1. “You need to develop a culture where people actually are going to do what they’re going to do, and you’re trying to assist them”
2. “So the 20 percent time is a very good recruiting tool, but more importantly it serves as a pressure valve against managers who are obnoxious. So the way it works is, if you’re my manager and you say, “Eric, you know, we’re on deadline, we’ve got a problem,” and so forth. I’ll look at you, and I’ll say, “I’m going to give you 100 percent of my 80 percent of my time.”

It may be, I don’t know, that these rules don’t apply as there are build, but the base for them is people development. This is a very important aspect for each of us, that’s so easy to be ignored or reprioritized.  How many times have you gone to a training that was boring and you checked your emails during it? Or how many times have you left the training room only thinking on the task that you still have to do and with no impact from training day?

Giving the employees the opportunity to choice and sharing the managing authority with them is a big step and leads to a business that is driven by the employee’s creativity and intelligence.

1. The technical departments take the Business Requirement and implement as they want

2. If there is no follow up – there is nothing

3. The prioritization of requirements is invisible for the product manager

4. The manager requests with very high priority the development of a feature, which failed just some months ago. Main reason:”The VP has asked for this!”

5. After long discussions with Marcom team, the final materials are funny, but the message is not clear. The customers will not understand the new product and its benefits. Back to the long and painful discussions.

6. After lots of meetings, conference call and thousand of emails, the product or the feature is live! You announce it through the organization, thanking the IT and Marcom teams and wishing good luck to the sale team. What next? In an hour a new prioritization meeting for the new features. There is no thank you email for you. At a road map review meeting you discuss about your work and you get an “Ok, that’s nice but the company strategy has change and we must have a new road map! It’s not January or March…
I never understood what does expression like” Fair point” means. Is “the road” ok or not?

Lately, I’m wandering where is this going to, but I haven’t found an answer yet.

M: I was in a meeting today with the technical guys. I just needed the development of a small features and the email response was, like always, no

H: I was in a meeting with PM today. I proposed them a new feature. It’s something new and the competition doesn’t have it yet. We can do it in time for the new release, but they said that they will think about it. My God feeling is that they don’t care.

M: But my feature is so easy to be implemented and it will improve our customers’ experience.

H: We could be different! We could have been the first on the market! We could have developed interesting solutions.

M: After long discussions we’ve agreed on the light versions

H: I have sent them an email asking again if we can develop the solution and they said ok (after 2 weeks – through a new meeting) The product manager asked me if we can develop the same feature.

Since 2 years I still can not believe that discussions have the same tone. And I’m just wandering if we interact with different people or our companies have a different vision.

In the last days I start stressing because somehow (I do not know how) I’m in a circle of passed responsibilities and I do not know where to start and, most painful, I do not know where I should get.

Did this happen to you? How did you solve this issue?

To summaries, the story is the following: I’m new in a company; I do not know all the details regarding the systems, department, people…well, I know something, but I can not create the whole puzzle.

I received an interesting project in which are involved lots of departments that will from the good results of this project.  But, in general, any meeting defines a new objective.

When I had the confidence that we have established the objectives and we have agreed on the main steps, something happens (like new persons are involved) and the whole process must be redefined.

And the end of the day, people are telling me that I put to much passion in this project and that things may work just fine…without this.

Now I just wander…are they right? Should we just modify everything, expect all and do what we can?

Picture from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/business-insight/files/2009/11/proddev-ntr23.jpg

Personal, I do not understand this fear, because somehow I believe that it’s the natural way for community development.

Some psychologies are talking on TV or Radio about the bad effects of using these sites and I’m just wandering who is listing to them? I believe that nobody. Even my parents liked facebook and asked me what twitter is.

The important fact that has been mentioned before is that social media is very important for the C2C communication and a negative experience may be difficult to hide just by solving it as quick as possible.

What has attacked my attention is that people on the social media do not give so easy follow or to do became so easy a fan of your facebook page. The online strategy can not be different from the whole company strategy. For example, if your company is calling all the time the customers in order to propose an offer and to force him/her to sign a new contract then the number of “followers” will not be so important. Or if the company does not talk the customers language, by offering him what s/he wants or expects then the impact of a social networking campaign is low.

I remember reading a good comment of a Romanian person who works in an advertising agency. This person mentioned that a “home made” viral with a young person stuck in the snow had more viewers than an analyzed and elaborated viral realized by the any agency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

In conclusion, real life beats social media and social advertising.

Just for enter in the work atmosphere, I was just reading my feeds and I have found an interesting post about first 30 days at the new job. It’s true that there are some specifically point for software product manager, but I believe that some are useful for product manager in the Telecom aria, too.

So, thank you very much gopalshenoy for the tips…I’m sure that they will help me at my new job.

Well, inspired by the following post, I have decided to publish my resolutions:

1. Do not care so much (Impossible for me, sometimes, but possible for a lot of PMs that I  know)

2. Be more opened with all the departments (I have learned  from the last job, that as a PM we must be a “good” friend with all the departments in order to have the job done – on time. The force, the escalate or any other stuff mentioned in books, are only in books. In real life, people help you  if they believe in  your product or if they  believe in you)

3. Talk more – smile more

4. Have lunch and eat less for dinner

5. Walk more (use the public transportation rather than the personal car) – this should be easy, because the new office is  in the city center and not outside the town

6. Talk more with the customer care departments – at the end of the day, there are the persons who discuss every day with the customers

7.  Knock on as many door as I can, although they may never open

8.  Learn and read more

9. Relax during vacation and not worry about  job problems (or read the email every morning)

10. Trust  myself more

Some of them will be hard to achieve, but I’m sure that I can check all of the items by the end of 2010.

PS: The photo is from here

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!