New Year – new job
Probably, most of the people are going back to work, today. I still have another week of vacation because I have just changed the job and I want some time to clear my mind and start with new force.
Before holiday, I was just reading a post related to how to hire a product manager. I may say that it has been difficult to find a new job due the economic crisis and the fact that most companies do not have a product manager located in Bucharest or do not have a product manager, in general.
But, by the end things went ok for me. Now, I’m just relaxing and wandering how my new job will be.
I will come back with more details of changing the job in the same domain.
I want to wish you all a happy new year, full of successfully products!
How do Product Managers kill a product?
I have just seen again the end of some TV Shows with great audience all over the World. I have notice that all of them end very bad. From a funny show…the last episode is sad, all the characters are crying… where is the fun?
This observation made me thought: do we “kill” our product in the same boring way? The answer probably is affirmative.
But why?
It’s true that it’s a bad experience and less exceting or motivated than launching a new product, but we should killed only after:
- We are sure that the market does not need our product
- We have done all the research and there will be no losses at the company level after killing the product.
- We can mention which has been the strong and the week point of the product
Product Management with yells
There are a lot of blogs describing the daily job of a Product Manager spited per industry like: software development, services etc.
But, through the hundred of blogs that I have read there are no posts regarding how to deal with the frustration that an authorial working environment may create.
There are managers who yell at their own team in the middle of an open office. Almost everyone is feeling frustrated and is looking his/her own PC monitor. What are they thinking? Probably, he/she is happy that this time is not yelling at him/her.
I’m just asking myself if in any management book/course there are trainers that encourage the yelling at people in public in oder to motivate them…in order to increase the productivity. I do not believe this….If you know any book, please let me know because I’m very interested in reading it.
The reason I do not understand and I will never support this tool of improving the quality of people work is simple. I do not believe in it. In the same situation in school when a teacher yells or even bits a child for any reasons. Will the child learn more after this? NO. Will the child go home with the feedback that he/she has done something bad? NO, the child will go home with frustration…lack of interest in school and in learning.
I do not have an answer for the question why do people still act like this if they know (they have to know) that creating this frustration will not solve the issue.
Well, life is sad…work is still just work…and life goes on.
Btw, I’m not a manager (I have never managed a team at work) but wouldn’t be more justified to fire somebody instead of yalling at him/her?
PS: the picture is from http://www.andreadams.com/assets/watermark%20files/office_4.jpg
Business Cases (II)
Another interesting blog about how to prepare a Business Case is the following http://www.b2bproductmakers.com/2009/10/don%E2%80%99t-roll-the-dice-on-your-business-case/ .
I have never used the Monte Carlo Analyse, but I will use it at my next business case.
Business Cases
In my experience of Product Manager I have done Business Cases. I’ll not discuss how should be done, I just have some remarks in regards to this subject and a post on a blog that I have just read.
So, Business Cases are very important in the life on any project because it helps the PM:
- focus on the opportunities;
- better analyse the risk;
- evaluate the revenues;
- better define the milestones
- Better evaluation of the project after launch.
In the blog mentioned above it is stressed that for a Business Case there is a need of 90 days. Wow, I must say.
The deadline that I received was one day. I worked very hard, but of course there have been other 2 version of the documents due the lack of time how land on a lack of information.
I strongly believe that for a professional business case any person should have at least 1 month depending on the product/project complexity.
Why? Because in this time:
- the document can be reviewed and better done
- the dates can be correctly collect
- the analyse can be done better
Customer needs
Which are the needs of our customers? Do we know them? Do we understand them?
From a market analyze, a PM can identify the customers needs regarding the current product and where there are the issues. A customer can complain about some parts of your service (product) and request patch for the missing part, but no customer can tell you which are the basically features that your product should include next year. This is our job! We must not only ask the clients what they want, we must to create needs,too.
I know than I’m not saying something new, but I believe that the video attached may summarize the development of a bad features for a product.
The “Strong” Relationship between Product Marketing and Marketing departments
Context: Preparation of the launch of a new product in a large company.
A problem that I have been forced to deal with too. it’s related to the relationship between product marketing (and management) and the marketing department.
Having a separate departments of product management and marketing that should work very well together, it may cause a large number of conflicts. The base of these conflicts is related to who knows better the market and the customers needs. Most of us will say that the product management, because for having a product on the market, we first have to identify a need, analyse the market and its opportunities, understand the customers need and design a product that solve our client problems.
On the other side, the Marketing department is expecting from the Product Management a document (a marketing brief) that will be read (hope so) and will be forward to the advertising agency with the necessary changes and comments.
The difficulty that I found in this process is that for writing a complete and correct marketing requirement, the product manager has to imagine and to draw a strategy. If the strategy created by the PM corresponded with what marketing creates after analysing the brief, then everyone is happy. If not, then… the conflicts inevitable appears.
Basically, the PM is responsible for the product and its impact on the market as well as its implementation. If the product will not have the proposed impact then PM will be responsible. This is the main reason why I do not understand why the marketing department can decide on a campaign. Maybe they don’t have the final decision, but still they must create the strategy and only inform PM about the decision that has been taken.
And the real problem appears when the marketing budged is not at the PM, but it’s at the marketing department. PM take only an honorific part in the decision and it has no power to change or at least discuss the implementation of the marketing campaign.
Solving this kind of problems is very difficult. One solution that will slow the process of launching a new product, can be changing the budged owner. If the budged is not either at marketing or PM and both departments has to sustain there point of view in order to have a decision from the Management, then the best idea will be implemented.
But this solution will only responsibility more the management and less the PM and Marketing.
The only good solution will be the communication between PM and Marketing and the better understanding of:
1. Product key elements
2. Company Brand rules
And to increase the marketing responsability of for the sales numbers. But between sales and marketing the fight is even stronger!
Sincerely, I don’t think that this problem has a unique solution, but not creating a procedure or encouraging a better communication between department may cause serious consequently.
Blank or a communication model
I found this video on a blog (http://nebelhorn.posterous.com/) and I think that it is very interesting.
The conclusion of the video is true, any company would like to have at least one David through its customers.
The logical question is: “How do we have a David?”
The answer to this is very difficult, basely because the similar to the question “How do I successes?”. This can mean that that there are logically steps to be followed for “having a David” or there is only intuition and luck. The perfect answer should include both intuition and a plan.
For some time, the internet has grown and has answered to our clients questions and help them decide what product should they buy. Although, part of the management in East Europe and in Romania, too, do not what to accept this fact.
Statistics show a large increase of internet penetration and of internet usage, but customers experience with on-line is not always good. And the real problem is that the product management still believes that customers buy a service or a product based on TV advertising, flyers or outdoor messages. This kind of advertising is good, but it’s not enough. The clients will search through Internet and if the competition has a better offer they will consider it.
In the video it is underlined that through online a single customer can be in contact with more that 1000. Offline, the proportion has never been archived. Probably, it will never be.
But, for “having a David” we need to have answers to the following question
- what does the user expect from us?
- how do our products solve our customers needs?
- can our products create a trend, meaning the innovation bought to the user by our products means more than what the competition products offers?
- how can you spread the positive feedback through your potential customers?
Good luck in “having a David”!
Personal Hello World
I remember that my first computer script in high school and in collage was one that displayed “Hello world”
This is the main reason why I believe that my first professional blog should start with a “Hello World!”
But, let me introduce myself:
My name is Simona Arsene and currently I hold the position of Product Manager Online Services Department at Romtelecom. I’m from Romania, Europe and I just want to say “Hello” to all of you who read this blog.
I would like to introduce the blog, too:
This blog will be one that will collect theoretically and personally facts about the product management. The idea of having a professional blog is not new for me, but like you all know- the beginning is very hard. The main target of this blog will be to present to the world the East European Product Management view.
Grey Product Management
Grey Product Management- I’m going to give you 100 percent of my 80 percent of my time May 3, 2011
- Posting from Blackberry January 10, 2011
- Creating a business plan August 30, 2010
- Email Dominates Mobile Web Time August 27, 2010
- Social Products August 23, 2010
- Product Management Problems August 12, 2010
- The Change Cycle July 12, 2010
- The surprising truth about what motivates us June 28, 2010
- Good joke for each morning June 16, 2010
- Free content June 15, 2010