Becoming a Product Manager

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Beth Linker on February 10, 2009 at 6:50pm

The Pragmatic Marketing web site is a great resource for learning about product management.

Without knowing more about how your company defines releases and manages requirements, it's hard to give specific advice. You talk about focusing your team's development efforts - one place to start is with a product roadmap that lays out the major goals and features for the next few releases. If your company doesn't have one, or has several and doesn't exactly follow them, creating a roadmap and getting buy-in from the other leaders in the company will help get your team focused.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Davey on February 10, 2009 at 7:19pm

I second the vote for Pragmatic Marketing. Start with their well-trusted framework and do a gap analysis. There's probably lots of areas you can move into without treading on toes and increase your product marketing role and ultimately become seen as the natural choice to take over other areas of the chart from your colleagues.

There's lots of great stuff available on the 'net...
- How to become a Product Manager
- The Top Product Management Blogs

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Locke on February 10, 2009 at 7:32pm

Why do a job that isn't all that important. Beware! Careers go off the rails when you move from core to pheriphery.

What you really have is a culture problem. You will have to change the culture of your organization. It has to be "product-manager ready." How reliable is your estimation process? What does your requirements processes look like? What do you think the product manager does? Who will the product manager report to? Do you have project managers? Program managers? A minimal marketable feature portfolilo? A customer portfolio? Does sales separate their hunters from their farmers? Does your company capture its increasing return? Some don't. Many don't. Do you have a VP of Marketing, or does Sales totally hate that idea? Are you in a market where professional services are relevant? I know you have professional services, but they are relevant to a particular market and not subsequent ones. Sales alone might work until late market, commoditization, or recession, then it gets bleak.

Do you have a replacement for yourself ready to take your job? Are you ready to give up that staff menality and move to a line job. Or, if you already see yourself as being in a line job, are you ready to give up authority and get things done without it. Hopefully, you already have influence, but how much of that influence with staff is just due to your job title? How reactive are you right now?

The way to become a product manager is like anything else, read everything, joing organizations, go out and meet other product managers, take a certification if you believe is such things, and then just do it. It will mean seeing things other than code as being important. Some product managers manage the bug list, the backlog, this, that, and the other, still, never grasping the scope of the job. Everything that touches the offer is part of your job. That includes the mundate shipping, AP, and AR. That includes marketing that doesn't generate sales leads. That includes all customer communications. It's a big job, and you have no power, execept the power you earn through enablement. You'll have to make decisions without running to the CEO, because the question needs to be answered now, not next week. If you've always asked permission, hopefully, that isn't the case, stop that. Get forgiveness, just get it done. I don't know what your organization is like. I don't know where the problems will arise for the product manager. They will arise. They probably already have, because if you've been out pushing for it, you're defining it, without knowing what it is. Fun.

Just dive in. Let go. Don't keep doing the same thing you've done.

Why on earth take a job that pays less and will be a commodity soon? There comes a point where you are overqualified to be a product manager. You are probably beyond that point right now. If by dev manager, you don't mean dev exec, then ok. Maybe you can do the work without taking on the job title, but the conflict between line, staff, authority, and influence will get blurred.

The product manager won't solve the problems inherent in the structure of your organization. a product manager is usually hired, because the CEO wants to shead that responsibility.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Akins on February 11, 2009 at 12:17am

One of my responsibilities is to manage the dev roadmap. One of the things I think a product manager should do it figure out what needs to be on the roadmap.

I'm familiar with the Pragmatic Marketing site. Right now, I feel like the list of things I could be doing is so large, that I'm hoping for a few tips on where to start.


Beth Linker said:

The Pragmatic Marketing web site is a great resource for learning about product management.

Without knowing more about how your company defines releases and manages requirements, it's hard to give specific advice. You talk about focusing your team's development efforts - one place to start is with a product roadmap that lays out the major goals and features for the next few releases. If your company doesn't have one, or has several and doesn't exactly follow them, creating a roadmap and getting buy-in from the other leaders in the company will help get your team focused.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Akins on February 11, 2009 at 12:18am

Thanks for those links. I had forgot about the Gap analysis framework. I'll read through that more carefully.

John Davey said:

I second the vote for Pragmatic Marketing. Start with their well-trusted framework and do a gap analysis. There's probably lots of areas you can move into without treading on toes and increase your product marketing role and ultimately become seen as the natural choice to take over other areas of the chart from your colleagues.

There's lots of great stuff available on the 'net...
- How to become a Product Manager
- The Top Product Management Blogs

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Akins on February 11, 2009 at 12:22am

Wow, there were a lot of questions in there :-)

This isn't about me changing careers. It's about me being able to start building some of those tasks into my area of responsibility. No one else is doing it and I'd like to have those job functions in my part of the organization.

Beginning a "grassroots" efforts to highlight the importance/relevance of product management seemed like a possible starting point.

David Locke said:

Why do a job that isn't all that important. Beware! Careers go off the rails when you move from core to pheriphery.

What you really have is a culture problem. You will have to change the culture of your organization. It has to be "product-manager ready." How reliable is your estimation process? What does your requirements processes look like? What do you think the product manager does? Who will the product manager report to? Do you have project managers? Program managers? A minimal marketable feature portfolilo? A customer portfolio? Does sales separate their hunters from their farmers? Does your company capture its increasing return? Some don't. Many don't. Do you have a VP of Marketing, or does Sales totally hate that idea? Are you in a market where professional services are relevant? I know you have professional services, but they are relevant to a particular market and not subsequent ones. Sales alone might work until late market, commoditization, or recession, then it gets bleak.

Do you have a replacement for yourself ready to take your job? Are you ready to give up that staff menality and move to a line job. Or, if you already see yourself as being in a line job, are you ready to give up authority and get things done without it. Hopefully, you already have influence, but how much of that influence with staff is just due to your job title? How reactive are you right now?

The way to become a product manager is like anything else, read everything, joing organizations, go out and meet other product managers, take a certification if you believe is such things, and then just do it. It will mean seeing things other than code as being important. Some product managers manage the bug list, the backlog, this, that, and the other, still, never grasping the scope of the job. Everything that touches the offer is part of your job. That includes the mundate shipping, AP, and AR. That includes marketing that doesn't generate sales leads. That includes all customer communications. It's a big job, and you have no power, execept the power you earn through enablement. You'll have to make decisions without running to the CEO, because the question needs to be answered now, not next week. If you've always asked permission, hopefully, that isn't the case, stop that. Get forgiveness, just get it done. I don't know what your organization is like. I don't know where the problems will arise for the product manager. They will arise. They probably already have, because if you've been out pushing for it, you're defining it, without knowing what it is. Fun.

Just dive in. Let go. Don't keep doing the same thing you've done.

Why on earth take a job that pays less and will be a commodity soon? There comes a point where you are overqualified to be a product manager. You are probably beyond that point right now. If by dev manager, you don't mean dev exec, then ok. Maybe you can do the work without taking on the job title, but the conflict between line, staff, authority, and influence will get blurred.

The product manager won't solve the problems inherent in the structure of your organization. a product manager is usually hired, because the CEO wants to shead that responsibility.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by allan kelly on February 11, 2009 at 12:03pm

I often say that one of the reasons UK software companies are not as successful as their American rivals is because, on the whole, they don't understand Product Management. The role doesn't exist, or its confused with Project Management, or it is filled by a Business Analyst. The output of the role is similar to a BA how it is done is completely different.

So, I whole heartedly support your initiative of engaging with the role.

Again I'll point you at Pragmatic, you might also want to do some reading. Although as I'm often heard to say, there are not that many good books on Product Management. Some suggestions:
- Crossing the Chasm
- The Inmates are Running the Asylum
- Sorry for the plug but to save my typing here my blog on the subject
http://allankelly.blogspot.com/2008/12/books-for-product-managers.html

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael House on February 11, 2009 at 6:47pm

Depending on what aspect of products you are thinking of managing (IE the development or production) you can delegate certain duties to outside companies if you see fit. I would say this lies more on the production side than the development side.

Ive known of many companies that try to stick to their core competency of designing the software and outsource the financial and ordering duties to someone like Avangate and the production and distribution to companies like Acutrack.

Either way you do it you have to have trust in the people you work with.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Adriana Iordan on March 4, 2009 at 8:29am

Recently one of my colleagues attended a presentation at Stanford on "Product Discovery" by Marty Cagan, the author of the book "Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love" and former product executive for some of the biggest technology names out there: Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, America Online, and Senior Vice President of Product Management and Design at eBay.

Read the interview with him on product management for software:
http://www.avangate.com/interviews/marty-cagan_15.htm and his articles and blog http://www.svpg.com/articles/articles.html (highly recommended).

Adriana

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ben Johnson on September 3, 2009 at 12:48am

Recommending a good book for you to follow up on (I know, I know, a little old fashioned in this day and age of iPhones and Kindles) -- the Product Manager's Field Guide by Linda Gorchels, a bestseller of course. Each and everyone who has responded has some great ideas for you, those I would have suggested, as well. I would also suggest researching a typical product manager salary, along with all of everything else (pay is important, though not everything). Good luck!

• ▶ Reply