This is part 3 of a series of guest posts by Don Vendetti. Don is the founder of Product Arts, a product management consulting company in Seattle.
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In part 1 and part 2 respectively, I discussed the answers I received from company executives on the following questions.
- What is the value that product management brings to your company?
- How would you measure success for the group and individuals? i.e. on what metrics would you reward them?
In this part, I’ll look at the following question.
Question #3: Is Product Management Effective, in Your Experience?
The dominant answer here was a resounding SOMETIMES. I’ll let some comments speak for themselves.
(VP Eng) “Never adequately. It’s a tall order and they are often placed in the organization where they cannot succeed or with unenlightened leadership. If they are in sales they become too deal / feature / near term focused. If they are in engineering they become too development / feature / development focused. If they are in marketing they become too abstract and disconnected. Ideally they are in line of business management reporting directly to an SBU Manager or GM. Where they have done best it was where the corporate imperatives were obvious, and they were well connected and led.”
(VP Ops) “Currently, our model defines product management in terms of marketing activities, so the value is less than optimal.”
(GM) “Yes, the good ones. As always, if their direction is good, and they have goals that make sense, and they are managed, they can usually meet or exceed their goals.”
(VP Eng) “Both successful & unsuccessful. Needs to have an environment for success – expectations, aligned groups, business goals. PM needs to stay outwardly focused. Needs to bring customer into the company.”
(Program Mgmt/Former VP Mkt) “For Agile shops, the product owner role is critical and delivers great value to the business and to dev teams — the product cannot be built without one. For more waterfall oriented shops, it can be tricky. I find that product managers that seek to translate market requirements (from marketing/ customer facing teams) into product specs for engineering program managers will often deliver dubious value. It is best if the product manager is closer to either the customer (e.g. product marketing manager), or to the developers (e.g. program manager) to avoid being an odd-man out. “
Summary
Let’s compare where we ended up as the primary value of Product Management with the Mandate previously posted on this site:
| The Product Management Mandate | These Results |
| To optimize the business at a product, product line or product portfolio level over the product lifecycle. | To deliver measurable business results through product solutions that meet both market needs and company goals. |
They are both in the same ballpark with regards to business and products, but there is definitely a divergence beyond that, with the Mandate missing the key element of MARKET NEEDS.
It is a primary expectation of company executives that product management is a bridge between the internal functions and understanding the market needs and this got lost in the Mandate.
Where we still don’t have clear guidelines are the actual measurements to use, but we do have a general direction in which we need to head. It is imperative for product management to be able to tie their activities to measurable business results to be perceived as adding value for executives.
These do not have to be tied directly to revenue or profit, but there is ideally some way to tie to leading indicators of them – usage, penetration, retention, quality, cost, etc.
If the feature sets you’re prioritizing or the activities you’re doing do not somehow support an improvement in these indicators, it’s time to rethink what you’re doing… pronto. It also important that you communicate where you’re impacting business level results so that the execs are aware of it.
I have also personally found that the “intangibles” carry a much higher weight than emerged from these exec comments. Be assured that even if there is no formal process for measuring how you are perceived in the organization, you are constantly being assessed for leadership skills and ability to collaborate and facilitate internally and externally. These will ultimately steer your career progression.
Lastly, it’s clear from the final comments that product management success is strongly correlated to a supportive organization with clearly defined roles, objectives and mission. If you find yourself in a company without these, it’s time to exercise some leadership to help create them or to perhaps move on to greener pastures. It’s really not that much fun to continue to struggle where personal success is unlikely.
Don
Related Posts
Measuring Product Management (part 1)
Measuring Product Management (part 2)
Measuring Product Management (part 3)