Product Management For Dummies. Brian Lawley

is used inconsistently, get clarity with your program manager about what program management folks are specifically supposed to do. In your interactions with them, they’ll continually be looking at process and control issues. You may need to explain that the strategic and integrative parts of the product management role aren’t quantifiable in the way that those people like to look at work, but the output from product management is generally very beneficial to the company. Use the promise of the key product management deliverables (market strategy, market needs, and business case) as a measure of items to be checked off their list of tasks that need to be completed as part of the process of deciding which products to invest in. Then you only need to worry about making sure what you’ve written makes sense and will create great products.

       Exploring project management

      Project managers are a product manager’s alter ego. Product managers keep the customer and the big picture in mind under all circumstances. Project managers make sure that all team members are doing what they promised to do to keep the project on track and that each detail is completed on time. There are two models of project management. One is the project manager reports into engineering and helps with keeping the product on track until it is completed and available to the market. A second, if you’re very lucky, is your company has adopted a more complete view of the role of project management and makes sure that every aspect of the product is completed. This includes marketing, sales, operations, and support teams, which are all ready to deliver the product to market successfully. Ask which model your company uses so that you can set your expectations of what the project manager is willing to do for and with you. Often they know what even the most obscure tasks are that are necessary to bring a product to market, and their information can be worth its weight in gold.

      Both product management and project management functions are necessary to effectively get a product out the door and into customers’ hands.

      

In smaller or growing companies, the role of project manager can be assigned to the product manager. If this is your situation, as product manager, you find that you are spending all your time filling in spreadsheets of tasks that have been done or need to be done. You have little or no time for strategic work or reaching out to hear the voice of the customer. As project and product manager combines, you may be perceived much more as a doer than a thinker and generally have less influence within the organization to develop new concepts and markets.

      Companies have project managers to manage risk. By communicating often, project participants can voice their opinions and concerns. The project manager must consider not only the technical skills of each person but also the critical roles and chemistry between workers.

      Key duties include the following:

      ❯❯ Assembling a complete list of tasks required to complete the project, including those from other departments, and incorporating these items into a project schedule

      ❯❯ Creating and managing the project schedule (as part of the overall master schedule)

      ❯❯ Monitoring and tracking progress against the schedule and reporting progress, slippage, and changes in the schedule to the company

      ❯❯ Identifying and managing potential risks in the schedule, ensuring there are contingency plans if something doesn’t go to plan

      ❯❯ Managing the project documentation, especially the latest versions of plans and schedules

      ❯❯ Defining project milestones: entrance, intermediate and integration stages, alpha, beta, and final product release

      ❯❯ Being the expert in the product development and delivery processes

      ❯❯ Leading project team meetings

      ❯❯ Coordinating sign-off at the completion of each stage

      ❯❯ Analyzing development progress, including defect resolution

      ❯❯ Managing resource allocation and load balancing

      

If you work in an Agile development environment, the role of project manager either disappears or is elevated to oversee schedules and plans for several development teams. If the role disappears, it’s because Agile environments have less need for project tracking. A core definition of Agile is that the teams organize themselves. The development team and the scrum master split what is left. And the software that tracks product backlog items allows anyone to easily see the project status. If any issues are identified during the regular planning and review meetings that Agile prescribes, the product manager (or product owner), the scrum master, and the development team have to bring a project back on track.

      For larger development efforts where there are many scrum teams, there are different organizing methodologies. Under a commonly used one, named SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), the role is renamed as a release train engineer. For more information, look at the “Agile-specific roles” sidebar earlier in the chapter.

MAKING A LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE

      Because the role of product manager interacts with various people in a company, start by interviewing people in different roles and making a list of the responsibilities mentioned. Ask each person what he does and what he expects of you. You may be surprised by what people say and what tasks have ended up as your responsibility. Of course, check with your manager to see whether the tasks people are flagging as being your job are really places where you add value and are things no one else could do effectively.

       Knowing what other roles you interact with

      As product manager, you touch almost every part of an organization and may not even realize it. Only many years after you’ve left a product management role and find someone in an obscure part of the company who recognizes you do you realize the extent of your reach. It’s a humbling thought.

      

One excellent practice is to swing through the building once or twice a day checking in with key functions. If certain functions are remote, check in with them via email, a meeting, or a phone call at least once a week. You can address any issues and concerns while they’re small.

      The following sections emphasize how your relationship with various roles in the company works. Working with this many different people requires excellent people skills. Look to Chapters 17 and 18 for tips on dealing with varied personalities on a day-to-day basis.

       Sales

      The overall goal of a sales function is to facilitate the sales process. A sales process is one in which customers come to the conclusion that they should purchase your product and then do so. However, sales isn’t a monolithic function. Breaking down the sales department into its various roles shows how important they are to a product manager:

      ❯❯ Sales representative: These are the people who actively talk to customers and convince them that they should buy a product. Sales representatives are usually paid at least partly on commission. If they can’t figure out how to sell your product, they’ll sell something else so that they can “make their sales number.”

      Your job as a product manager is to make sure that they have a deep understanding of your product and become successful at selling it. Along with your product marketing manager, your job is to make sure that sales representatives have the right information to make the case for your product. Sales presentations, competitive selling sheets, and benefit/feature and pricing comparison charts are a good place to start.

      ❯❯ Sales engineer or technical sales: For technical products, often someone has to have a highly technical conversation with a customer about creating an elegant solution to a complicated customer problem. This person is typically called a sales engineer, although this title can vary wildly.

      Just like the sales representative, the sales engineer explains your product story to the customer.