In this talk, Alex discussed some parts of being a Product Manager, more specifically, how to be as effective as possible and the importance of learning by your mistakes.

1. How Does the Product Role Change
Between Firms by Zuora PM
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8. Alex Prokhorenko
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

9. How Does the Product
Role Change Between
Firms
Olexandr (Alex) Prokhorenko
www.linkedin.com/in/white
Product School 8/8/2018

10. Enterprise Product
Management:
10+ Reasons Not To Do It
or...

11. Olexandr Prokhorenko
Director, Product Management
Zuora Platform, Pricing & Rating
olexandr@prokhorenko.us
www.linkedin.com/in/white

12. Moving From Engineering To Product
ManagementI’m an Engineer (by trade)
Built companies (telecom, B2C)
Started in B2B Product Management
Was hyped by B2C Product Management
Now in Enterprise Product Management
Killing my “entrepreneurial bug” by investing

13. Thoughts are my own and should never be
taken seriouslyThis is me, as an individual, expressing thoughts and beliefs,
telling stories and sharing passion about building great
products with people that care.
Not of my company. (Past or present)

14. "Excuse me, who are you?"

15. How to break-in?
Aside from the academics (MBA) path, most people I know:
- Joined as an established subject domain expert
- Took ownership over end-customer facing assets
- Assumed very technical, inbound role
* me

16. Product Role Differences
in the Enterprise Product
Management

17. #1. INBOUND and OUTBOUND
Product Impact
Quality
Usability
Adoption
Supportability
Delivery
Backlog
Velocity
vs
Market Research
Positioning
Packaging
Launch
Revenue
Product Direcion
Field Enablement
Analysts

18. #2. Product Agility
1. Expensive to release (eg. less of iterative, testing-based development >
more of getting things “right” and as close to the requirements,
because the cost of new release is heavily taxed for enterprise)
2. Multistep adoption (eg. Business Processes > Integrations >
Migrations > Enablement > Compliance)
3. Long time to kill (eg. Support (different tracks for support contracts)
> Migrations > Expansion (per and post-EOL) > Renewals > Platform-
as-a-Service > Field Alignment)

19. #3. Productization vs Customization
1. Professional Services is a necessary evil
2. Excess product customization leads to burnout
3. Customization culture is damaging for product features
targeting larger markets
Professional
Services Goals
Product
Obstacles

20. #4. Limited Access to the Front Line
Your product penetrates multiple user
personas (Sponsor, Buyer, User, Champion,
Reviewer, ...) for the single account.
You, as PM, are “shielded” from the
customer interfacing with multiple layers of
“relationship and communication
facilitation” managers, and subject to a bias
in user study and gathering requirements
process.

21. #5. Build Product but Sell Vision
Efforts: How to Build > What to Build
Result: Great Technology < Vision of the Future
It is a lost deal :(
Vision & Best Practices
This is what customer buys

22. #6. Monetization (is real)
1. Pricing is high
2. Sensitive indirect monetization (can’t “sell your customer”
without consent!)
3. Pricing and packaging can be complex

23. #7. Biased Customer Insights
1. Limited opportunities to collect customer insights
2. Data bias - millions of signals vs a handful of data points
from your customers

24. #8. Heavy on Stakeholder Management
1. Build relationships by exchanging information, set
expectations, share culture
2. Over-communicate
3. Align with cross-functional teams agendas
4. Be present all the way through your product lifecycle

25. #9. Competition
1. Harder to get hands on with the
competitor’s product
2. Befriend market research firms: Gartner,
Forrester, MGI
3. Magic Quadrant: the Good (common
denominator), the Bad (black box, under
representment), and the Evil (bias
towards investors, rather than buyers)

26. #10. Tolerance to Ambiguity
Ambiguity is a “doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention”.
You are expected to:
1. effectively cope with change
2. shift gears and correct course
3. make a decision without having the
total picture
4. comfortably handle risk and uncertainty

27. #11. “NO” HAS ITS PRICE
1. “Listen, listen, understand, know” before rejecting anything
2. Don’t play zero-sum game
3. Don’t fall into tailor-made product features
4. Demonstrate the value without disruption of the product roadmap
5. Be systematic and transparent in your decision making
6. Be wary of the real price of rejection and temptation to avoid
rejection

28. #12. A Life Thereafter
What’s next?
1. Exposure to a larger set of inefficiencies = product validation
and market fit
2. Harder to enter markets and opportunities
3. Network building to team up vs. build something user wants
and they will come
4. Hiring bias: enterprise vs consumer

29. Summary

30. CONSUMER v. ENTERPRISE: WHOM DO YOU
SELL?
Consumer PM builds a product
to be bought and used by a user.
Enterprise PM builds a product
to be bought by a buyer and used
by a user. Hint: sell to both
(BOGO!).

31. CONSUMER v. ENTERPRISE: WHAT DO YOU
SELL?
Do not build enterprise products using a consumer playbook.
The job of a great enterprise product is to follow “the rule of
lazy” thus to enable marketplaces and grow ecosystem, but don’t
build everything yourself.
Avoid expensing your understanding of market dynamics in
favor of the “end customer” user research.

32. CONSUMER v. ENTERPRISE: HOW DO YOU
BUILD?Don’t get excited with agile too fast. Agile’s short-term focus can make
it very difficult for the Field teams to align and close that next
multiphase and multi-year deal or key strategic partnership.
Holistic and hybrid approach wins: long-term plan and vision for
strategic planning; and culture of flexibility and agility in the details
and tactical approach.

33. So what did you learn today?
1. Acknowledge difference
2. Is it for you?
3. Homework: get an org chart and find all teams that lack
but could benefit from PM representation. Nominate
yourself.

34. Thank you! Oh, and do you still want to talk to
me?
To: olexandr@prokhorenko.us
Subj: Product School: drop everything and respond
immediately!
I, <name> as a Product Manager, want to know how to <do
something>, so that I can <reach my goal>.

35. Part-time Product Management Courses in
San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New York, Austin,
Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, London, Toronto
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