Product managers work with tech makers to solve business problems. If there is no PM role in the company, then different teams and individuals can use PM tricks to approximate the function. This deck reviews high level tricks for each phase of product development. It also explores the special case of prioritization, a PM function that is not easily owned by other teams.

1. Product Management for
non Product Managers
AKA How to Work with Tech Makers
to Solve Your Problems
By Isaac Souweine
Presented at a
May 16, 2015

2. What is Product Management?
UX
BUSINESS
TECH
PM
Source: http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2011/10/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager/

3. What is Product Management?
Def. 1 - PMs partner with
technology and design to solve
business problems

4. What is Product Management?
Def. 2 - PMs help the company
decide WHAT, WHY, and
WHEN of product development

5. What do PMs do?
1. Identify Problems or Opportunities
2. Brainstorm Solutions
3. Define Success
====Prioritization====
4. Define Solutions
5. Develop Solutions (driver = engineering + design)
6. Launch Solutions (driver = marketing)
7. Assess Performance

6. Q: But what if there aren’t
any PMs?
A: Find ways to get PM work
done without specifically
assigning the role.

7. Teams who can share PM work
1. Founders
2. Engineering
3. Design
4. Marketing
5. Individual feature requestors

8. 1/2. Identify a Problem/Solution
● With data
● With user feedback (know your users!)
● Based on company strategy
● Based on copying other people
● NB - This is the easy part! Everybody has
ideas about problems for tech to solve.

9. PM tricks for Problem/Solution
● Idea backlogs
● User surveys
● User research
● Brainstorming
● Get tech makers involved!?

10. 3. Define Success
● What is the KPI?
● What’s your guess on how it can move?
● What’s the ROI if it moves in that way?

11. PM tricks for Defining Success
● Know your metrics!
● Understand how product can drive metrics
● Dashboards - push, pull, public
● NB - Orchestrating data culture probably
needs to be someone’s job.

12. 4. Define the Solution
● What does it do?
● What does it look like?
● What does it say?
● How do users find it?
● How do users master it?
● What systems does it connect to?

13. PM tricks for Defining the Solution
● Google Docs (make content public)
● Specs
● Spec wikis (archive)
● User stories
● Wireframes
● Story trackers (Pivotal, JIRA etc.)
● Developer input!

14. 5. Develop the Solution
● Final graphics
● Front end
● Back end
● Instrumentation
● NB - This is the HOW of product development.
The tech makers should drive it.

15. PM tricks for Developing the Solution
● SCRUM
● Interface reviews
● Spec adjustments
● User Acceptance Testing
● Formal QA
● On call support
● Shameless hustling
● Chocolate

16. 6. Launch the Solution
● On site promotion
● Email promotion
● Social promotion
● Paid promotion
● PR
● User education
● Stakeholder education

17. PM tricks for Launching the Solution
● Stakeholder updates
● User training
● Test launches
● Beta periods

18. 7. Assess Performance
● Did it work?
● Why or why not?
● What’s next?

19. PM tricks for Assessing Performance
● Solid, reliable data
● Microsoft Excel
● Smart analysis
● Meetings
● Slides
● NB - If you did your job right up til now, this
part should be easy.

20. What do PMs do?
1. Identify problems or opportunities
2. Brainstorm solutions
3. Define success
====Prioritization=====
4. Define solutions in detail
5. Develop the solution (driver = engineering + design)
6. Launch the solution (driver = marketing)
7. Assess performance

21. Prioritization is Unique
● In theory, individual projects can be PM’d by anyone, or
by a group of people sharing the load.
● But prioritization is about choosing between lots of
projects that aren’t easy to compare and that touch very
different parts of the business.
● So if you don’t have a PM to run prioritization, you need
someone with authority and a global view to do it.
● Or you could just hire a PM :-)

22. Isaac Souweine | @sonofsarah