This document discusses lessons learned from successful partnerships between Product Managers (PM) and Product Marketing Managers (PMM) from Zendesk's Director of Product. It identifies common challenges like lack of alignment on problems and measure of success. It outlines the typical range of tasks for PMs like roadmap and feature prioritization versus PMM tasks like launches and messaging. Benefits seen include different ideas generated and focus on work not roles. Questions are provided to strengthen PM-PMM relationships like investment in the relationship, role understanding, and overlap opportunities. Alignment and reducing handoffs while keeping the customer central is advised.

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Lessons of Successful Partnership Between PM
and PMM by Zendesk Dir of Product

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5. @carolinehynes
Caroline Hynes
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8. Engineering Product Design
Program PMM Biz Ops
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Advocacy
PRODUCT TEAM
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Products Billing / ITCRM Ent. Data
SUPPORTING TEAMS
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CUSTOMERS

11. Lack of alignment on problem to be solved
Measure of success differs
Unclear roles and responsibilities1
2
3
Some
reasons for
challenges
between
PM & PMM

13. Positioning & Messaging
TACTICAL STRATEGIC TACTICAL
RANGE OF TASKS
Sales Enablement
Campaigns
Competitive Analysis
GTM Planning
Revenue
Roadmap
Team Alignment
Prioritisation & Tradeoffs
Product & Feature Reqs
CUSTOMERS
PRODUCTTEAM

14. ‒ Tech Roadmap
‒ Feature Prioritisation
‒ Feature Development
‒ Team Alignment
‒ Billing
‒ Security / Compliance
‒ Cross Product
Collaboration
PM SHARED PMM
RANGE OF TASKS
‒ T1 Launches
‒ T2/T3 Launches
‒ Customer-facing
Roadmap
‒ Monthly Launch Posts
‒ Customer Analysis,
Segmentation,
Reporting
‒ GTM
‒ Messaging
‒ Campaign
Coordination
‒ Sales Enablement
‒ Competitive Analysis

16. - Brene Brown
Only when diverse
perspectives are included,
respected, and valued can
we start to get a full picture
of the world .
“ ”

17. Deliberately part of the Product
Leadership team
Part of all the communication channels
Very clear roles & responsibilities
but still room for a little grey area to learn and change
What could you do differently to improve the
relationship?
1
2
3
What
we’ve tried

18. Different product ideas being generated
No time spent talking about “that’s my role”
focus is on the work to be done to build & communicate
product
Aligned messaging on our product up &
down the organisation
1
2
3
Benefits
we’ve seen

20. How much time have you invested in your
PM/PMM relationship?
How well understood & agreed are the roles &
responsibilities?
Where is the strategic sweet-spot for
PM/PMM overlap in your organisation?
Can you create some shared success
metrics?
Consider
Before you
go

21. How can you increase alignment & reduce
handoffs?
Identify strengths/weakness/areas of interest,
regardless of role
Keep the customer at the heart of everything
you do
Consider
Before you
go

22. @carolinehynes
Thank You

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