EL-SIG: How Engineering Works with ProdMgmt

How Engineering Can Work Better with Product Management
Rich MironovApril 21, 2011

About Rich Mironov
CEO of a stealth startup
Veteran product manager/strategist/exec
Business models, pricing, agile
Organizing product organizations
“What do customers want?”
Author of “The Art of Product Management” and Product Bytes blog
Founded Product Camp, chaired product stage at annual Agile conferences

Agenda
3
Sharing: your good and bad product management experiences
What does a product manager do, anyway?
Agile product managers, agile product owners
7 ways to help your product manager

Sharing Your Good And Bad Product Management Experiences

Agenda
5
Sharing: your good and bad product management experiences
Agile product managers, agile product owners

What Does a Product Manager Do?
For commercial / revenue software…
PM drives delivery and market acceptance of whole products
PM targets market segments, not individual customers
For strategic internal development…
PM resolves competing priorities
PM drives acceptance and adoption

Product
Management
Executives
Development
What Does a Product Manager Do?
strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps,competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,
targets
market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, MRDs,
personas, user stories…
Field input,
Market feedback
Mktg & Sales
Markets & Customers
software
Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos…

Product Mgmt Planning Horizons
many years
Exec
Strategy
years
Portfolio
many mons
PM
Product
2-9 mon
Release
Dev
Team
Sprint
2 wk
Daily

Pragmatic Marketing® Framework
Dir, Prod Strategy
Prod Mktg Mgr
Tech Prod Mgr
BusinessPlan
MarketingPlan
Positioning
Pricing
Market Problems
Customer Acquisition
BuyingProcess
Market Definition
Buy, Build or Partner
Win/Loss Analysis
Customer Retention
Buyer Personas
Distribution Strategy
Product Profitability
Distinctive Competence
Program Effectiveness
UserPersonas
Product Portfolio
Business
Market
Programs
Planning
Strategy
Support
Readiness
Business
Market
Programs
Planning
Strategy
Support
Readiness
Innovation
Competitive Landscape
LaunchPlan
Require- ments
Product Roadmap
Presentations & Demos
SalesProcess
Technology Assessment
Thought Leadership
UseScenarios
“Special”Calls
Collateral
Lead Generation
Status Dashboard
EventSupport
SalesTools
Referrals & References
ChannelSupport
Channel Training
© 1993-2009 Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved

Nature of PM Role
No natural sequence for PM
Must work all aspects in parallel
Entire planning onion
Intensely interrupt-driven
Bottoms-up shapes top-down, top-down shapes bottoms-up
Product Management must provide strategy, judgment and integration as well as execution

Good product managers drive decisions despite uncertainty and contradictory goals

“How Hard Could It Be?”
Imagine that I create a two-day seminar for “Senior Enterprise Software Architects”
Anyone can enroll
We talk about enterprise architecture
All attendees get a “Senior Enterprise Software Architect” certificate
Are they senior architects?

Agenda
13
Participants: good and bad product management experiences
Agile product managers, product owners

Disjoint Communities
Product Managers
Agile Community
Nearly empty, very lonely

Discussions about Agile…
Part philosophy and religion
Part process, tools, techniques, methods
Part organizational design

Why Not Waterfall?
Requirements and estimates
Design
Coding and
unit test
System integration & QA
Operation and maintenance
Waterfall projects rarely deliver according to plan

Agile’s Inner Loop (Development)
After: Mike Cohn

Agile’s Strategic Outer Loop (PM)
Markets
Customers
Biz Models
Strategy
Portfolios
Funding
Customers
Sales
Marketing
Support
Upgrades
EOL/EOS

Product Owner’s Calendar
Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

product
owner
Executives
Marketing/Sales
Customers
Development
“small p” product owner
priorities, requirements,
personas, user stories…
software

Product Manager Failure Modes
Solo Product Manager fails the agile team if…
Part-timer, not fully engaged in team
Lack of detail on stories, acceptance tests
Stale items in backlog
Handwaving and bluster
Best of intentions, but pulled in too many directions
“Build what I meant”

Product Owner Failure Modes
Solo Product Owner fails the market if…
Weak onreal-world value: pricing, packaging, upgrades, servicemodels,discounting, competitive dynamics
Disconnected from cross-functional teams(Marketing, Sales, Support…)
Belief in rational users and accurate ROI
Trading off company-wide product strategy for product-level features
Assuming that a few customers at showcase (demo) represent the market

Agenda
23
Participants: good and bad product management experiences
Agile product managers, product owners

7 Good Ways to Help Your PM
Ask about use cases and customer problems
Don’t demand PMs as technical as you are
Not every user story gets its own ROI
Expect PMs to translate features into customer-relevant benefits
Ask about forecasts, shipments and revenue
QUIETLY sit in on some customer meetings
Channel your inner Product Manager

Contact Information
+1-650-315-7394
rich@mironov.com
www.mironov.com/articles/
@RichMironov
www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov

How Engineering Can Work Better with Product Management
Rich MironovApril 21, 2011

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EL-SIG: How Engineering Works with ProdMgmt

by Rich Mironov on Apr 27, 2011

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EL-SIG: How Engineering Works with ProdMgmt — Presentation Transcript