Product Management 101

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Product Management 101

• A Getting Started Guide

-Kapil Raizada
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Benefits from this workshop

• Benefits for participants
• Understand the Product Management function
• Business drivers, role, responsibilities and
  expectations
• Apply skills for a better partner engagement and
  delivery management
• Identify potential new business opportunities

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Benefits from this workshop

• Benefits for the presenter
• Learn from your experience
• Get feedback about this presentation to make this
  better

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Frequently asked Questions
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Frequently asked questions

• What is Product Management
• Why is it required
• What does a Product Manager do?
• How is it different from a Project Manager
• What skills do I need to qualify for this role?
• Must I be a domain expert to get started?

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Product based businesses

• To understand this, a good starting point would
  be to first understand the characteristics of a
  product business
• To highlight the differences, I have also
  compares this with similar considerations in the
  case of a services business

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How is a product business different?

• Time Span
• The life of a product extends many years -
  beyond projects, programs, releases and even
  business cycles. Decisions taken today, will
  affect the product at a later time. Implications
• Product businesses value considered mature
  decision making
• Projects/Services business tend to value
  relationships and fire-fighters more!
• PDLC implications Products go through a
  lifecycle (more later) and require active
  planning for the future.
• Changing competitive landscape
• Changing consumer usage patterns
• Changing technology
• Etc.
• Flexibility is the key Given the longer term
  perspective, a Product Manager typically deals
  with more unknowns across all areas of operations
  e.g., pricing, positioning, customers, roadmap,
  etc. Its hard to predict these all the time.
  Therefore ability to change is valued

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How is a product business different?

• Type of customers
• Product companies typically do not focus on a
  customer, but rather on a category of customers
• Services organizations tend to have a culture of
  doing exactly as told
• In a Product business, you may be doing a
  disservice to other customers, by following the
  biding of an aggressive customer.
• Exception Early stage companies may focus on a
  single customer as a boot-strap strategy, and
  this needs to be understood as such.
• Customers, in general dont expect tailor made
  products either. Instead, they expect
• Configurability
• New enhancements and fixes, that come as part of
  the product releases
• Best in class features and capabilities
• Learning from the product
• Domain expertise

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How is a product business different?

• Lifecycle considerations
• Almost all products go through a life-cycle (more
  details later in this presentation)
• Investment decisions are related to the product
  lifecycle
• Before you join an organization as a Product
  Manager, you need to be aware of the stage of the
  lifecycle for your product. This may have
  significant implications on your decision making
  process
• A few points
• Cash flow is typically negative at the start of
  the product
• Pay-offs start after a lag
• During the growth phase, focus is typically on
  increasing acceptance, or adding registered
  users/new customers, etc.
• During the mature stage, focus may shift to
  retaining customers

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How is a product business different?

• Products require Marketing Branding
• Marketing is essential because you want to send
  the same message to all the potential customers
  out in the market
• Branding is essential to position your product
  separately from the competition
• Revenue models
• Products may have a one-time revenue an
  on-going component. You need to understand the
  following to be able to take product decisions
• How the product is priced each component of the
  pricing
• Which component makes money
• Sales process
• Selling depends largely on product capabilities.
  You should be able to communicate (marketing) and
  demonstrate the capabilities valued by your
  prospect
• Its typically hard to add functionalities after
  you meet a prospect!
• If you dont already have it, youre lost. Good
  Product Managers are able to predict requirements
  and define target markets

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Summary Product business

1. Time Span
2. Type of customers
3. Lifecycle considerations
4. Marketing and branding
5. Revenue models
6. Sales process

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Understanding the Product Lifecycle
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The standard product lifecycle curve

• Introduction Product is launched. Typically
  preceded by an intense conceptualization,
  development and marketing efforts aimed at
  creating a separate identity and awareness
• Growth Increasing sales and entry of competition
• Maturity Industry consolidation, competitors
  exits, steady-state sales, price-cuts
• Decline Declining sales (due to unfavorable
  business conditions, changing customer tastes,
  new technology, etc.)

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The standard product lifecycle curve

• Over the years, I have realized that the standard
  graph is perhaps not ideal for capturing the
  real product lifecycle.
• The shortcoming that I see are
• Its too theoretical. It represents a successful
  product launch (Statistics suggest that about 9
  out of 10 products that hit the market, do not
  live to see the standard curve)
• The Y-axis represents sales (which is why it is
  always positive). The entire early development
  phase, which requires upfront investment is lost.
  Plotting investment/cash-flow would probably give
  a better idea
• It contains only 1 curve which may give the
  impression that this is a likely scenarios. PDLC
  is probably better understood and explained
  through a family of curves that show the
  lifecycle of different product families

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The complete product lifecycle curves
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Some experiences during start-up phase

• Delay in achieving success can be used to
  predict the duration or extent that the product
  will be successful
• Longer is not better. Changing environment.
  Original assumptions regarding business may not
  hold
• Emergence of other players. Losing the first
  mover advantage
• Newer technology, etc.
• Focus on key features that will generate quick
  returns initially
• Till after launch, it is hard to predict the
  success of a product
• Most start-ups look good during the pre-launch
  stage. Even after close experiences with about
  half-a-dozen startup products, the issue remains ?

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Product Lifecycle considerations that Product
Managers should be aware of ..
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Product priorities Growth Phase

• Typical goals
• Consolidate sales. New partnerships, reseller
  agreements
• Implications Good documentation, packaging,
  usability
• Pricing options
• Feature bundling / packaging
• Performance scalability
• Internationalization/Localization support
• Easy to upgrade
• Role based access
• Enhanced administrative console features
• Product branding

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Product priorities Maturity Phase

• Typical goals
• Feature complexity / configurations
• Increasing focus on maintenance revenues
• Feature bundling / packaging
• Review branding and positioning
• Spinoff new versions focused on specific markets

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Product priorities Decline Phase

• Typical goals
• Focus on sustaining maintenance revenues
• Harvest product low cost enhancements for niche
  customers
• Review branding and positioning
• Spinoff new versions focused on specific markets
• Possible splitting code-base for launching a new
  product

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Product Manager - What skills are required? Why?
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?

• A Product Managers skill set requirement can be
  directly traced back to the business
  considerations of a product company
• In the next few slides, I will take each business
  attribute and identify the supporting skill-set

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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 1 Time Span Long term
Required skills Analytical, thinking ability. To be able to visualize all the use-cases for the problem, that a solution needs to be verified against
Is demonstrated by Asking questions like How does this meet our objectives? How will it work if that happens? What does this mean the related features? How does this impact our other assumptions?
Expected Outcomes Often, requirements can be simplified (or eliminated) by considering all scenarios. Team realizes that this is going to require lot more work! Better product designs. Other possibility Team realizes how complex this may actually be. You get more time (or budget!).
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 2 Customer type
Required skills Understanding the type of customers targeted, and their usage. Also understand potential different customer groups (product roadmap)
Is demonstrated by Asking questions like Lets review how other customers may use this. How about the new prospects we are targeting? What does this mean to related features? How does this impact our other assumptions?
Expected Outcomes Typically this will result in a more comprehensive solution to the problem being addressed. Alternatively, this may re-define the problem statement itself. Re-definition of a problem statement to a more generic level typically goes a long way in the team building confidence in you.
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 3 Product Lifecycle considerations
Required skills Understand the stage at which the product is currently in.
Is demonstrated by Asking relevant questions ? Typically, early stage companies would be less concerned about performance or scalability. More concerned about sustenance growth Typically mature companies will be concerned about maintaining customer base e.g., no regression defects
Expected Outcomes Demonstrate better understanding of the product constraints. Increased product ownership.
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 4 Marketing Branding
Required skills Understanding product positioning in the market vis-à-vis competition. Be aware of the reasons for the same
Is demonstrated by Understanding of the competitors in the market The kind of priorities associated with a feature
Expected Outcomes (a) Demonstrate better understanding of the product constraints. Increased product ownership
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 5 Revenue Models
Required skills Business awareness of these revenue streams and how this may impact separate customer groups.
Is demonstrated by Developing product roadmap and new features in a direction that is validated by the revenue models.
Expected Outcomes (a) Successful releases
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Product Manager - Whats skills are required? Why?
Attribute 6 Sales process
Required skills Ready for surprises! Remember, there will always be a sales requirement that no one can predict.
Is demonstrated by Good business communication skills. Readiness to respond positively to change. Understanding that this can happen and is an essential part of business.
Expected Outcomes Selling better ?
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Product Manager - Day-to-day Role
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Product Manager Day-to-day role

• At a high level there are these 6 areas
• Market research (primary, secondary, tertiary)
• Requirements specification and design
• Project Management
• What needs to be done, and the best way to
  implement it so as to meet market requirements.
  Make it easier for engineering! ?
• Product Marketing
• One-pagers, case-studies, success stories,
  specifications docs, etc.
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Licensing Pricing, product portfolios, reseller
  tie-ups, technical tie-ups, etc.
• Product Support
• The extent of actual involvement would depend on
  each organization and its practices

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Working with Program Managers

• I read the following quote somewhere, and is
  perfect for what I wanted to say
• Product managers are responsible for ongoing
  success. Once the project is complete, the
  product manager remains to manage the product
  through the entire lifecycle.
• Good product managers know that all the features
  in the world will not matter if the project is
  continually delayed and never makes it to market,
  or if it is too over budget to be completed.
• Project managers are responsible for the
  successful delivery of a project a one-time
  endeavor with a goal, scope, deadline, budget,
  and other constraints
• Good project managers know that the true success
  of a project is just not whether it is on time
  and within budget, but whether it meets the
  defined goals and objectives.

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Other FAQs
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Other FAQs

• Do I have to be a domain expert to become a
  Product Manager?
• It certainly helps. However, do remember
• Product development is a team effort. Everybody
  does not need to be a domain expert. A large part
  of the activities may not even require domain
  skills.
• From a hiring companys perspective, its always
  hard to get a person in their precise domain.
  Each domain has sub-domains and each sub-domain
  brings its own uniqueness. Most organizations are
  very happy to get someone who knows the function
  and can pick the domain
• As there are no well known professional courses
  for Product Management, my assessment is that the
  demand-supply gap for Product Managers favors the
  candidate. Even more so if you happen to be in
  India. Based on a recent survey, the total
  Product Managers in India was a lower end 3-digit
  number..

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Other FAQs

• What are the common roles within Product
  Management?
• Some of the common Product Management roles are
• Inbound Product Manager Internal / Engineering
  facing role
• Typically this is an engineering facing role. The
  main job here is to translate the market
  requirements / customer feedback across different
  customers, and ensure that these are in the
  engineering plans, as per the roadmap
• Technical Product Manager Another name for
  Inbound Product Managers
• Outbound Product Manager Market/Customer facing
  role
• Typically, this is the market facing role. The
  main job here is to communicate the products
  value proposition to the customer (help sales),
  and pass feedback to the Inbound role.
• An Inbound Product Manager can have multiple
  Outbound Managers e.g., products in different
  geographies, industry verticals, etc.

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Other FAQs

• Anything else that is not covered here regarding
  Product Management?
• Yes. Product portfolio management (let me know if
  you spot other areas too)
• Involves managing a portfolio of products.
  Additional considerations related to
  inter-relationship between products
• There exist different models for managing a
  product portfolio
• Typically this is a higher level role. More
  relevant for a product organization.

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Thanks!

• Kapil Raizada
• http//www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfilekey1
  6308796trktab_pro

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