Overview of Product Management Roles

Product Lead

• Business-orientation
• Develops strategic plan for product(s) –
  business plan, pricing
• Identifies target user/buyer personas
• Discovers & validates market problems
• Seeks new market opportunities (market, product, price, distribution) ​

Product Lead

• Oversight of strategy, technical &
  marketing aspects of products(s)
• Analyzes product profitability
• Positions product for market(s) and
  user/buyer personas
• Approves final go-to-market and ongoing marketing plans
• Involved with all stages of product’s lifecycle

Product Manager

• Creates user personas for the product
• Interviews existing & potential customers
  to understand market needs
• Maintains the product roadmap
• Defines market requirements & creates user stories
• Manages the development backlog ​

Product Manager

• Works closely with developers & QA
  during product development
• Packages features into product releases
• Monitors & incorporates industry
  innovations
• Analyzes competitive landscape
• Monitors product KPIs ​

Product Marketing Manager

• Defines buyer personas
• Converts technical positioning into key
  market messages
• Creates product launch plans
• Developers ongoing marketing plans for customer
  acquisition and retention
• Seeks new market opportunities (market, product, price, distribution) ​

Product Marketing Manager

• Works with marketing to execute
  marketing plans
• Provides information tools to help
  prospects through the buyer process
• Delivers thought-leading content via events,
  ebooks, etc.
• Facilitates channel training ​

Being Market Driven

Being Market-Driven

Companies who are market-driven are 31% more profitable.

—George Day, Professor of Marketing, Wharton School of Business

Being Market-Driven

Market-driven companies are:

• Twice as fast to bring products to market
• Twice as likely to lead
• Enjoy 20% higher customer satisfaction

—From Pragmatic Marketing interviewing 45,000 alumni at 3,000 customies

Being Market-Driven

• Start-ups are more market-drive at first – because they have to be
• But unfortunately most lose it over time

Which Product Was Most Successful?

Common Mistake #1

• We know more than our buyers how our product solves their problems
• We decide what products they need

Being Market-Driven

You are not your target user.

Goal: Use Outside-In Thinking

• We interview customers & target users to understand their problems
• We design products to solve their specific problems

Common Mistake #2

• Basing new product development solely on what current customers request
• Existing customers represent a small
  percentage of the market opportunity
• Existing customers tend to ask for
  incremental changes
• Existing customers have different problems than non-customers ​

Problem With Only Talking to Customers

"IF I HAD ASKED PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANTED, THEY WOULD HAVE SAID:
FASTER HORSES..."

—Henry Ford

Other Fatal Flaws

• Building products because we can
• Wanting to build everything internally
  rather than focus on distinctive
  competency
• Ignoring market research
• Top-down product planning without any bottom-up input
• Analysis paralysis with inside-out metrics​

Distinctive Competence

• Buyers choose products based on the belief that it solves their problems better than any other
• What is our organization's unique ability to deliver superior value to customers? ​

Distinctive Competence

• Distinctive competence can take many forms
• Unique business model, product attributes, training, customer service, innovation, quality or more
• Distinctive competence helps describe your organization to buyers so they are more likely to choose you
• Usually a subset of your core competencies
• Forms the basis of market messages

Determining Distinctive Competence

What business are we in?

What business are we not in?

What is unique about what we offer?

How can we compete? ​

It is not the product or service, rather it is the experience users have that creates your competitive edge

Identifying Distinctive Competence

Alternative Strategies

Becoming Market-Driven

• Study market problems from non-customers
• Don't create products by trying to make
  it different from an existing one
• Ignore the competition—most are
  not market-driven
• Don't focus on technology for
  technology's sake
• Start with unsolved problems to identify opportunities ​

A Market-Driven Product

User problem:

Difficult to program a thermostat

Solution:

Becoming Market-Driven

Your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant

The only thing that matters is the user's opinion

Customers don't care about products

They only care about solutions to their problems

Becoming Market-Driven

• Develop solutions in the context of the total customer experience
• Create solutions that are narrow and deep by organizing around a single market problem
• Solve it completely with a solution that is simple to the buyer

Understanding Needs of Your Target Market

Understanding Needs

• Understand market problems before developing any products
• Talk to non-customers to learn their unsolved problems
• What are their goals & aspirations?
• What are their pain points?
• What are their unsolved problems they will pay money for?

Understand Your Users

• Best methods
  • Face-to-face interviews
  • Observing the user in their environment
• Second best are online video interviews
• Surveys are useful

qualitative + quantitative market data =
understanding your users

Interviewing Prospects

• Ask open-ended questions
• Ask how they do things today
• Listen, listen, listen
• Write it down, video it
• Probe:  "Tell me more" or "I'm not sure I understand what you mean"
• Go back and read your notes
• Look for hidden problems to find the pain & identify buyer motivation​

Sample Interview Questions

• What business are you in?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• Walk me through your typical day.
  A good day. A bad day.
• What drove you crazy today?
• What keeps you up at night?
• Why would that be important to you?
• What purpose does that function serve?

Recruiting Interviewees

• Interview prospects whose business you did not win
  • Why didn't they buy?
• Interview brand new customers
  • Why did they buy?
• Invite prospects on your web site.
  In a survey. Via social media or post.
• When interviewing customers, question them similar to a non-customer

Other Ways to Get to Know Your Users

• Live in the prospect's world
• Join industry associations
• Attend conferences they attend
• Read the same blogs and publications they read
• Read their blogs

Affinity Mapping

• Sort user issues into categories
• Look for common threads
• What are the biggest pain points?
• What problems if solved would get the biggest traction?

User Personas

• Personas are short descriptions of an archetypical customer
• User personas are based on potential
  customers with common market problems
• Personas provide clarity to help with
• Identifying common problems
• Creating user stories
• Developing the right messaging
• Understanding how to reach this type of user

Distill Information

• Create a written document for each persona
• What are their problems?
• How do they along without our product?
• How can we leverage our core
  competence to make their lives better?
• Are there unexpressed problems?
• Are they willing to pay money to solve these problems?​

Distill Information

• A typical product will have 2-5 personas
• Create a persona definition for each type
• Provide an example person – photo, name, age, position, company, attributes, story, information sources and more
• Post these personas where team
  members can see them

Sample User Persona

MailChimp Personas

Another Persona Tool:

"A Day in the Life"

• Day in the life can help identify user's
  problems
• Can show potential areas where
  solutions are needed
• Example for sales person

Uncover Strategic Opportunities

You are in the business of continuous problem solving for your market

Identify Opportunities

• Look for common pain points
• The greater the pain, the higher
  the interest in solving it
• Seek to understand
  • The motivation to solve pain
  • The blockers or inhibitors to taking steps to solve pain
• Look at trends that could lead to new problems that will need solutions ​

Map Out The Journey

• Start with investigation
• Identify part or all of the user journey
• Identify any areas that could be confusing or places where users will abandon

Sample Journey Map

Do We Solve This Market Problem?

When You Identify a Major Pain Point

• Ensure we are the right company to solve the target problem
• Does this fit into our
  distinctive competence?
• Or do we partner with a
  third party to solve this
  problem? ​

Three Important Criteria

1. Is the problem urgent?
2. Is it pervasive in the market?
3. Are buyers willing to pay to
   solve the problem?

Where Do Our Users Spend Their Time?

Is The Problem Pervasive?

Competition

• How do the best opportunities compare with competitive offerings
• How does the competition position their offering?
• Does the competition use the right messaging for the target user persona?
• Does your distinctive competence put you in a better light to the potential user than the competition?

The Good Enough Line

• Customers base purchase decisions on what is "good enough"
• Over time "good enough" increases
• Disruptive innovation addresses a problem in a new way
  • Falls below the good enough line
• When a product is over the good enough line, adding features won't bring a corresponding increase in revenue

Invest Wisely

• Avoid ongoing investment in new functionality for products above the good enough line
• Introduce new ways to solve old problems
• Look for markets where the product is below the line

Distinctive Competence

• "A" products fall above the line – cash cows
• "B" products have too much technology for the market
  • Over investment
  • Ahead of the market
• "C" products have low cost & have margin – sweet spot
• "D" products are high value, high depth

Develop Product Plans

Product Plans

• Show alignment with corporate goals & market needs
• Document market research, sizing
  & validation
• Outline pricing strategy
• Show how product fits into overall product roadmap
• Communicate the market opportunity to the marketing team

New Product Proposals

• One-to-two page business proposal for major development
• Encapsulate the essence of the product you want to propose
• Include information on urgency , pervasiveness, and willingness of target buyers to purchase

Product Lead

Many pricing strategies

• Can you sell more items if you price it low?
• Will the product cannibalize current an
  existing product?
• Can you offer different pricing to
  different customers?
• Do you package the product with other offerings?
• Do you unbundle other offerings to get at a lower starting point?

Pricing

• Pricing is often equated with quality (perception)
  • Higher price = higher quality
  • Lower price = lower quality
• Lower prices can start a price war
• A/B testing can help determine ideal price
• ASP is a key performance indicator (KPI) ​
• Pricing needs to be woven into overall strategy and messagin of the product

Product Roadmap

• A roadmap communicates in broad strokes what you plan to do
• Where do you want the product to be in 6, 12, 24 months from now?
• Tie to organization goals
• Help others see the product direction without specifics

How to Create Product Roadmaps

• Define your product strategy
• Bring features and releases together in unified view
• Share the roadmap with the team and stakeholders

Creating Product Roadmap

• Roadmaps do not need to be complex
• Balance roadmaps with being agile
  • Don't be afraid to pivot from the roadmap direction when necessary
  • Roadmaps are not commitments, but planned direction

Sprint 1

Sprint 2

Sprint 3

Product Requirements

Product Requirements

Evolution of requirements documentation

Product Requirements

Stories
(Issues)

Epics

Initiatives

Created by the Product Manager

Created by the Product Manager or Scrum Master

Created by the Product Management Lead

Product Requirements

Stories
(Issues)

Epics

Initiatives

As a user, I want to know where to go first to get started

Create onboarding tools

Improve user engagement of our application

UNIT OF WORK

User Stories

• A short description of something that a user will do when they use your product
• User stories are focused on the value or result the user gets from doing a specific task
• User stories are written from the point of view of the person who wants to achieve the goal ​

User Stories

As a (persona), I want (action) so that I can get (an expected action).

As a user, I want to get a loan so that I can purchase a new car.  ​

Acceptance Criteria

• User stories always require an acceptance criteria
• Acceptance criterias define the scope and the what of a user story
• They are used to confirm when a story is completed and working as intended ​

Acceptance Criteria Example

User Story:

As a conference attendee, I want to be able to register online, so that I can do it quickly and cut down on paperwork ​

Acceptance Criteria:

• A user cannot submit a form without completing all mandatory fields​
• Information from the form is stored in the registration database
• Payment is made via a credit card
• An acknowledgement email is sent to the user after submitting the form

Sprint Planning Meetings 

• Present user stories
• Start from the top of the product backlog
• The team has the opportunity to ask questions to clarify
• Goal is to eliminate ambiguity and inaccurate assumptions
• Team estimates the stories and determines how much they can complete during the sprint​

Managing Your Product Backlog

• Backlog is a prioritized list of work for the development team
• Most important items are at the top of the backlog
• Much easier to determine what to include in a sprint
• If capacity is available, the team can pull more into the current sprint
• Maintain a single backlog per product ​

How to Prioritize

• Organization objectives
• User needs
• Get something fixed
• Relative implementation
  difficulty
• Symbiotic relationship between
  user stories (e.g. A is easier if we do B first)
• Urgency to get feedback on a new feature ​

Prioritize user stories within an Epic and prioritize Epics between each other

Backlogs Keep You Agile

• Backlog prompt debates and choices
  • Not everything can be a top priority
• Stakeholders may challenge your priorities
  • ​This is good—it fosters discussion around
    what's important
• All work items need to be included in the
  backlog
  • User stories, bugs, design changes, technical debt, even action items from the retrospective​

Keep Your Backlog Healthy

• Regularly maintain your backlog—"backlog grooming"
• Review it before every sprint planning meeting
• Incorporate feedback from team meetings
• As the backlog gets larger, you may need to group it into near-term and long-term items
  • Near term: have complete user stories​
  • Long term: can remain vague

Product Requirements

Stories
(Issues)

Epics

Initiatives

As a user, I want to know where to go first to get started

Create onboarding tools

Improve user engagement of our application

UNIT OF WORK

Organize with Epics

• Epic is a group of multiple stories for feature-level work
• Usually take multiple sprints to complete
• Common for stories to change
  • Add or remove stories to optimize product release
• Epics simplify managing your backlog

Initiative

Epic                Epic                Epic

Story                    Story                 Story

Story                    Story                 Story

Prepare for Launch

Develop Messaging for Each Persona

• Describe how the product solves the buyer's pain points
• Translate that description into phrases or concepts
  • Include your distinctive competence
• Create a product positioning statement
• Focus on benefits
• Keep your messaging simple ​

Positioning Statement Example

For (target buyer) who (needs/cares about), (product) is a (product category) that (delivers benefit). Unlike (primary alternatives), (product) is/uses (differentiation).

For the novice user who wants an easy way to create a personal website, Wix is a website builder that is intuitive and very easy to use. Unlike other lightweight site builders, Wix uses artificial design intelligence to make it super easy to build a website.

Acid Test

• Conduct a quick test of your messaging with people who represent your buyer personas
• Ask them 
  • Does this explanation make
    sense?
  • If you heard this, would you
    be interested?
  • Would you want to buy or at
    least evaluate this solution?

Sample Persona Messaging

Target user: small business

Objective: get a website

Get your business online. Simply and quickly.

Increase your visibility. Appear more credible. Reach a larger market.

Consider Impact on Existing Customers

• How will this impact existing customers?
• How will the addition of new features impact customers that don't need these features?
• When customers need to migrate to a new, they will often re-evaluate and consider competitive offerings ​

Product Training

• Give support groups plenty of notice of product release date
• Important that all support groups are trained on the product
• Insure that your technical support team has had a chance to test the product
• Share messaging to all groups ​

Track Product Over Its Life

Product Lead

• Track KPIs to monitor product progress
• Insure KPIs are available to all stakeholders
• Use KPIs as feedback to adjust
  • Ask target users for feedback
  • What is missing in the product?
  • Are we getting the message out
    to target users effectively?
  • What else?

Product Lifecycle Management

The process of managing the entire product lifecycle—from inception to development to product rollout to ongoing enhancements to eventual disposal of the product

Product Lifecycle Management

• Need to avoid releasing minimum viable products (MVPs) that never get enhanced
• When products have been above the "good enough" line for a while
  • Determine if it needs to be end of life'd or replaced

End of Life: Retiring a Product

When is it appropriate to phase out a product?

• It no longer fits the company's distinctive competence & market strategy
• Product doesn't generate enough revenue
• Product costs too much to maintain
• Product can be replaced with a better one

How to Retire a Product

1. Communicate throughout the organization
2. Determine when to stop selling and stop providing support
3. Give customers an early warning
4. If possible, give customers an alternative
5. Discontinue selling product
6. Discontinue support after a
   pre-determined time period