How Product Managers can push back at an interview

Interviews are about persuading the interviewer(s) that you are the right person for the job. That you will be able to deliver the goods even when the going gets tough. A question that I like to pose to perspective Product Managers to determine if they can deliver in the face of adversity is:

OK here's the question - followed by a possible answer:

"What would you do if you were invited to a high level business meeting with the Sales Director, Head of Business Development, Director of Product Marketing, CEO and other senior stakeholders… The Head of Product Marketing gives a power point presentation on a new (on-line) product. The presentations concludes that the launch, of this new online product (that by the way is nothing like the company has done before) will be launched in three weeks time. After all, the CEO says, it's just another website."

What the interviewer(s) are looking for:

#How would you, as the product manager, manage upwards?
#Do you have the product management skills to communicate at the CEO/MD level?
#Are you able to push back in a diplomatic way?
#Are you able to manage expectations?

Suggested thoughts that need to be projected are as follows:
It’s important to be in tune with the commercial aspirations of chief executives and senior stakeholders. You need to demonstrate that you share the vision and will be an asset and not an obstacle to achieving the ultimate goal. However – and here comes the but – BUT you need to be able to positively steer the thinking towards realistic time frames and firming up on the unknowns [power point presentation are generally shallow]. Details need to be properly defined – here you have the opportunity to demonstrate [to the interviewer]:

• your skills in creating a road map –


• that flows into a project backlog –


• that divides down into a set of user stories -


• that can be estimated in terms of complexity and


• time to complete.

Sets of user stories can be grouped together as themes for a programme of sprints which will eventually give a picture of the size of the project. If your more acustom to a water fall enviroment then talk in terms of product plans etc...

Once all of this has been thrashed out you then have the ability to communicate high level estimates for the project and give feedback to the senior stakeholders. This then opens up another round of discussion regarding resources for the project:

• Who? (permanent or contract),


• When (do you need technical resources to assist in the research if research is needed) and


• How much does will it cost (different organisations have different approaches to recharges – central departments or each business unit having their own development team(s).

Ensure that you demonstrate your ability to balance your business and commercial acumen as it’s the combination of 'business sense and technical sense' that makes a good product manager. Remember organisations (and therefore processes) differ one from another - the interviewer will understand this - so it's the logical thought processes and stakeholder management skills you show when answering that determine if you give a satisfactory answer or not.

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From Software Engineer to Product Manager to Founder of SVPG - Interview with Marty Cagan

Marty Cagan has worked for several leading Hi Tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, America Online, and eBay. During his career he has performed most of the roles that are key to any technology company: product management, software development, product marketing, user interface design, usability engineering, technical writing, software testing, engineering management, and general management. Marty is a founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group a company that provides services that span the full product life cycle. He also authors a news letter that both informs and inspires. In this interview Marty shares his thoughts on Product Management.

1. What’s your academic background/training?
My education is in Computer Science, and I also did the Stanford Executive Business program. But my real education came from having the opportunity to work for and with from some of the best product minds in our industry.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was a software engineer at HP Labs.

3. Where did you work before you set up Silicon Valley Product Group?
I was previously SVP Product Management and Design for eBay.

4. What inspired you to become a product manager?
I learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter how great your engineering team is if the product manager doesn’t give them something useful to build.

5. How did you make the move from being a developer to becoming a Product Manager.
I found someone that I thought did this job really well, and he pointed me in the right direction.
6. What do you like best about the Product Management job?
Creating products and services that are used and loved by millions of users and customers.

7. What do you least like about the Product Management job?
So many people out there have no idea what product management really is. They think it’s marketing. Little wonder the vast majority of products and services are such dismal failures.

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
If you love technology like I do you can’t help but want to follow developments closely. Also, many of my friends and colleagues are leading engineers and architects and I constantly learn from them.

9. Describe the Product Managers job in one sentence.
This is the person responsible for discovering and defining a product that is useful, usable and feasible.

10. What’s your dream product to manage?
Been there and done that (and extremely grateful for it). Now I love to help others create their dream products.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do the Product Management job?

#1. Willingness and ability to engage deeply with engineers on technology – to understand what’s just now possible.

#2. Willingness and empathy to engage deeply and directly with end users and customers to understand their needs. Especially to try out your ideas on them and not let your ego get in the way of learning, adjusting and identifying the right product.

#3. Willingness to do whatever it takes to get that product shipped.

14. Product Managers come from different backgrounds: what advice would you give someone who wanted to break into Product Management who had an engineering background. How would that advice differ if they did not have a strong technical background?
(That’s a great question and one that I want to think more about and then probably write an article on for my newsletter, as many software developers talk to me about switching to product management. For the second part of that question, for people that aren’t technical, I happened to write about that in my last newsletter: http://www.svpg.com/blog/files/are-you-tech-enough.html)


15. Looking back, as a former Product Manager, what’s the one product (or product range) that has brought you the most satisfaction?
My favorite job ever was at Netscape as the Internet was just emerging. New technologies were being invented almost constantly, combined with daily interactions with developers and customers from startups and established companies all racing to learn how they could use the Internet to help solve long-standing problems. A great time to be a product manager.

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Interview Questions for Product Managers

Several months ago I spent a lot of time interviewing potential Product Manager and Lead Product Managers to head up a product team. Listed below are some common interview questions along with some that I hand crafted for the particular PM jobs being advertised at the time. There are no right or wrong answers for most of the questions. The purpose is to find out how a person will operate under different scenarios. I hope these questions will help any one who is preparing for a job interview as a product manager or going for a promotion to a Senior, Lead or Head of product Management position. Periodically I’ll post possible answers or should I say possible thought processes that your future employer could be looking for.

1. Where do you see yourself in three to five years time?
see Where will the product manager be in 3 years time? for my thoughts on how you could answer this question.


2. Why do you want this job?


3. What’s your greatest achievement to date?


4. How do you see the web (or the market space your in) 3 years from now?
   Read Where do you see your product in two years time? for two mini case study answers.
   
   
5. How would handle a senior business stakeholder that demands more than you can deliver with in a certain timeframe?
   # One thing not to do is to exercise your freedom of speech - but to think of all the possible options - read Interview answer to questions regarding demands on development resource for an outline answer to this interview question.
   
6. You, and your team, were involved in a successful launch of a new product that exceeded business expectations during its first phase - what would you do?
   # Read Interview Question: How Do Product Managers Handle Success? for a suggested answer.


7. What is more important to you: being liked or being respected? Why?
   
8. How do you handle stress? Read Product Managers need to reduce and handle stress
See link above for tips on handling this type of interview question.


9. Do you believe in processes? Is there ever a time when you think it’s acceptable to break an agreed process?
Read: 7 things the Product Manager needs to consider when bypassing processes


10. How do you keep up with new and emerging technologies and how do you access and get to understand their usefulness to your product range? see: How do Product Managers Keep up with Technology? for a suggested anwer and how others have Product Managers have answered this question.
    
11. Tell me about a project you have run or a product you have managed through its life cycle? Read How do you demonstrate that you can manage products for my thoughts on this question.


12. What would you do if you went to a high level business meeting with directors the CEO and other senior stakeholders… viewed a power point presentation on a new (on-line) product. The presentation concluded by annoucing that we aim to launch this new product in two months time?
    Read How Product Managers can push back at an interview for a suggested answer.

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Moving from Business Analyst to Product Manager to "Online Product Manager"

Andy wicks has worked as a Product Manager in two different industries. He currently managers a number of on-line products and services across a number of markets such as road transport and Human Resources. 1. What’s your academic background/training?
I went to university to study geography, but somehow came out with a Combined Honours degree in Computer Science and Business Administration. How that happened is still a bit of a blur really.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
For my sins I was a Business Analyst.
3. Where did you work before you worked for Reed Business Information UK?
I worked for 2 years at Alphameric Leisure, a small software house that provided solutions to the Betting and Gaming Industry (initially as a Business Analyst then a Product Manager). Prior to that I spent 3 years working for Ladbrokes.
4. What inspired you to become a Product Manager?
In a moment of madness I thought it would be challenge!
5. How did you make the move from being a Business Analyst to becoming a Product Manager?
I tended to enjoy interacting with people more than analysis so when the opportunity arose to temporarily manage a handful of products I took it. Luckily for me the company thought I was doing a reasonable job and made the role permanent – either that or the Functional Specifications I used to write were rubbish, one of the two!
6. What do you like best about your job?
Having the ability to work Product Management with some cutting edge technologies, and being able to help deliver these to the market.
7. What do you least like about your job?
When it all goes wrong!
8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
Google, Google and Google
9. Describe your job in one sentence.
The art of prospering between a rock and a hard place.
10. What’s your dream product to manage?
Online - it’s difficult to say as there are loads of products I would like to manage. It usually changes day to day and depends what side of the bed I get out of! Generally any of the major sports sites would be quite high up the list. Offline - it would have to be the Bugatti Veyron (as long as the job came with one as a company car and the petrol was paid for!)
11. How would you describe managing product development before you/your company adopted agile?
Luckily I joined the company just as agile was being implemented into the department. However if the short transition period was anything to go by it was hard work without a huge amount of delivery.
12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
Overall it’s increased the number of meetings I go to significantly, however the spare time I do have is better spent. I am able to focus on developing the products and (hopefully) drive online growth.
13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
The ability to communicate, negotiate and be patient. Also, being able to keep an outlook calendar up-to-date helps!
14. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Trust. Not being overly technical myself is probably an advantage as I have no choice but to trust the development team to find the best solution.
15. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Answer questions about being a Product Manager and travel as much of the world as possible
16. What’s the difference between being a product manager for a small company like Alphameric and a large organization like Reed and how did you find the move from being a Business Analyst (BA) to a Product Manager?
The difference between the two is massive – Alphameric produced products that were a mixture of hardware and software for a specific industry – at Reed I’m managing on-line products and services that span a number of industries. The learning curve was steep but you just have to role up your sleeves and get in there and do the job. The challenge of moving from being a BA to a Product Manger was more a cultural change combined with self discipline – at first I found it hard not doing all the analysis myself – I seemed to periodically switch to auto-pilot and revert back to my previous BA role – the change of mind set was the challenge. Also as a Product Manger (both at Reed and Alphameric) you need to have the wider view of the business in mind at all times as opposed to being a BA where I tended to focus on defined bite size chunks of work.

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Transition from Webmaster to Product Manager via Project Management

Daniel has over ten years experience working with on-line products in various capacities. He currently works for Reed Business information as a Product Manager for the aerospace product range.

1. What’s your academic background/training?I have a degree in politics - [which has got to be the ultimate qualification for a job in Product Management].

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?I was a Webmaster and then a project manager
3. Where did you work before you worked for Reed Business Information (RBI)?
Local goverment

4. What inspired you to become a product manager?In truth – it was the next logical step in my career at RBI.

5. How did you make the move from being a project Manager to becoming a product manager?
As a project manager I managed one or more projects and then handed the results over to someone else. I preferred to take complete ownership of the lif cycle of the product– something I didn’t get as a project manager – gradually the department expanded and opportunities arose and I naturally made the transition.

6. What do you like best about your job?The challenge and creativity involved in working with new technology and using these technologies to break new grounds and therefore offer increased a better user experience and ultimately with increased business benefit.
7. What do you least like about your job?The unpredictability and risky nature of working with new technology!

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?Google reader – RSS means that I can browse an incredible amount of information remembering it and using it is now the problem!

9. Describe your PM job in one sentence.I’m an online consultant to my business, translating business requirements into technical solutions in order to deliver business growth.
10. What’s your dream product to manage?Probably a Google product or a football website.
11. How would you describe managing product development before you/your company adopted agile?
Chaotic and prone to conflict – we didn’t get much done and we agued about it a lot.

12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
My day now has order & structure and as a result it has freed up the time I need to do the more important aspects of my job that was previously being neglected.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
Good communication skills, be a good motivator, be a diplomat and degree in politics.
14. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
See my answer above. It’s easy to stereotype developers and say they present a particular challenge. In reality, they’re just like everyone else, every individual and team is different with their own strengths and weaknesses.
15. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Sports, films and books.

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Interview with a Director of Product Management

The 4th Interview in the series is with the Director of Product Management at NetStreams – Paul Young. Paul is also the author of the product management blog: “Product Beautiful” and has a proven track record in product leadership, thought leadership and problem solving.

1. What's your academic background/training?
I have a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was a web-based applications programmer (Oracle, PHP).

3. Where did you work before you worked for NetStreams?
Before NetStreams, I was a Product Manager and Product Marketing Manager for Cisco Systems.

4. What inspired you to become a product manager?
I was one of those annoying developers who always asked "why?" "Why are we doing this?" I found myself talking to the Product Managers quite often. I also noticed that the Product Managers were the people that got to work with the Executive team most frequently and had an influence. I knew that I wanted to make a similar impact, so I strove to join that group.

5. How did you make the move from being a developer to becoming a product manager?
I was a developer for a web-based portal that Cisco's service customers used to check service requests and trouble tickets. The product manager for that product went on maternity leave and when she came back, moved to a different product. Because I was intimate with the product's features, I moved into that role. Later Cisco gave me additional services to manage (managed WAN and LAN services).

6. What do you like best about your job?
I like talking to customers! What I really enjoy is talking with customers who bought into our products because they solved a problem they couldn't solve any other way. That's cool - and profitable.

7. What do you least like about your job?
Ankle biters. That is what I call the little tactical things that you have to do to keep the lights on. Quarterbacking products for trade shows, explaining how the trade off process works to your sales team for the 82nd time, and handling hyperventilating Executives who think the sky is falling because of some new competitor.

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
I try to read a lot. I make heavy use of Google Reader to keep up with RSS feeds from favorite tech sites like Engadget. I also regularly read the other Product Management blogs that I link from my site, Product Beautiful. I am always amazed and humbled by the great thoughts and posts that other Product Management bloggers are creating.

9. Describe your PM job in one sentence.
Product Management is 50% strategy, 50% tactical, and 50% listening. Oh, that was supposed to be specific to my PM role...here goes... Directing the Product Management team at NetStreams is all about making sure that we fire the very limited development ammunition we have at the right targets in the market.

10. What's your dream product to manage?
I've mulled this over many times. In general, my dream product is something that is blazing a new trail, a product that is in a greenfield area where I can do real problem discovery and think about new problems being solved in ways that haven't been done before. I would really like to focus on a product that helps people in some way. Software as a Service (SaaS) seems like a wonderful model from a Product Management perspective, because of the ability to quickly adapt the product to new problems and experiment with low overhead. I'm always interested in how other Product Managers are reacting to agile.

11. How would you describe managing product development before you/your company adopted agile?
We haven't adopted agile, mostly because it is less applicable to mixed hardware/software products. The hardware gears turn more slowly than the software gears which can move very fast, but since we sell through a channel, our users can only accept software updates to their hardware so often. So agile would be counter-productive in our case.

12. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
Curiosity , Patience and Good Listening Skills.

13. What do you do when you're not managing products (outside interests)?
I try to keep up my health, so I run and play basketball a couple of times per week. Sometimes my wife and I get down to 6th Street to see my friend Mike Hoffer play with one of his many bands, like Calling Jack Burton (a great 80's cover band if you're ever in Austin).

Paul gives some insightfall comments on how to get along with the engineering/development team - and how to make the transition to from where you current are to being a product manager. Refer to the article"How to become a product manager and How to along with developers" for details.

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How to get along with the development team

Paul Young shares his thoughts on how Product Managers can get along with the development team.

You need what I call street cred. That means a couple of things:

first, you have to speak the language of development. Developers love to needle anyone they perceive as "marketing" (note: as a marketer you are automatically one-step above a dung beetle in the eyes of most programmers) and often times, they try to bully you! I've had programmers tell me my ideas were stupid, that they were never going to do that, that that feature would get into the product over their dead body, etc. Can you tell I've done a lot of turnarounds on Development-driven companies? You have to be able to stand tall against that pushback, and the Number 1 weapon in your arsenal is customer feedback - specifically statistically valid customer feedback.

Be able to show that you talked to a significant and representative portion of the market and most arguments will crumble before you. Second, you can't tread on their turf. It helps if you've been a developer in the past because you know what their turf is; but I'll try to explain it.

You own the "what." The developer owns the "how." You're not allowed to roll your eyes when they start going on about XML and relational databases and flash key frames and Ruby-on-Rails. Your only acceptable answer is "Wow, it sounds like you've thought about how to conquer this problem a lot. I don't get into the implementation of how to solve this problem, but it I'm sure that you and the team can apply some really cutting edge technologies against it!" As part of the same token, you can't go down the next day and complain that they chose a Java implementation when you really like .NET - you have to trust the team to choose the best tool for the job and the skill sets of the people doing the implementation.

I have seen lots of ex-programmer wannabe Product Managers fall down here, don't EVER get into a heated debate on the technology choice with the developers - you'll lose (and you should!).

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How to become a Product Manager

Continuation of the interview with Paul Young
What advice would you give some one who wants to move into product management?
Product Management is unique in that there isn't a well defined career path for a product manager, unlike operations or marketing. I don't know a lot of people who have intentionally sought out Product Management as a career, most people I know have "fallen into it." My best advice is to find a smaller company that is thinking about starting a Product Management group - it may be easier to break into than a large company. I also feel that being well rounded and having good business fundamentals are key.

If you're a developer, find some way to demonstrate your business savvy - you could even do this in your current job. Surprisingly few developers are "in tune" enough to understand the business and provide good trade offs; I'm dying for programmers who can tell me "I understand you want X, but how does Y work for you, it gets you feature a, b, c (but not d), at half the cost and time, and sets us up architecturally for the future." Instead of: "That feature will take 24 months."

If you're currently in a marketing or operations position, demonstrate that you can "speak geek." Since Product Managers are required to regularly interact with and negotiate with development, you need to be able to show that you have the street cred with the developers and that they're not rolling their eyes as you walk out and muttering "marketing idiot."

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Interview with an Ex AOL Product Manager

Brunella Russo has worked as a product manager at AOL – she currently works at Reed Business Information and has gained valuable experience in launching new products into untapped on-line market spaces.
1. What’s your academic background/training?
I have a BA (H) in International Business and a Msc in Information Systems.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was working in Luxembourg for a Financial Company in an Account Management/Client Support role.

3. Where did you work before you worked for RBI?
AOL and prior to that I worked for Schroders Investment Management

4. What inspired you to become a product manager?
The variety of the job

5. How did you make the move from being a Account Manager to becoming a product manager?I started as an Account Manager in a Financial company while studying for my BA. Once I graduated I was moved to London by the company to an e-marketing position, holding a role which was similar to the Product Management one.

6. What do you like best about your job?
The great buzz that this role gives and its variety. Also, it is a role which combines the best out of several different roles, from project management to consulting.

7. What do you least like about your job?
The fact that rarely the roles involves completed ownership of the product, which generally lies with the Business Owner (who has ultimate P/L responsibility).

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
By reading a lot on the Internet and getting the latest hints through friends and colleagues in the field.

9. Describe your PM job in one sentence.
Rather challenging but good fun!

10. What’s your dream product to manage?
Games or Disney movies/music :-)

11. How would you describe managing product development before you/your company adopted agile?
Far more difficult and less successful as the waterfall approach was not responding to the constantly changing needs of an internet-based company.

12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
With the adoption of agile development methodology the day is far more structured and organised both for me and the development team. There is also more visibility on the accomplishments that the team achieves and potential issues that might affect the development are spotted well in advance.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
Great communication skills, ability to quickly move from the little detail to the overall picture and vice versa and ability to work well under stress.

14. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Geekiness!

15. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Mmm… at the moment I ride my motorbike, dance tango, go to the Theatre and Opera, play volleyball, play guitar and cook a lot!

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Interview with Jeff Lash: Author of How to be a Good Product Manager

The second interview in the series is with Jeff Lash author of the blog "How to be a good Product Manager" - Jeff has a wealth of experience managing various on-line products and has produced a number of articles and podcasts on the topic. If you want to be good at product management continue reading Jeff''s interview.
1. What's your academic background/training?
I was originally interested in advertising and studied marketing in school. However, I had always had an interest in technology and computers, so I got involved in the (at the time) burgeoning world of online business. At the time, I learned a lot of what I did on the job -- everything from graphic design to server administration, back when one person could do all of those thing.

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I spent a number of years working in information architecture and user-centered (IA & UCD)design. I worked to help clients and project teams to better understand their users, their needs, and come up with products and interfaces that were useful and easy to use.

3. Where did you work before you worked for Reed Elsevier?
I worked in the Usability Services department of MasterCard International, working on various external-facing products and consulting with many internal teams on user experience design.

4. What inspired you to become a Product Manager?
I have always enjoyed the process of understanding customer needs and translating that into a well-designed product. I realized that if my ultimate goal was to build the best products possible, one way to do that was to be a user experience designer and help teams to accomplish that -- but another way to be in a product management position where I could achieve that goal from another angle. There were also aspects of the customer experience that I could better impact from the product management side rather than from a user-centered design position.

5. How did you make the move from (IA & UCD) to becoming a product manager?
A lot of the skills, techniques and methods learned and used by user experience designers are the same as the important parts of being a product manager. I was fortunate to work on a number of projects as a user experience designer that allowed me to understand and get involved in aspects of product management. Those gave me a much better understanding of -- and some great experience in utilizing -- the traits of a good product manager.

6. What do you like best about your job?
The most important part of product management is still my favorite -- spending time with customers, watching them use my product and competitive products, understanding more about their needs, and coming up with ideas to solve their unsolved problems.

7. What do you least like about your job?
There are small frustrations with any job. Probably the part I like least is the fact that there's always much more that I want to be able to do with my product than we can accomplish at one time. Product management -- and all management -- is about prioritizing limited resources. It's just a fact of the job, but there's a huge backlog of work to do that would benefit customers and ideally I'd like to be able to get it done today!

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
It's a challenge, the scale and speed of technology changes is increasing exponentially. I try to read as many blogs as I can manage, read general consumer and business magazines, and learn from colleagues. I try to use as many new web sites as possible -- I always sign up for the "notify me when this service is available" email notifications, since there's too many to remember. As much as I try to stay ahead of the curve, though, I can't keep track of everything. My feeling is that if something is really going to be important, I don't need to be the first to find out about it, since I'll probably hear about it soon enough if enough people are talking about it.

9. Describe your Product Management job in one sentence.
Understand customer needs, figure out ways to meet those needs, work to get those solutions implemented, and provide and communicate them to the market.

10. What's your dream product to manage?
There isn't one specific one. My products -- MD Consult and First Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com/) -- are used by physicians around the world every day to answer their medical questions and improve patient care. It's very gratifying to work on a product and for a company that has such an impact on the lives of so many people all over the globe. My "dream" product would probably be something in that same realm -- something that can have a real impact on the most basic aspects of people's lives around the world. The computer developed out of the One Laptop Per Child project ( http://laptop.org/) is the first thing that came to mind.

11. How would you describe managing product development before you /your company adopted agile?
In a few words -- less efficient and productive. There was more of some things -- more unnecessary documentation, more process for process sake, more overhead -- and less of others -- less communication, less trust, less effective working relationships. We got projects completed and created good products, though it took longer and was more painful than it needed to be.

12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
I'm much more involved with our engineering team on a day-to-day basis. I know much more about what's going on with the product and with projects in development at any point in time. I don't think it's any more or less time consuming than any other process, though I feel like my time is much better spent.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
Integrity, communication, and curiosity. Without integrity, you can't galvanize support from the various different departments and groups who need to work together to create and keep developing your product. Communication goes along with that: keeping people on the product development team informed, keeping your stakeholders engaged, promoting the benefits of your product internally and externally -- these are all essential and often-overlooked aspects of the job. Curiosity is crucial to help you understand the real roots of the issues your customers are going through, why they like/dislike your or any other product, or why a technology is being used in a certain way. With the iceberg metaphor, curiosity is what helps you discover the 90% of an issue that's below the surface.

14. What's the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Respect. If you don't respect their skills, experience, and knowledge -- if you're constantly trying to overrule their technical decisions or arguing with them about issues that are really their responsibilities -- then you'll never get any credibility. At the same time, if they don't respect you -- if you don't spend time with customers, if you don't have a vision for your product, if you keep changing your strategy -- then you'll never get anything accomplished.

15. What do you do when you're not managing products (outside interests)?
I try to keep my blog How to Be a Good Product Manager updated on a regular basis. I've been biking a lot more lately, and when I get a chance, I like to play Wii -- it's an amazing product and so well designed. I love Nintendo's strategy of letting Microsoft and Sony fight it out for the hard-core gamers while they went after the much bigger market of non-gamers (like me). I never was big gamer, but the more I play Wii the more I am impressed by it.

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Interview with a Product Manager

*What’s it like being a Product Manager?

*How do you become one?

*What attributes do you need?

*And what do you need to be able to get on with your development team?

This is the first in a series of interviews with people who have successfully moved into the Product Management arena. Matt Rowe is a Product Manager currently working in online publishing with in the chemical market.

1. What’s your academic background/training?
Australian equivalent of the British A levels which is basically a high school certificate/diploma, external courses and lots of reading!

2. What did you do before you where a product manager?
I was a business/ systems analyst (BA) responsible for specifying and implementing SQL core development and bespoke applications.

3. Where did you work before you worked for RBI?
Monster / TMP Worldwide

4. What inspired you to become a Product Manager?
I had spent seven years in the same company and had little chance of furthering my career any further. I applied for a job as a BA at the Guardian – was interviewed by a Product Manager. His explanation of what he did left such an impression on me that I decided that Product Management had to be my next job.

5. How did you make the move from being a business/ systems analyst to becoming a product manager?
Studied a few methodologies combined with a lucky break.

6. What do you like best about your job?
Seeing ideas become a reality – I get a sense of real of achievement and job satisfaction.

7. What do you least like about your job?
Not always having enough resource.

8. How do you keep up with the latest technologies?
Google (RSS) reader and pub talk.

9. Describe your Product Management job in one sentence.
Continual challenges, ever changing and always rewarding

10. What’s your dream Product to Manage?
Guardian Unlimited it’s an award winning web site. They take a common sense approach to software development – they also know how to keep things simple and effective.

11. How would you describe managing product development before you where introduced to agile?
I’ve always taken a common sense approach, so agile just reinforced this giving more structure to the SDLC.

12. How has using agile (scrum) changed your working day?
More focus on the planning.

13. What would be the top three attributes you need to do your job?
To be confident, but not cocky, focused but flexible.

14. What’s the key attribute you need in order to work with the development team?
Clarity (and a sense of humour :-) )

15. What do you do when you’re not managing products (outside interests)?
Sleeping !

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Keeping Product Management Simple and Efficient

Product Proliferation and complex ordering systems
I know I want one but I’m not quite sure which one - was the constant thought of customers who wanted to buy our cutting edge, world beating system products.
Each product had a number of options designed to solve every conceivable problem– however along with every conceivable option came a complex (and long) order code, that if mistyped would result in you receiving a product that would not quite be fit for purpose.

How not to make it easy for your customers to do business with you The customer was then faced with the challenge of working out the complex order code (an order code designed by engineers for engineers). The order codes where not problematic in the early days when we produced a handful of system products but we soon became the victims of our own success as the product range rapidly grew , become more and more popular but consumed a lot of man hours to manage. Sales order processing often made mistakes copying the complex order codes from a fax into a spread sheet before they emailed it to the manufacturing plant (70+ mile away) to be build. The order code on the spread sheet would be re-keyed into a database prior to the hardware being built tested and shipped to the customer.
The results of a complex system
Often a system integrator was responsible for building and configuring the system at the customers site and would find out half way through the project that there would be subtle feature(s) missing from the products – usually as a result of either the incorrect order code being quoted in the fixed order or the complex order code being mis-typed somewhere along the line. This would result in an angry customer contacting the company and demanding that the products be either swapped out or that a customer support engineer come and reconfigure the firmware and/or hardware on site (which could be anywhere in the world). The net result to the company:

• Loss of reputation,
• Possible loss of repeat orders,
• Decrease in ROI,
• Frustrated sales team,
• De-motivated workforce and an
• Over stressed product manager.

Consulting the user(s) when implementing no-brainers
Some of the answers to the above problems are no-brainers to define but very difficult to implement. One of our main competitors had similar problems with order codes and decided to simplify them for the customer (with out any consultation)- this ended up alienating those system integrators, who often would be responsible for defining a solution and placing orders, that had taken the time and energy to learn how to navigate around the complex order code system. This caused some of them to look else where for a solution provider.
What the expert says
No wonder Ron Ashkenas writes, in his article Simplicity-Minded Management in Harvard Business Review’s December 2007, that Product Proliferation is one of the causes of unnecessary complexity in organisations. He states that:

“Each innovation has a ripple effect throughout the enterprise, requiring changes in manufacturing and the supply chain, pricing, marketing materials, sales and service training, and so forth. What’s more, most large organizations are better at adding new products and services than they are at pruning, so the SKUs mount. The resulting complexity is difficult to manage – and can be troublesome for customers, too.”

Lessons I learnt was to keep everything that surround the product as simple as possible and therefore make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

See also: How to keep Product Management Simple and Effective

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How to keep Product Management Simple and Effective

Product Managers who work in organisations where needless complexity tend to be less efficient than those who work in companies who have simplified processes, procedures and best practice.

I worked for a company sometime ago that was able to produce ground-breaking cutting edge products, but found it difficult to put in place the most basic processes and workflows, needless to say I spent a lot of my time fighting to do the simple things in life.

I’ll be publishing a few blog post over the coming weeks on organisational complexity and simplicity and what product managers can do to assist in turning the complexity (processes and workflows etc) into simplicity and therefore boost productivity and be able to focus and give more time to the important matters in your product management work-life i.e. deliverables (strategic planning, high value projects, meeting deadline…).

E-mail Causes Complexity with in Organisations
But for today I want to have a rant on by pet subject: “email” or should I say the abuse of email! (Tackling the constant flood of e-mails that consumes much of my working day is one of the things I aim to do better in 2008).

Ron Ashkenas in his article Simplicity – Minded Management list email etiquette or lack of it as one of the causes of a company being unnecessarily complex. He writes:

“When you send a large number of people a message that discusses issues many of them don’t need to know about, you’re just burdening your colleagues with low value information that distracts them from important matters.”

I’m sure we’ve all experienced being CC(ed) in on pointless emails and have spent much of our valuable working-day ploughing through emails ensuring that someone has not buried an illusive request or piece of information that could be critical if not attended to.

Likewise I’m sure we’ve all been in meetings where critical issues are being discussed, with colleagues that work in the same office, and you hear those irritating words – “I sent you an e-mail” usually it’s the extra-long email that was sent to half the company – the bit pertaining to the product manager was buried somewhere in it. The email sender never thought to pick up the phone or come and see you in person about the issue. I often wonder if such people would handle their personal business (moving house, transferring large of money between bank accounts) with out following through with a 1 to 1 or a phone call illicit feedback.

Tips on handling E-mail
Brian Lawley in his podcast “How to Get Twice as Much Done in Half the Time” gives a number of good tips on how to be more efficient with your time – ironically managing e-mail is the first topic he deals with. Brian gives several email pointers:
1. Check email 3 times a day – not throughout the day.
2. Separate work and personal email
3. Turn off email notifications – when the alert pops up on your screen it a) interrupts your chain of though and b) tempts you be drawn away from the task at hand to read/answer the e-mail.
4. Process e-mail rapidly & empty your inbox
5. Keyboard short cuts – helps speed up using outlook.
6. Read large emails that need thought and a long response at a set time.
7. Turn emails into tasks by dragging the email into the task bar.
8. Avoid jumping into long and controversial threads – 50% of long threads burn themselves out.
9. Clear your inbox out – leave it empty – by close of business every Friday – it’s sure to leave your head clear for the weekend – knowing that you are returning to work on Monday morning to an empty inbox.

What I’ve experienced so far.
So far this year I’ve adopted number 4 and 7 and it has helped to keep things simple and boost (albeit by a small percentage) my over all productivity. I’m not convinced that all of the nine pointers that Brian mentions are appropriate to all product managers – however it’s always worth reviewing and challenging your own working practices to see if they can be simplified before attempting to simplify your teams, departments or companies working practice.

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What Product Managers could do differently in 2008.

What you would do differently in 2008

Harvard Business Review went out on the streets of Boston and interviewed a number of individual and asked what they would do differently next year. Listed below are the key points that managers in the Boston area said.

• Stop procrastinating and be more efficient with their timelines.


• Work harder


• Work less


• Be more assertive


• Find a seconded career


• Make use of their resources and go out and better understand the market and really relate to their clients


• Balance work and home life – be more efficient at work


• Work harder – work smarter and be more considerate with their clients

For me – my immediate aim for 2008 is to efficiently manage the constant flood of e-mails that consumes much of my working day. What’s yours?

The full video interview can be seen at 2008 workplace resolutions.

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