Tralfaz

Category: Product Management

  • Product Marketing/Management Partition

    I have started this blog posting several times, and have been diverted each time. It is a complex topic, and it almost seems like heresy, but I believe it needs to be said.

    There has been much said on the roles of Product Management, and Product Marketing. There are firms who have well developed frameworks, and extensive training to help you get to a “good” state. In particular, I am familiar with the Pragmatic Marketing work, and the Blackblot BOK*. Both have similarities, and both are profoundly helpful. But…

    The first But…

    Perhaps for me, it goes back to when I started in product management. There really wasn’t a BOK to draw upon. There was literature, but the vast majority in the pre-Google days was centered on packaged consumer goods, and product managers were much more like General Managers of a business, or business unit (today, they would be better described as “Brand Managers”). Enter the tech world. I was a new product manager, climbing a steep curve. I had to know my markets. Cold. I had to know the dynamics of my business. Cold. I had to know my product inside and out. I had to know enough of the technology to talk to the engineers (hint: It was electron microscopy. I.e. lots of physics, quantum mechanics, E&M etc). I had to be the point of sales enablement. There was no segmentation of the role. No partitioning. No delegation of the responsibility. It was just me. Sure, I had peers, but they all had businesses to run. We all learned together, and we all eeked out path forward.

    So, when I see a framework where the role is partitioned, I am immediately skeptical. Not that it is a bad idea. Lord knows that the all in one product manager is a tough place to be. But there is comfort with having all the bits and pieces within grasp. When I see a recommendation to split the role into two, I worry about how each half will work together to make the whole picture.

    The second But…

    Can you be successful at only half of the role? This is a question that really bends my mind. To me, the Technical Product Manager (or product manager), whose role is mostly limited to the bottom-left portion of the Pragmatic Framework (below the descriptive bar, to the left of Programs) is really not a product manager. Sure there are some meaty tasks, knowing the competitive landscape, assessing the technology, managing the roadmap, but it is commonly held that this role delivers and hands off a product to the product marketing manager (or product marketer), who then owns and drives the business aspects (GTM, positioning, pricing, promotion, sales enablement etc.)

    The theory is that the product marketer will hand down to the product manager the input from the market, direct VoC feedback, a semi-prioritized set of features. In return the product manager then cranks out the detailed product development plan and cycle. A pretty thankless job, if you ask me.

    The product marketing manager then is responsible for all the interesting parts of the job. The marketing component, including win/loss, Go to Market strategy, distribution, pricing, business case building, the market problems, and much more.

    Blackblot breaks this down a little differently, essentially calling the product marketer as handling all the inbound data flows, processing and passing them to the product manager, who creates requirements, and drives the development process.

    Either model leaves me thinking that the parties are not whole.

    If the product marketer is completely disconnected from the nuts and bolts of the development process, their understanding of core competencies is incomplete, as well as their understanding of the team’s capacity, capabilities, and past performance. This leads to some pretty wild miscommunications and mis-set expectations of deliverables. I have often seen this manifest itself in promising more than can be achieved, and then being stunned/angry/indignant when plans go awry.

    On the other side of the fence, if the product manager is insulated from the business and marketing aspects of the organization and product, then they are like the boy in the bubble. This leads to a disconnect, disenchantment, and disfranchisement.

    Compounding this, is the fact that the two roles will often report into two different organizations (marketing, and engineering are common), with different comp plans, and most importantly incompatible objectives set. Thus while their success is often so intertwined, they are paid on such orthogonal metrics, that neither will be inclined to help the other be successful

    The way forward:

    It is my belief that there is plenty of work to justify two different people for these roles. But to manage towards success, it is critical that they are not insular. Your product manager needs to have some skin in the game on the inbound marketing-like activities. Likewise, the product marketer needs to have some shared experiences in the trenches. This helps them understand why their preferred prioritization may not make it into the product plan. Also, it helps them understand the dynamics of the development team, the process, and gives them a fuller view.

    Lastly, and this is for a mature organization, I believe that both roles should report to a single leader. Splitting their allegiances to two departments will dilute their mutual goals, and purpose. They both need to have visibility into the other’s objectives, and ideally have some skin in the game. If you have product management and product marketing at odds, you have a truly dysfunctional team.

    Summary

    To steal a page from Hewlett Packard, “Product Marketing is too important to leave to Marketing” rings true. Yes, it is marketing, but it is really a component of product management, and the goal is to build kick-ass products, that delight customers, are easy to sell, and are widely applicable. The Pragmatic framework offers a great guide, and having the three chief roles they talk to, marketing, product marketing, and product management is important, more crucial is to have all parties on the same page, rowing in the same direction.

    To me, that is what defines a great product management organization. Do you have it? What are you doing to get there if not?

    The future will bring a post that describes how to develop each role to peak efficiency

    —

    • BOK = Body of Knowledge

  • Awesome Customer Support – Bose

    A lot of people have complained that Bose is over priced for what you get, and that their quality isn’t that high. But I beg to differ.

    Back in 2004 or so, I got a set of Bose QC-2 headphones for my birthday. I was doing a lot of international traveling, and the headset was a godsend. No, it didn’t eliminate all noise, but it really reduced the jet engine noise, and make listening to music on 12 or 13 hour flights bearable. Of course, I took them everywhere. Probably 500K miles total.

    Lately, I have been using them in the office, to give me some uninterrupted peace and quiet while working. They are great (if a little battery thirsty).

    My well used Bose QC-2's finally bite the dust.
    My well used Bose QC-2’s finally bite the dust.

    Yesterday afternoon, the left ear cup parted ways with the frame. Boo. Geoff very sad. I was majorly depressed, and went back to listening to my earbuds, a much less satisfying experience.

    This afternoon, I figured, what the hell, call Bose support. So I call their support line, get a person almost immediately, and explain the issue. He was super friendly and helpful, and after identifying my model, and the serial number (I was in their system, because a couple years ago, the foam ear cup pads were falling apart, so I ordered a new pair).

    They can’t fix them, but they gave me a 60% discount on a new pair of the QuietComfort 15, two steps up from my current set. I said, let’s go for it. I am expecting a UPS label to ship the current ones back to them on their dime, and once they get confirmation that they are in transit, they will ship my new ones to me.

    So, I wasn’t looking to spend that much money, but I am glad to get a new set.

    Thumbs up to Bose support.

  • Blast from the Past: Kawasaki Bighorn 350

    On my way home every day, at a trailer park there is facing the road a motorcycle trailer with something that is from the deep past. A Kawasaki Bighorn 350cc “enduro” bike. A friend in high school rode one, and we gave him a ton of shit for it.

    Starting in the early 1970’s Japanese off road motorcycles started redefining the dirt bike experience in the US. Prior to that, you had a lot of heavy, ill tempered, and unreliable European bikes. Jawa’s, Greeves, CZ’s, Maico’s, and Bultaco’s were the bee’s knees. But they were heavy, mostly poorly handling monstrosities.

    350cc's, disc valved, two stroke
    350cc’s, disc valved, two stroke

    Then came the Japanese. Starting with Suzuki, but soon Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki all had credible offerings. Motocross was never the same after.

    Then the Japanese tried to increase the market by building a series of “dual purpose” or on/off road bikes. These were really bad, by and large. The Yamaha DT400, the Honda XL350, and the Kawasaki Bighorn 350 were all touted as “commute all week, race on the weekend”, but the reality was that they were lousy on road bikes, and truly abysmal off road. The street legal “trials tires” coupled with too soft suspension, and motors that buzzed like a banshee made them skittish at highway speeds. Off road?  Well, I hope you had good health insurance.

    I got a chance to ride the Kawasaki Bighorn. It was modified (it had better shocks and stiffer fork springs), and had real knobbies, but it was still an evil handling, handful of a motorcycle. Fortunately I lived through that experience.

    I think about stopping and asking if they want to sell the bike, but then my brain starts working again, and I realize if I am going to restore a classic, it isn’t going to be a “Pighorn”

     

  • A cool thing about being a product manager

    Being a product manager is a high stress, diverse job. Every day will certainly be different. However, it also affords some cool moments. Doing strategic planning, I need to read and study what is happening at a macro scale in the world’s economy (I am by no means an economist, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night), and this means that I get to read a lot of different things.

    Friday, my task was to learn about China’s 12th 5-year plan, how that could affect spending on scientific instruments, and what that means to us. One of the stated goals of the plan was to begin the transition from an economy of makers (manufacturing for export), into a center of design excellence (the innovators). That is well and truly on the way, and has been reflected in the activity we see in the market.

    But, beyond reading the text published, I got a chance to read some analyses of the plan by the American think tanks, and investment banks. Some interesting facts come to light in their analyses.

    FOr instance, one of the goals is to shift to a more consumption led economy (where their population buys more of what is produced, instead of sending that overseas via export.) FOr this to happen, wages for laborers must rise, and more migration from the rural to the urban centers is required. But wage inflation also brings price inflation. Furthermore, since there isn’t a very robust security net (the average set aside for a worker in their version of Social Security is < $500USD), these wage increases are being pumped into savings (the average Chinese worker saves more than 30% of their earnings), thus hampering the desire to get the economy headed towards a consumption based model.

    And I work at making microscopes. Cool day.

  • Typical Product Marketing day

    I am often asked what a typical day looks like. It is hard to describe in general, because one of the things about being a product manager is that I get tossed tasks, and crises all the time. So, what does a day in the life look like?

    Rinse, lather repeat, a process that goes on indefinitely
    Rinse, lather repeat, a process that goes on indefinitely

    7:30AM – Arrive. Check email, find an urgent request to do a competitive analysis of one of our products with a down market competitor (clearly inferior, and a less complete solution to boot). Deliver that to the requesting sales engineer by 8:30.

    ~ 9:00AM – Dive into strategic planning homework.

    ~9:10AM – R&D director walks into cube. There is an issue with a component of our main under development project. We discuss for some time (seems like hours). Turns out to not be a big deal, but I am glad to be made aware.

    ~ 10:00AM Back to the strategy work. Research US R&D funding forecasts, and what the effect of the Budget Sequestration will have on funding (and hence the pool of money for many of our customers to buy our products). Fortunately there are lots of good, poignant analyses to wade through. Soon I have 60+ pages to read.

    Noon – Lunch time. Had to run home to turn out the hounds (My wife is out of town).

    1:00PM – meeting with marketing to discuss the new product introduction schedule. Surprise, it lasted a full hour plus (scheduled for 30 minutes)

    2:00PM – meet with our ERP engineers to discuss the additions and deletions to the ERP system (part numbers, prices, ECO’s etc).

    3:00PM – 5:00PM meet with R&D to discuss our bets for the future. Spirited discussion.

    Run home and walk the dogs. Feed them.

    5:00 – 6:30 – Backlog planning with our overseas development team. Glad I made this one (I do make most of the calls) as some key decision points were at hand.

    6:30 – ??? Catch up on email, my news reading, and finally fade into bed at 9:00

    Today will be entirely different. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  • Ratty cars

    I get that some people view their cars as transportation. My dad is that way. You wash it once a year, mainly to get the birdshit off of it. Heck, he had a 56 Porsche Speedster that had totally oxidized paint before he sold it to a kid down the street (one in pristine original condition is worth about $250K today).

    If you have a camry, or an accord, or a Taurus, or any of those generic interchangeable cars, I can understand not having any pride in your ride. If I see the clear coat peeling, or the paint totally delaminating from the zinc undercoat, no big deal. In a few years you will be sending it to the crusher and replacing it with another interchangeable car.

    Ratty CarBut, it you buy a premium car, you have a duty to keep it in decent shape. Wash it frequently (preferably hand washed), waxed 2 or 3x a year, and if you have a soft top, clean/treat it. But all too often, I see premium cars that look beat to hell. In my neighborhood there is an Infinity G35 that looks as ratty as a 20 year old Ford Escort. Or the newish Lexus RX350 that has minor collision damage. Don’t fucking tell me you do not have insurance to get that shit fixed.

    I could go on and on. I know I live in the desert, and the sun can be hard on a finish, but with a modicum of care you can keep it looking decent for 8, 10, 12 years or longer.

  • Driving idiots

    I am fortunate to live 7.2 miles from the office. A straight shot down a main artery, I can make it into the office in 12 minutes, as long as I time it properly around the kid dropoff at the two major elementary schools on the way. The lights are timed, and if it keep it to 1 – 2 mph below the posted speed limit, I can often stop only once.

    Seems pretty ideal, living in a place where 10 months of the year I can drive top down on my S2000, and really enjoy it.

    However, being that I live in a state with some of the worst drivers imaginable, Arizona (where your driver’s license doesn’t need to be renewed until you turn 65), I get to see some really dumb crap done around me during the drive in.

    First, those who turn left to enter the drop off area at the school. They LOVE to run red lights and block the intersection. I dare say that your kids are safer walking to school (like I did until I could afford a car in High School) than you trying to not wait one more light change.

    Next up are the idiots who feel the need to cut across three lanes of traffic, to pas one more car, and only to be 2 cars closer at the next red light.

    Then there are those cars that apparently don’t have blinkers. They just move into your lane, without warning. Fortunately, my years of motorcycling has taught me to assume I was invisible, and to always have an escape path in the event of an incursion.

    Lastly, those who are too busy texting to drive, or to even go at a red light.  They are easy to spot, and unfortunately, it seems to be an exponential increase in practice.

    Still, a 7.2 mile drive into the office is pretty awesome.

  • Little known facts about me, part I

    Way back (1992 ish) I worked as a chemical technician. Part of my responsibilities was to move large amounts of chemicals in boxes (4 gallons per box), and drums (55 gallon drums).  Needless to say, I probably was in the best physical condition of my life during that 9 months or so.

    But there was an upside. Since I worked off shift, I would need to drive the forklift to get my job done. So I went through the training (possibly the only person in history with a physics degree to be certified to drive a forklift), got certified, and moved a lot of product with that forklift.

    I will admit, it was fun.  One thing that if you are a normal person seems confusing, but for a physicist, it seemed logical was the fact that a forklift is least stable when it is not carrying anything. They tip over quite easily, and can be very hazardous to the operator and the folks nearby. However, as you approach the maximum load limit, the dynamics change, and it become the most stable it can be.

    That meant when I was carrying a pallet of Freon dissolved in methanol (about 750# per 55 gallon drum), the machine was at its best performance.

    Silly facts.

  • Do all document management systems suck?

    Having worked for a company that was uber proud of their content management system, and wondered why that productivity sapping POS was popular at all, and now at a company that has a huge Sharepoint infrastructure, I am coming to the conclusion that all content management systems blow.

    I understand the need in highly regulated industries to use such things. Government, financial services, medical are all where these systems are essential. Lots of rules about access, retention, and positive destruction of records are where content management (or document management solutions) thrive.

    I also understand in large enterprises the need to have central repositories and version control of documents and artifacts for programs and projects. Having a huge server pool letting users to create and store their own hierarchy and taxonomy just leads to chaos, and lost documents (and huge surprises when you are doing eDicsovery for a legal action).

    But, for the love of god, they are painful to work with.

  • Travel Woes, part (who knows)

    Korean delicacy, a largely vegetarian rice dish.
    Korean delicacy, a largely vegetarian rice dish.

    I have been fortunate in my travels. I have close to 2 million miles of travel, and have spent time in a lot of countries, and have had relatively few incidents of food-borne illness.  I have eaten street food in Taiwan, had unrecognizable parts of the chicken in China, eaten what probably was a pet in Korea, all without incident.

    However, it hasn’t been a perfect record.

    Japan – One of the places in the world with impeccable cleanliness, and cultural proclivity to freshness and clean. However, one day, eating sushi, I had some Uni (sea urchin roe) that tasted off. Boy was it ever. The 6 hour Shinkansen ride the next day was a wasted 1st class ticket. I spent most of the time in the restroom, and had to leave the meeting I attended a couple times to visit their facilities. Not pretty.

    Singapore – Arguably the second safest place I have ever been (besides Japan), nonetheless, we ate at a street vendor. I missed my training sessions (that I was delivering) the next day. Ugh.

    China – I had been in country for two weeks, and had eaten everything without incident. Then, while waiting to catch a flight, we grabbed some chow in the Beijing airport. I had bibimbap, the Korean dish with an egg on it. I was violently ill the entire flight home (12 hours, upstairs in a 747, a wasted business class upgrade).

    Scotland – Not food related, but when my luggage didn’t arrive, and the meetings we were to present at were canceled, it was a completely wasted trip. That night, we drank scotch. Lots of scotch. I was still very drunk when I got to the airport the next day. I had been in country less than 24 hours, I had no luggage, and I reeked like a brewery. Oh yeah, I got the 3rd degree from the customs agent. Truth be told, I needed to vomit one more time. When we touched down in Dulles, I finally got my hangover, and it was a doosy. To this day, scotch is one liquor that I try to avoid.

    France/Netherlands – We had a down day in Paris, so a few of us took in the sights. We probably walked 10 miles, in July. Hot for them, but not bad for us desert dwellers. The problem is that we didn’t hydrate enough. Having been in country for a week, I had already shed my “3 liters” that I carry because I live in the desert. I became ultra dehydrated, and that lead to a urinary tract infection. Three days later, as I got on the plane to come home, I was miserable. I called my wife, and had her pick me up (as I could barely stand up). Turns out that it had gone critical, I had a 104.5 fever, and I was in bad shape. Alas, some antibiotics, and I got better. No longer do I make fun of UTI’s when my female friends grumble about them. Truly miserable.

    And that is it. Not bad I guess