Product Management and Knowledge Sharing

Sources of knowledge for Product Managers: knowledge within people.

If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times as profitable stated CEO Lew Platt.

Companies where knowledge exists in discreet islands (business units or departments) seldom benefit from the synergy of everyone knowing what everyone else is up to and even more important sharing of experiences with one another.

I worked for a company several years ago that had half a dozen R&D labs located around the south of England. Each lab was pretty much a business unit in its own right. Product Managers were located with the R&D teams. This meant they we were close to where the products were being designed and had the opportunity to monitor progress and get close to the technology. The company then took the decision to move all Product Mangers to a central location – this was aimed to help us all share cross product knowledge. Then it moved us back with the R&D teams and finally, just before I left it centralised us again. The point is where Product Managers should sit as to best facilitate knowledge sharing.

My current company, up until recently, had all the Product Managers sitting at one end of the office and the development teams sitting in their product groups occupying the rest of the office. A few months ago we had a total reshuffle, principally due to the fast pace of growth resulting in the number of people joining the technology department.

Now the Product Manager teams sit among their development and test teams. This has improved knowledge sharing and has promise of improving productivity. It will also aid in the new agile scrum methodology that we are adopting.

The implementation of scrum (an agile development method) also promises to improve knowledge sharing as product owners meet for sprint planning and sprint review meetings. The daily 10 to 15 minutes sprint meetings also means that fresh snippets of market knowledge will be periodically and informally fed directly to the development teams. This can only aid in ‘the team’ gaining a better understanding of the markets.

Knowledge sharing is important for the profitability, success and ongoing growth of products.

I will report more on scrum and the knowledge sharing benefits as time goes on.

• Do you have any experience in scrum fostering knowledge sharing that has resulted in improved products or features?


• Where do Product Managers sit in your organisation – among the developers or some where else?

Please feel free to post a comment or two.

See: sharing knowledge for more information regarding the benefits or knowledge management and product management.

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What Your Leader Expects of You

The latest copy of Harvard Business Review landed on my desk this morning. As usual I took a look at the contents page to see what topics April’s edition would be dealing with, and lo and behold the top article was “What Your Leader Expects of You”. I had just published a blog article ("...what is expected of them?..." ) that covered this topics a few days ago. I turned to the article with the view of comparing Larry Bossidy’s (the articles author) thoughts with mine.
The following is a summary of what Larry (who has held a number of CEO/COO positions at companies like Honeywell and GE ) expects from his direct reports

Get involved –
Know when and how to step in and sort things out.

Generate ideas –
Product ideas as well as ideas to improve business processes and solve problems.

Be willing to collaborate -
Not getting on and not communicating with others not only diminishes your performance but threatens the performance of others in your team or network.

Be willing to lead initiatives -
Don’t run away from challenging projects. Good organisations and good line managers recognize and reward those who are prepared to step forward and take on difficult tasks.

Develop leaders as you develop -
Do not be selfish; be interested in the careers of those you work with especially those who report directly to you. Do not be vague over what you require from them.

Stay current -
Keep up to date with world events and developments as well as local events – after all our products are designed to be used in this world and it’s the world that shapes our communities where our businesses operate and have to sell into.

Anticipate -
If you don’t stay current you will not be able to anticipate what's going to happen. If you can not anticipate, where is you’re next killer application/feature going to come from.

Drive your own growth -
Take control of your own ‘continued professional development’. Ask for feedback from peers on your performance. Read good material – watch good TV programmes , meet new people and be willing to tackle risky projects that stretch your abilities and help you to grow.

Be a player for all sessions -
Be able to apply all the above in the good and bad times. We all need to be able to perform when the pressures on and the business environment is not favourable.

Larry’s article goes on to discuss what he expects from his direct reports. Ironically this is something that I have on my road map to do. To date I’ve asked my direct reports what they expect from me – I think comparing the list of expectations will be interesting reading. I’ll let you know how I get on in a future posting.

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Good TV viewing for Product Managers

In general I tend to avoid watching too much TV. However there are a handful of programmes that are not only entertaining but also help stimulate the mind and can even help improve your performance as a Product Manager.
My first choice is Dragons Den. I’m always interested at the various business/product propositions that people come up with. But I’m even more interested at how they defend themselves as they are cross examined by the dragons on the content of their elevator pitches.

I’m always keen to listen to what Richard Farleigh has to say principally because of the amount of investment and his keen interest in young startup technology companies.

It seems to me that any entrepreneur planning to face the dragons or any product manager planning to pitch funding for a new product or feature should brain storm and come up with all the obvious – followed by all the possible questions that could be asked. It’s always a shame to see a potentially good idea get turned down because you didn’t have the answer to the few questions. Lets face it most questions asked are quite reasonable and the majority of them could have been predicted.

My second choice is ‘The Apprentice’. Apart from the negative traits in human character that emerge as a result of competing for the prize of a job with the master of entrepreneurial product development. The program identifies many character traits that would be of benefit to anyone aiming to be a successful Product Manager:

• The ability to work in a team with people who may have their own agendas and/or a different end goal in mind.
  
• The ability to tackle a range of tasks at a moments notice.


• Leading with out authority.


• Getting buy-in from those you work with.


• Being held responsible for the actions or lack of actions of others


• Having to think outside of the box and come up with a result with in tight deadlines.


• Knowing that the competition is always close behind you or in front of you.


• Being right or even winning is not always good enough – ask runner up of the last series Ruth Badger.

I hope no one reading this blog ever has to hear those infamous words "I'm out" or even worst still “You’re fired”.

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What do Product Managers do? What is expected of them? And how not to become overwhelmed?

The answers to the first two questions above depends much upon the organisation, its size, the department ‘Product Management’ lives in your company and the industry sector that you work in.

One thing is certain regardless of company demographics the job of the Product Manager can be overwhelming - a view shared by comments made by pragmaticmarketing.com review on Alyssa.S Dver book ‘Software Product Management Essentials’ – a good read for all new and up-and-coming product managers.

Being overwhelmed is bad news for everyone: company, product and the Product Manager. So as a Product Manager it is essential to understand what your stakeholders expect of you and to share with them what you expect from them. It’s a good idea to map this out and identify any possible conflicts. Areas of conflicts that need to be resolved quickly either via your line manager or directly with the people involved. I’m half way through this exercise: I solicited feedback from all my key stakeholders: MD, line manager, business owners, e-marketing etc... The results of the first three are listed below:

Managing Director

• A clear understanding of the online strategy of each of the products in my portfolio.


• A clear understanding of the key commercial drivers of each online business and more importantly what drives them.


• A close relationship with the key people driving our online businesses. And through those relationships become an integral part of the online businesses you support.


• The ability to communicate clearly and effectively on technical and development matters. Give clarity where there is confusion and doubt.

Line Manager AKA Head of Web Solutions Group

• Stay positive and take ownership.


• Communicate proactively and openly with me, your colleagues and our stakeholders.


• Raise issues affecting your performance, the performance of our group and the performance of our products.


• Highlight risks and potential mitigation strategies.


• Suggest solutions to problems.


• Come up with ideas on how we can improve our department and products, and how we can grow revenue.


• Take the initiative to develop your skillsHelp your colleagues to develop their skills.


• Have fun at work ?

Business Owner (Responsible for P/L)

• In depth understanding and knowledge of the product you manage.


• Understanding of and empathy with the commercial requirements.


• Identifying issues and finding solutions before they become a problem.


• Being innovative - suggesting new solutions and approaches that will benefit the site and it's users.


• Being a solution finder.


• Prioritising the major issues.


• Communicating complex issues in a manner that non-technical people understand.


• Acting as a facilitator between commercial departments and the IT/IS department.

As mentioned in the introduction – what you do as a Product Manager and what is expected of you depends on where you are working and what you are working on. Typical Product Management activities include:

• Managing the brand.


• Responsibility for the profit and loss (P/L) of the product.


• Being the internal and external product champion.


• Generating sales leads.


• Writing product specifications and business requirements.


• Being the liaison between sales and technology teams.

..and list goes on. The Silicon Valley Product Group has produced two articles that have dealt with the function and roles of the Product Manager: Titles, roles and responsibilities - and Where should Product Management Live.

The key point for any new or up and coming product manager is to identify what is expected of you– what you expect from others and then go about to remove any potential areas of conflict .

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Project Manager or Product Manager what’s the difference?

I sat down a few months ago with our HR recruitment officer – I began to sketch out the type of person we needed to fill the role of a Product Manager. The recruitment officer asked the question – what’s the difference between a Project Manager and a Product Manager?

He posed the question because he had just placed a Project Manager in another department and had a few CVs of people who had applied for the post of Project Manager and might fit the position of Product Manager.

I began to explain the difference and then thought ah a simple analogy will suffice.

A Project Manager is like a midwife – he/she will deliver the project and then moves onto the next one. The Project Manager cares for the product up until the point when the product is delivered – then hands the responsibility over to the mother - their job is done. Where as the Product Manager is akin to the mother he/she conceives the idea, runs with it for many months, through requirements gather, development, test and UAT, goes through the painful exercise of bringing that product to market and then supports it until it is made obsolete. The Product Managers job is never done!

Question: if the Project Manager is the midwife the baby the product and the Product Manager the mother then who is the Father?

Share your thoughts.

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Calling all veteran, new and up and coming Product Managers

Welcome to my blog – I’ve thought about setting a blog up for some time – in fact I did set one up at the beginning of the year – started blogging – got real busy at work – didn’t make a post for several weeks and then found that it had gone! So I thought the next blog I start will be on a subject that I’m passionate about and will therefore be easy for me to keep up-to-date – so here it is my blog all about Product Management.

I’ve done Product Management in one form or another for several years for a few high tech companies that operate in areas such as: robotics & control systems, video signal processing equipment and now a worlds biggest B2B publishing company (as an on-line Product Manager).

I’m currently leading a small team of Product Managers and test analyst and am in the process of recruiting additional Product Management and test resource. So my blog will be a running commentary on issues, successes, failures, comparisons between industries lessons learned and anything else that can help those new to product management or those who want to move from one discipline into Product Management and those who have been doing it for sometime and what to share their experience with others.

I will consider this blog a success if it helps anyone improve their performance in their role as a Product Manager or to make the successful transition into Product Management.

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