The slide deck we use at Balabit to introduce the product team and product management in overall to newcomers as part of their onboarding.

1. Product culture at Balabit
…and your role in creating products

2. WHAT MAKES A PRODUCT
GREAT?
● for the user
● it fulfills a real, deeply-felt need
● works as expected, and perhaps even better than expected
● for the vendor
● it targets people they are able to and want to reach
● it brings enough value for the users to make it commercially
viable to sell
● technologically possible to deliver

3. WHAT IS OUR GOAL AS A
SOFTWARE VENDOR?
Bringing outstanding
revenue for the
shareholders?
Leading the industry with
technology innovations?
Building security products
customers love?

4. BUILD GREAT PRODUCTS, AND
EVERYTHING WILL BE EASIER
● customers will want to buy
● if you solve a real problem for real users, you salespeople will have a much easier job
convincing customers
● partners will want to sell
● you have something everybody needs and loves – who wouldn’t want a slice of the
cake?
● end-users will be happy
● you are solving their problems and making their lives better – they will put up with the
small bugs you have
● you can choose the best technology for the solution
● you can focus on the tech stack you need for that given product and solution and
create something extraordinary there

5. BUT
● people need solutions to
their problems and not
technology
● hard to let go and change
directions if needed
● harder to be agile
TECHNOLOGY IS THE
FOUNDATION
● world-class developers can do world-class
things
● superior technology can indeed lead to
superior products
● good tech is a big advantage on the market

6. BUT
● creating something that can
be sold to 10,000 customers
is better business than
doing specials for one who
has the $$$
● the customers don’t always
know what they want
● playing catch-up with
competitors is not a winning
strategy
WE MAKE MONEY BY
CREATING GREAT
PRODUCTS
● shareholders want their profits (the capitalist
bastards!)
● we have to listen to the customers: we have to
go where the money is
● talk is cheap – if someone’s willing to pay, we
need to pay attention

7. PRODUCT MANAGERS
What are they doing, anyway?

8. QUITE A LOT, ACTUALLY
Business & strategy
Technical
Marketing

9. FIND THE RIGHT
PRODUCT
BUILD THE RIGHT PRODUCT
BE THE CEO OF THE PRODUCT
TASKS IN A NUTSHELL
01
02
03

10. FIND THE RIGHT
PRODUCT
TASKS IN A NUTSHELL
01
● talk with customers & other stakeholders
● know the market, the trends and the competition
● know the technology possibilities

11. TASKS IN A NUTSHELL
● create a vision & strategy and get everyone on board
● start and track its execution
● work every day with developers, sales and marketing and help
them with their job
BUILD THE RIGHT PRODUCT
02

12. TASKS IN A NUTSHELL
● coordinate work amongst departments
● represent the product outside the company: events, large sales
accounts, PR
● represent the product inside: reports, budgets, headcounts,
strategies all need the product perspective
BE THE CEO OF THE PRODUCT
03

13. PM? PO? WTF?
Product Manager Product Owner
• responsible for features and
execution
• available for the dev team
• focuses more on technology
• …but still knows the market, the
users and talks with sales &
marketing
• several POs per product line
• responsible for high-level vision &
strategy
• is the CEO of the product
• focuses more on users, sales and
marketing
• …but still knows about tech
possibilities
• one PM per product line

14. OTHERS IN THE PRODUCT TEAM
● VP of Product
● mythical person, leader of the team, representing product in the C-suite
● User eXperience designers
● help us understand humans, not just bits
● documentation team
● so that we can tell users to RTFM
● community management
● there are over 1 million places where syslog-ng is installed – that’s a
nice community to build on

15. IS THE PM MY BOSS?
● probably not.
● they aren’t
● devs
● marketers
● salespeople
● nobody reports to the PMs, especially not the dev team
● (OK, POs do report to their PMs, but that’s everyone)
● product is a separate team under the VPoP

16. GOOD PRODUCTS DEPEND
ON EVERYONE
Your role in product management

17. WE NEED ALL SIDES

18. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IS NOT
A WATERFALL PROCESS!
● 8 out of 10 new features are failures.
● Seriously. Everywhere. Nobody cares about 80% of the stuff we create.
● the good news: the other 20% will make up for it
● Agile development is not enough!
● Change the relationship with customers!
● understanding over negotiations
● cooperation over contracts
● open communication over self-defense
● fast iterations over detailed specs

19. HOW CAN YOU HELP?
● keep your mind on the goal
● always remember that our goal is to make great products customers
love
● gather ideas and feedback
● you are the eyes and ears of the company: tell us what you see
● keep an open mind
● you are the ones who know what’s possible
● do your part
● be that development, marketing, sales or back office, you play an
important role – make sure we can count on you

20. Questions?
Leading the industry
with our technology
innovations
Building products
customers love
Bringing
outstanding
revenue for
the
shareholders