How To Be A Good Product Manager

Tips on product management, product development and product marketing. By Jeff Lash

How To Be A Good Product Manager features tips on product management and product marketing, written by Jeff Lash (@jefflash on Twitter), Research Director, Product Management for SiriusDecisions.

Respect Your Competition; Innovation Strategy; Lean Start-Up

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Respect Your Competition
Product managers and marketers are naturally competitive. They want their products to win in the marketplace, and they want to beat the competition. However, there’s a difference between being a champion for your product and being blind to the market, customer needs and perceptions. Successful product managers and marketers walk a fine line between being completely objective and being a die-hard super-fan supporter. In my latest blog post — Respect your competition — I present two simple tips on how to respect your competition when it’s natural to be focused on how much better you are than them.

SiriusDecisions Innovation Strategy Framework
SiriusDecisions recently held our eighth annual Summit, which drew a sell-out crowd of 1500+ attendees for three days of discussion of b-to-b marketing, sales and product issues and best practices.

I was proud and honored to present on the main stage to talk about research we recently completed on best practices for investing in product innovation — a topic I’ve mentioned here before. We introduced our Innovation Strategy Framework, a decision support tool designed to help b-to-b product leaders ensure that decisions around innovation and investment are aligned with their growth strategy.

You can read a recap of my presentation on the SiriusDecisions blog: Summit 2013 Highlights: A Balanced Approach to Innovation Investment

Hot topic: Lean Start-Up
One of the most popular articles in Harvard Business Review for the past few weeks has been Steve Blank’s “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything.” Certainly within entrepreneurial circles, the lean start-up approach is taking hold. However, it’s starting to be adopted widely by many non-start-up organizations, and it’s a concept worth getting familiar with if you’re not already.

The article is now available as free PDF even to non-subscribers. It’s worth noting that some of Steve’s points in the sidebar on “What Lean Start-Ups Do Differently” aren’t entirely accurate. For example, the new-product process for “traditional” product management is said to “prepare offering for market following a linear, step-by-step plan,” while the lean process focuses on customer development (a term Steve coined), where the focus is to “get out of the office and test hypothesis.” Well, in “traditional” product management, that’s what good product managers have been doing all along!

Slight quibbles aside, it’s a good introduction to the lean start-up philosophy and how it can be applied in companies of all sizes.

What’s Hot on Twitter
Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:


Market Research Tips; Combining Strategy and Marketing

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Jeff Lash · 1 Comment

Frame Your Market Research Objectives as Questions
Understanding potential customers and their needs is one of the most important elements in developing a successful offering. Market research activities like customer interviews and observational research are great ways of understanding needs, problems and opportunities. Unfortunately, many product teams rush out to conduct research without thinking about what they’re trying to learn and why.

One technique that I’ve found to be very useful is to put together a simple research plan and frame your research objectives as questions. As I describe in this post on the SiriusDecisions blog, by listing out the questions you hope to answer, you can better clarify the reason for the research, verify that you do indeed need to conduct research to get the answers, and tailor the type and amount of research you need to get the answers.

Read the full post: Simplify Market Research by Framing Your Objectives as Questions

Incidentally, if you like this blog post, you might like some of my other recent posts on the SiriusDecisions blog:

The Best Companies Combine Marketing and Strategy
One of the best pieces I’ve read lately comes from Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada. His blog post — The Best Companies Combine Marketing and Strategy — describes the disconnect which occurs in many companies between the organization’s “strategy” (and often a dedicated central strategy group) and marketing (or, more specifically, the marketing organization). As Roger puts it, “Good marketing and good strategy are both about making choices that build and maintain a particular set of capabilities that enables the company to outperform its competitors with a particular set of customers.”

What’s Hot on Twitter
Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:


Product managers are marketers; Innovation Investment Allocation; Thought Leadership Webcast

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

If you’re in Product Management, You’re in Marketing
I’ve heard something disturbing in recent conversations with product managers and product management leaders. As soon as the word “marketing” comes out of my mouth, there’s an almost-instant reaction: “Oh, I think you’re talking to the wrong person.” “I don’t deal with that.” “I’m not in marketing.” As I discuss in my latest post on the SiriusDecisions blog, I’ve got news for you – if you’re in product management, you’re in marketing.

New Research on Innovation Investment Allocation
At SiriusDecisions, we’re conducting ongoing research into how best-in-class b-to-b organizations optimize their investment decisionmaking, including how to allocate investments appropriately, pick the right initiatives to pursue and ensure those investments succeed.

I’ve started sharing some of the findings already on the SiriusDecisions blog, but our research is ongoing and you are invited to take part in this survey. It should take only 10 minutes, and everyone who responds will be given access to a summary of the results. We respect your privacy and the confidentiality of your information, so all responses will be anonymous, and data will reported in aggregate form only.

You can learn more about the research and some of the findings so far.

Free Webcast on Thought Leadership
On Wednesday, March 20, my colleague Pat McAnally will be presenting a webcast entitled Thoughtful Selling: How best-in-class companies leverage thought leadership into campaigns and conversations for game changing results.

Every company is focused on producing content in support of marketing, campaign and sales enablement programs. Yet most would admit the results of their efforts are still missing the mark.

A handful of forward-thinking marketing leaders know that their company’s thought leadership is the secret weapon to creating unique, differentiated and valuable content for campaigns and conversations that can change a sales path, elevate a salesperson into a more valued role and eliminate competitive similarity.

Pat has some fantastic insight into thought leadership and this webcast presented by Launch International and SiriusDecisions will offer some specific best practices and examples of how you can harness the power of your organization’s existing intellectual property and transform that insight into powerful and differentiated content and conversations.

Other Recommended Blog Posts
My SiriusDecisions colleagues have been writing some great blog posts lately — too many to mention here, but these are a few of my favorites:

In Beware of the Big Deal, Lisa Singer offers some great tips for product managers who are told that there’s a HUGE deal that MUST be approved, even though the proposal includes significant discounting. What should you evaluate? What are the risks? How do you know if it’s really a good deal or if it’ll come back to haunt you?

In When Did the Business Case Become Passé?, Marisa Kopec notes that in some situations, the business case is seen as “uncool” or shunned or deprioritized because those responsible are “too busy,” resulting in a lack of alignment between product, marketing and sales, as well as confusion around the direction of the go-to-market strategy. Yes, you want to be agile and nimble, but you also ensure that there is a solid business rationale behind your initiatives, and Marisa offers some advice for “making the business case cool again.”

One of our most frequent topics clients ask about is is how to improve product launch, though other than a Tweet or status update, often Social Media is forgotten or not fully leveraged. In Improve Your Next Product Launch: Engage Customers Through Social Media Channels, Pat McAnally offers insight from recent research looking at how best-in-class organizations are leveraging social media pre-launch, during launch, and post-launch.

What’s Hot on Twitter
Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:


Understanding minimum criteria; your input needed on research; upcoming events

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Meet minimum buying criteria before exceeding them
Is it ever possible to have too much of a good thing in a product? If the cost of that extra capability doesn’t provide any value to the customer, then the extra effort is wasted, especially if there are minimum criteria which are not met. As I write in my latest blog post on the SiriusDecisions blog — Meet Minimum Buying Criteria Before Exceeding Them — product managers and product marketers need to understand what buyers value and what they expect so they don’t put additional resources and emphasis on features or offers that might be of little value to their buyers.

How do companies make innovation investment decisions?
I’m asking for your help with some research we at SiriusDecisions are conducting into best practices in innovation investment and prioritization –- how companies make decisions on what products to invest in and prioritize, and what criteria are used to evaluate opportunities and measure success.

I’d like your input into this short survey, and I’d like to share the results with you. If you are involved in business-to-business product management, product marketing, or are involved in your organization’s process to prioritize investment across products, please take 10 minutes and complete this survey.

By completing this survey, you will gain access to unique intelligence about trends and best practices in this area – information that you can use to improve the way your organization approaches investment decisions for new and existing products. An executive summary with key survey findings will be provided to all interested respondents.

Upcoming webcasts and in-person events
I mentioned a number of exciting upcoming events in my last post, so here’s a reminder. All of these are normally for our SiriusDecisions clients only, but we’re opening a limited number of spots available to others. Space is limited, though, so please register soon if you’re interested.

For more product management and product marketing links and insight, follow me on Twitter at @jefflash.


What buyers really want; meet me in Minneapolis and Chicago; product roadmap webinar

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Understanding what buyers really want
You’ve probably heard the saying, “No one wants a drill, they want a hole in the wall.” The idea behind this quote is that what customers say they want – a drill – is just a means to the end; namely, a hole in the wall. However, as I argue in my latest post on the SiriusDecisions blog, buyers really don’t want a hole in the wall — that hole is just a means to an end. Even in b-to-b markets, marketers and product managers need to meet buyer’s personal emotional needs as well as their business-related rational ones. Read the full post for more: What B-to-B Buyers Really Want

What’s the Best Way to Announce a Price Increase?
Also over on the SiriusDecisions blog, my colleague Lisa Singer tackles the fun subject of price increases. Pretty much every product or solution has to deal with it at some point, and there are ways to do it well and do it poorly. Often, companies stumble over the communication around a price increase — surprising customers with it, being accused of trying to sneak it in, not providing rationalization. Lisa provides a straightforward and practical set of guidelines for the best way to announce a price increase.

Meet me in Minneapolis and Chicago
I’m excited to announce some upcoming events in Minneapolis and Chicago in late February where Lisa and I will be presenting and leading discussion on product management best practices — and you’re invited. (If you like what Lisa and I blog about, you’ll love the live show.)

Product planning and innovation can be expensive, taking several months — if not years — before adding to a company’s bottom line. Similarly, the maintenance of a profitable portfolio of products has become increasingly important to organizations where there is stiff competition for sales and marketing dollars. Increasingly, b-to-b product managers and marketers are taking a detailed look at the success of new product introductions, seeking frameworks and decisionmaking criteria to enhance new product success in the market.

In complimentary half-day advisory forums in Minneapolis (Tuesday, February 26, 2013) and Chicago (Thursday, February 28, 2013) where we’ll share research and lead discussion on our best-in-class framework which is designed to help you optimize a customer-centric innovation and go-to-market business process for new product success.

These forums are designed for business-to-business product management and product marketing leaders. Seating is limited so learn more about Leveraging the SiriusDecisions PMM Model to Drive Customer-Centric Innovation and register today for your seat at the Minneapolis event or the Chicago event.

Upcoming webcasts: Best Practices in Product Roadmaps; B-to-B Personas and Buying Cycles
If you can’t make it to Minneapolis or Chicago, don’t worry — we’ve got some webcasts coming up which are open to all as well.

On Thursday, February 21, I’ll be presenting Best Practices in Product Roadmaps. Roadmapping is always a hot topic, though it seems like recently it’s been getting more attention. My blog post on Three Problems on Product Roadmaps generated a bunch of comments and got a ton of traffic — and roadmaps have been the subject of other recent posts on other blogs as well. I’ve been talking with a lot of product managers about the struggles they have with roadmaps — the challenges in creating, documenting, and sharing them effectively. Through our interactions with clients and other research, we’ve uncovered some key best practices to make roadmaps effective, including how to develop roadmaps which can align stakeholders behind a shared strategy and vision; how to use roadmaps to build support from senior management; and how to document and communicate your roadmap so as not to set unrealistic expectations (especially among your sales team, channel partners, and customers).

So, if this sounds of interest, make sure to sign up for the Best Practices in Product Roadmaps webinar on Thursday, February 21, 2013.

And, the day prior, my colleagues Marisa Kopec and Pat McAnally will be presenting a webcast on B-to-B Personas and Buying Cycles. While the traditional type of persona exercise works for consumer-based marketing, advertising and Web design, much of its content isn’t relevant to understanding b-to-b buyers. In b-to-b, where buying behavior is phased (buying cycles), highly complex and inclusive of multiple individuals with different requirements (buyer roles), what matters are the key attributes required to inform marketers, sales and product management on what b-to-b personas need to facilitate their buying process.

The webcast will cover how b-to-b personas are an important part of market / product definition and positioning/messaging; a template for defining a b-to-b persona and the key attributes that must be identified to build them effectively; examples of best-in-class personas and actionable guidance for creating your own personas. Learn more and sign up for the B-to-B Personas and Buying Cycles webinar on Wednesday, February 20, 2013.

What’s hot on Twitter
Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:


Eating your own dog food; aligning sales, marketing, and product; ProductCamp season

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Happy 2013! Hope you had a happy happy and a merry merry, and best wishes for the new year. Now, let’s get on to the product management fun…

Why eating your own dog food may be hazardous to your health
You may have heard the expression “eating your own dog food,” meaning that you should use your own product or service. After all, if you don’t believe in what you’re selling, why should anyone else? Unfortunately, eating your own dog food (or, as I prefer to say, tasting or eating your own cooking) may not be the best thing for your company or your product.

So, when does it make sense to taste your own cooking? When does it make sense to eat it? And when does it make sense to do neither? Over on the SiriusDecisions blog, I present a simple quiz and some suggestions.

SiriusDecisions Summit 2013
Speaking of SiriusDecisions, we’ve announced our SiriusDecisions Summit 2013, our annual unique three-day conference where SiriusDecisions analysts and top sales, marketing, and product management leaders from leading organizations share how b-to-b organizations are solving critical issues that hinder predictable growth.

I’m very excited about this year’s theme — Aligning Sales, Marketing, and Product — and I will be presenting a on few product management topics. The Summit has become a legendary event in the world of b-to-b sales and marketing, and this year we’ve added even more content, including a break-out track focusing on product management and product marketing, plus presentations of our own original research on related topics like innovation and portfolio management.

Learn more about the SiriusDecisions Summit 2013 and see the full agenda. If you’re interested, register soon — early bird pricing ends January 15 and the Summit will likely sell out.

ProductCamp season

Speaking of conferences — or, in this case, unconferences — with 2013 comes a whole new crop of ProductCamps. ProductCamps are participant-driven “un”conferences for anyone involved in designing, developing, managing, or marketing products. All participants are encouraged to present a topic or run a group discussion, and all attendees cast their votes for sessions and presentations they’d like to attend. The most popular sessions get on the schedule — it’s a conference for the attendees, by the attendees.

There were over 25 ProductCamps last year, ranging from places you’d expect (like Silicon Valley and New York) to places you wouldn’t (like Kiev, Ukraine). Already on the calendar for this year are two for Saturday, February 2 — Vancouver and Chicago. I’ll most likely be attending the Vancouver ProductCamp, so make sure to say hi if you’re there. I would recommend you register if you’re interested, but it’s already sold out (though there is room on the wait list). Check the global ProductCamp schedule to see if there’s one in your neighborhood.

What’s hot on Twitter

Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:

  • Eliminating #prodmgmt from your company b/c of financial problems is like selling your car’s engine to pay for gas. (permalink)
  • New on my @Pinterest #prodmgmt comics board: “Software bloat” is not a feature j.mp/TYETLP (permalink)
  • Four Reasons Why Social Media is Not Research j.mp/SclFUZ from @LauraVEM; relevant for #b2b #marketing #prodmktg #prodmgmt (permalink)
  • How Thinking Like a Designer Can Inspire Innovation; 4 simple, practical tips j.mp/VOtOub #innovation (permalink)
  • Thanks for the personal and heartfelt holiday greetings, companies whose email newsletters I tried to unsubscribe from months ago (permalink)

Problems with Product Roadmaps; Sunsetting products; Buyers don’t want your content

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Three problems with product roadmaps (and how to fix them)

Over on the SiriusDecisions blog, I provided some food for thought (pun intended) last week in advance of the U.S. Thanksgiving break with my post on Three Problems With Product Roadmaps. What are the problems, you ask?

  • Confusing short-term plans with a roadmap.
  • Executives confusing a roadmap with the roadmapping process.
  • Product managers having an ad hoc process for roadmap creation.

Want to know how to solve them? Well, read the full post for my three recommendations, and be sure not to miss good comments from Geoff Anderson (@gander2112) and Bruce McCarthy (@d8a_driven). Maybe you have some comments to add too?

What’s hot on Twitter

Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash:

  • A Gantt Chart is not a Product Launch Plan. #prodmgmt #prodmktg #launch (permalink)
  • Pricing: Why Customers Choose The Higher Priced Product (More Than 95% of the time) j.mp/Ql0AXu #pricing (permalink)
  • Without product documentation, would your customers be able to use it & get 80-90% of the benefit from it? j.mp/Ql0ajJ (permalink)
  • Good article on #gamification and considerations for adding it to your products j.mp/XBuEAb #prodmgmt (permalink)
  • American Breakfast & the Mother-in-Law: How an Anthropologist Created Go-Gurt j.mp/UJp88l #prodmgmt #ux #anthropology #innovation (permalink)

Best practices in communications around sunsetting products

Announcing the end of a product’s life is no fun but there come times when it has to be done. Unfortunately, communicating to current customers and the market in general is often overlooked or mishandled. My colleague Lisa Singer (@lisagsinger) provides these tips on what she calls a product marketer’s least favorite task.

Buyers don’t want your content

Lastly, also from the SiriusDecisions blog, my colleague Erin Estep (@eeestep) has a realization for business-to-business marketers that Buyers Don’t Want Your Content. As she writes, “organizations of all sizes are struggling to make internal changes so they can meet the ‘content requirements’ of today’s buyers. But buyers don’t want more content! They actually want less content, and more information. … While content strategy is important, it needs to be based on information that buyers are actually looking for, instead of thinking about content as an end in itself.” Read the full post and the discussion that follows.


Election lessons for product management; Hot Tweets; Use the phone to hone your messaging

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

What elections can teach us about competitive strategy

After months of campaigning, and billions of dollars spent, the latest round of US elections (presidential and other) is (mostly) behind us, and it’s a good chance to look back and ask — did we learn anything? Over on the SiriusDecisions blog, I argue that, beneath the griping about negative advertising, campaign spending, and over-focusgrouped talking points, there’s a bigger story of what elections can teach product managers and marketers about competitive strategy.

What’s hot on Twitter

Here are a few of my tweets which have generated the most interest over the past few weeks; to get these in real-time, follow me at @jefflash

  • Programmers who can talk to customers, marketers who can be technical have huge advantage over colleagues who can’t j.mp/RMBFa8 (permalink)
  • When you present a list of positive product attributes, buyers don’t add them up, they average them j.mp/Q2mr5V (permalink)
  • Don’t think research is a phase; it is ongoing. Prototyping is the way you learn. j.mp/RRBRF9 (permalink)
  • Good example of real-world bottom-up market sizing for a product idea j.mp/Q9i20Q (permalink)
  • WRITING a business case is the easy (and least important) part; what’s harder but more important is research which goes into it. (permalink)

Developing Marketing Messages? Turn to the Phone

I’ve written here before about how it’s important to speak in the language your buyers use, including leveraging common industry terminology and avoiding internal acronyms. But how do you make sure that you are hitting the mark?

My SiriusDecisions colleague Jason Hekl has a great post that describes one often-ignored approach — leverage your teleprospecting organization to improve marketing programs by listening to the language customers are using over the phone, and use teleprospecting calls as an opportunity to test variations on your message. As Jason points out, “the teleprospecting organization engages the most prospective buyers in actual conversations.”


Football, product launch, and what marketers should be doing

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Jeff Lash · 1 Comment

What can football teach us about product launch

We are well into American football season here in the U.S., and while I’m normally not one for sports metaphors, it struck me that football provides good analogies for how companies bring products to market. Many organizations struggle with product launch, ending up with ineffective and costly go-to-market failures. Similarly, some football teams run too many unsuccessful plays, struggling week after week to make any progress. See what you can learn from football strategy in my most recent post on the SiriusDecisions blog: Do you have a “Hail Mary” approach to your product launches?

How to handle a product launch failure

Speaking of product launch, Fortune had a great article recently on Hosain Rahman, co-founder and CEO of Jawbone, and the disastrous launch of the Jawbone product UP. Hosain Rahman’s beautiful failure is a refreshingly honest look inside why a product launch failed and how the company handled it and recovered.

Why cash Cows need market requirements and marketers need to go on sales calls

Back on the SiriusDecisions blog, there are a few specific postings from my colleagues which are worth mentioning. Pat McAnally describes how cash cow products need to be nourished, not just “milked,” and how to leverage the Market Requirements Document to help in that effort. And Megan Heuer provides an unfortunately much-needed reminder that marketers should be going on sales calls.

How to lie with focus groups

Lastly, if you’re like me and love some qualitative research humor, check out 7 Ways to Lie with Focus Groups.

 


Apple’s Gaffe; Taking Personas; and Zombies vs. Product Management

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Jeff Lash · No Comments

Welcome to the first post in the new How To Be A Good Product Manager blog format. Please email me your feedback or leave a comment below and let me know what you think of the format! Now, let’s get on to the good stuff…

Learning from Apple’s mistakes

Over on the SiriusDecisions blog, I posted on Five Lessons for B-to-B Marketers from Apple’s iOS 6 Maps Gaffe. If you’ve used iOS6, or been following the news, you know that the iPhone 5 launch has been overshadowed to some extent by problems with Apple’s new Maps app. What can you learn from this? Though it’s geared towards business-to-business audiences, it’s really applicable to product managers and product marketers regardless of the type of product.

From the How To Be A Good Product Manager archive

Speaking of Apple’s mistakes, I wrote about how product managers could Learn from the mistakes of the iPhone 3G S back in 2009 when it was released. It’s interesting to go back and read that post now (and the comments) and see what Apple has (or hasn’t) changed since then.

Product Management Talk: Personas

My SiriusDecisions colleague Marisa Kopec was the speaker/leader of this week’s Product Management Talk, focused this week on The Persona Based Approach To Effective Product Marketing. If you’re not familiar with it, #ProdMgmtTalk is a weekly Live broadcast with Twitter Chat. Here are some of my favorite tweets:

  • From @jefflash (that’s me!): Personas should be based on actual research with lots of buyers/users vs. stereotypes (gut feel; anecdotal example; relatives) #prodmgmttalk (permalink)
  • From @repossibility: Well-designed personas are the sales person’s best friend by showing what prospects think BEFORE they contact sales people #prodmgmttalk (permalink)
  • From @Convo_Craig: Targeting a specific persona and a well-defined problem they need solved aligns #prodmgmt #marketing and #sales… #prodmgmttalk (permalink)
  • From @jefflash (me again!): Big mistakes people make w/personas: thinking job title = persona; that personas are automatically reusable across products #prodmgmttalk (permalink)
Elsewhere on the web
Fellow product management blogger Christopher Cummings blends pop culture and product management in his entertaining blog. I especially liked this quote from his recent post Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies Vs. Product Management (and that title alone gives you a good idea of his writing style):

If you’re reluctant to kill a product because you’re in love with it, remember … Every product that hangs on beyond its shelflife represents loss of opportunity, loss of momentum, loss, loss, loss. And that’s if you’re lucky.

You could be giving your competitors an opportunity to gain market share and mindshare within your segment. Which could be the kiss of death.

In other news, Jason Brett’s presentation The 60 Second Business Case won Best Session at ProductCamp Atlanta 6 on August 18, 2012! If you were like me and weren’t there in person, you can still see what all the fuss was about and see the slides on SlideShare. I commented on Twitter that it really wasn’t as much about business cases as it was about portfolio management, to which Jason replied: “agree. It’s precisely about doing the most important things and explaining why those things are important.” If that’s not the essence of product management (and of a lot of work — and life), I don’t know what is.

In closing…

For more regular product management and product marketing thoughts and links, follow me on Twitter: @jefflash. And don’t forget to email me your feedback or leave a comment below and let me know what you think of the new blog format.

Until next time,
Jeff


Visit the archives for more product management tips.