The Clever PM (PN)

Tips, tricks, and hacks that help you to be a better, more clever, Product Manager.

Ask Tough Questions

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Among the most common issues that Product Managers face — particularly those in smaller companies or in companies where Product Management as a discipline is a new thing — is the seemingly random collection of features, functionality, plans, “strategies”, market segments, and really everything that surrounds the role.  Part and parcel of being a good Product Manager is identifying these situations and attempting to get a diverse set of stakeholders focused on a single goal — for at least a brief time.  It’s literally impossible to deliver a good, solid product when everyone and their brother has the ability to derail or randomize the direction that product should take.

The best tool that we have to combat this is simple – question everything.  Ask for specifics, ask for data, ask for testing results — and be willing and able to come up with your own answers when others ask for yours in return.  While it certainly won’t make you the most popular person in the company, Product Management is not a popularity contest — it’s a role whose job is to deliver the best and most compelling solutions to market problems that your customers will be willing to pay for.

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The Importance of Understanding the Whole Product

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Product Management is often seen as a simple matter of inputs and outputs — we take information from the field, from the market, or from the users, and we create new products and features that meet their needs.  If only it were that simple!  Customers rarely know what they really want, although they can be very vocal about what they “need”; sales teams are often focused on the last deal they lost or the next deal they’re trying to close, and market intelligence can often be muddied by statements and claims by competitors and thought leaders which can be hard to distinguish marketing spin from product fact.

This is why it’s important for a successful, clever Product Manager to ensure that they have a view not only of the “product” that they’re specifically working on creating requirements, specs, and user stories for, but the “whole product” that the company is selling.  If you silo yourself to only viewing the “product” as the particular piece of technology or a specific solution to a specific set of problems, you’ll inevitably be missing the bigger picture of how people use your product, why they use your product, and most importantly where your “product” fails to meet the needs of the users — and where those gaps are being filled in by others, either internal to your company or external groups making money where you should be focusing product.

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Leading Through Influence the Clever PM Way — Part 2: Effective Facilitation

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In part one of this series, we discussed the concept of “social capital” and how important it is to build, manage, and spend it in the process of leading through influence.  In this installment, we’re going to extend the scope of the discussion to a highly effective way of building your social capital in an organization, as well as to build the trust and respect of your peers and senior management team.

Facilitation is the process by which an effective product manager brings people together and drives them toward a common goal, and in doing so establishes themselves as a hub around which the spokes of the organization turn.  When performed effectively, good facilitation is almost imperceptible to those involved in a meeting – people enter, engage, and leave with an understanding of what’s to be done next.  When done poorly, or not at all, the company and management devolve into a morass of pointless, lengthy meetings that go off on wild tangents and never deliver any meaningful progress.

Which sounds more familiar to you?

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Better Brainstorming – A Framework for Success

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I know, we’ve all been in a “brainstorming” session which devolves into either a pointless series of discussions that never goes anywhere, or which are code for “let the executives speak, and follow their lead.”  The simple fact is that most people aren’t trained to work in a true brainstorming fashion, and that most businesses don’t invest in the right kind of thoughtful facilitation that’s necessary to have effective brainstorming sessions.

But that’s not to say that it can’t be done, and that there aren’t proven and reliable ways to create an engaging and productive brainstorming session.  Through my work as a Product Manager and Product Owner, I’ve worked with teams who fully embraced the principles of Agile development — and, surprisingly enough, there’s a lot of commonality to be found in empowering a team to be self-directed and working with stakeholders to brainstorm new ideas.  To wit, I provide you with the following framework for effective and productive brainstorming sessions.

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