelling product strategy and value proposition. Clearly representing the problem or need you address for your target market, listening to your target customers and understanding how you will drive revenue growth is essential to ensure you get the kick-start of investment you need to scale your business.

Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.” 

Robert Kaplan and David Norton (Strategy Maps)

Business plans typically only get shared with a targeted group – generally the CEO and potential investors. The continued articulation of the value proposition within the company, especially as the number of new employees grows, can be ad-hoc at best.

A company that has captured initial investment through a clearly defined business plan will move quickly to focus on the execution of this plan – hiring engineers, marketers and sales personnel. As time progresses and they learn more about their target market they may change their initial corporate strategy and re-evaluate their initial hypotheses of what the customer needs. Somewhere along the line their value proposition changes but often this is not captured or re-communicated clearly to everyone in the organization.

Once the company begins to execute the business plan different dynamics will occur across the organization. The background and focus of the engineering team will mean that they will generally position the product strategy from a technical standpoint, often failing to understand or demonstrate the “business value” of what they are creating. Marketing will battle to understand the technical complexities of the product and will fail to create compelling positioning material. Sales will struggle without a clear view of the target market, the value the company brings or the product’s unique selling points. Without a defined value proposition the company will struggle to position the product strategy and potential opportunities will be missed.

Articulating a compelling value proposition as part of your product strategy allows you to:

  • Create an aligned and collaborative organization that shares a common understanding of how the business will create value
  • Ensure the organization remains focused on corporate strategic objectives
  • Maximize ROI for corporate resources and ensure all resources are delivering effectively
  • Support decision making for all employees
  • Enable Sales and Marketing to clearly position the products and solutions to the target market and thereby drive revenue growth
The Solution

Whether you are a startup or SME you should take the time to ensure that your Value Proposition is clearly articulated inside your business so that everyone can clearly represent it outside your business.

Product engineering, sales and marketing teams are often too busy delivering current project objectives to focus on the company’s value proposition and ensure that everyone is aligned around a common message.

Undertaking this exercise takes time and focus from the Product Manager or Strategic Marketer.

IntegratedThinking can help through a short-term engagement that will provide tools and methodologies to support your teams to:

  • Understand the market segment you are addressing
  • Review and define the value proposition for each of your target customer segments
  • Articulate this value proposition to the wider team with clarity
  • Validate this value proposition with your target market
  • Support the marketing team to articulate this value proposition through corporate messaging

“Working with Siobhan enabled us to really understand the market we are addressing and the problems and needs of our customers – we learned to recognize the huge benefits that can be achieved from an “outside in” approach to product management. As a result, we have strengthened our value proposition”

Bill Walsh, CEO Aspire
The Approach

The initial consultation is free, helping your to articulate your requirements. I will then provide a project proposal for review and approval that will articulate what needs to be done, how long it will take and how much it will cost.  In a busy environment, where the time of your key resources is precious, you need someone who has done this before and can drive the project to completion.

Please feel free to give me a call or contact me via email and I will be happy to discuss this further.

Contact: email siobhan@integratedthinking.ie for more details

I have over 30 years of commercial experience with over
15 of these in strategy development with SMEs from across
multiple sectors.
I have experience of marketing, sales and product strategy
and use the many transferrable skills that I developed in the
technology sector to work with SMEs from across multiple
industry sectors. I focus specifically on key elements of
strategic marketing and product & service strategy.

Since the establishment of my consultancy business in October 2013 I have been providing in-house mentoring to scaling companies.