Overview of Product Management Roles

Pragmatic Marketing Framework

Product Strategist

• 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 Strategist

• 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 ​

Organizing Product Management

• Each product manager owns part of the whole product line
• They are responsible for the success of what they own
  ​

Excede DMS Core

Excede Data Insight

Excede
Add-ons

Excede
Integrations

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

Alternative Strategies

Being Market-Driven

• Start-ups are more market-drive at first – because they have to be
• Unfortunately most companies 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 potential users & get to know them deeply 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

Distinctive Competence

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

Distinctive Competence

• Usually a subset of your core competencies
• 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
• 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?

Which of our core competencies gives us the biggest competitive advantage?

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

Procede Software's Distinctive Competence

Highly reliable software

Dedicated to customer success

Responsive

Integration with industry vendor solutions

Core Competencies

Distinctive Competence

Procede Software's Distinctive Competence

Highly reliable software

Dedicated to customer success

Responsive

Integration with industry vendor solutions

Core Competencies

Distinctive Competence

Integration with industry vendor solutions

Becoming Market-Driven

• Study market problems from customers &
  non-customers
• Don't create products by trying to make
  it different from an existing one
• 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 or technology stacks

They only care about solutions to their problems

Understanding Needs of Your Target Market

Understanding Needs

• Understand market problems before developing any products
• Talk to customers & 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 validate what you learn

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 are your biggest challenges?
• What are your goals for your dealership?
• What process will you take (did you take) to select a DMS?
• Who are (were) the decision makers
  at your dealership for a DMS?
• Where do you go to get information
  about a new product that can
  potentially help your dealership?

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 or email, 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?

Procede Customers

What do you think are your customer's biggest pain points?

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
  or this specific feature?
• 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 3-5 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

Procede Personas

Principal

CFO

Sales & Mktg

Service

Mgr

How is the business doing?

What part of the business is holding us back?

Margins are too small

How can we increase profitability?

We need to increase sales

How can we drive more business? Get more leads?

We need our service agents to document what they do

How do we keep our agents trained on the latest tech?

How do we keep our inventory low & max turns?

How can we have a tighter relationship with our suppliers?

Procede Personas

Older Generation Principal

Younger Generation Principal

• Use good old boy network to learn
• Generally not technology savvy

• Use the Internet to learn
• Open to new technology
• E-commerce is important

Private Equity Firm

• Acquiring many independent dealers
• Standardize technology across all dealers

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 ​

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
  core competencies?
• Or do we partner with a
  third party to solve this
  problem?

Example

Major Pain Point:  senior management need a business intelligence tool to see business trends

Solution:  Leverage external solution

POWER BI

Seal Report
sealreport.org

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 solution?
• 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

Product Pricing

Pricing Strategies

Many pricing strategies

• Can you sell more items if you price it low?
• Will the product cannibalize 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 Strategies

License on Premise

SaaS Subscription

Subscriptions with Adaptive Pricing

Transaction Pricing

Capital

Investment

On Demand

Number of Users, Level of Commitment

Predictive Analytics

Pricing

• Pricing is often equated with quality (perception)
  • Higher price = higher quality
  • Lower price = lower quality
• Lower prices can start a price war
• Pricing needs to be woven into overall strategy and messaging of the product

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

Characteristics of Successful Product Managers

1. Be transparent in your prioritization and roadmap process
2. Be able to say “no,” but explain why in terms that stakeholders understand
3. Be a ruthless prioritizer while balancing the needs of customers and stakeholders
4. Bring evidence-based decision making to your communications
5. Be metrics-driven when determining which opportunities to pursue

Product Roadmap

A roadmap communicates the "why" behind what you're building. It's a plan for your strategy.

A roadmap is a high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and direction of your product over time.

Product Roadmap Goals

• Describe your vision and strategy
• Provide a guiding document for executing the strategy
• Facilitate discussion of options to get internal stakeholders in alignment
• Communicate progress & status
• Help communicate your strategy to your customers

Product Roadmap Process

Set Strategic Goals

Gather & Organize Initiatives

Prioritize Initiatives

Roadmap Proposal & Communication

Stakeholder Engagement

Set Strategic Goals

Your roadmap cannot simply be a list of features you want developed — it needs to convey high-level strategy, goals and vision

Organize Initiatives

• Organize initiatives into strategic themes
• A series of similar product features grouped together

Theme: Simplify & Facilitate OEM Integrations

API 1.0

API Documentation

Outsource Dev

Sample Integration

Prioritize Initiatives

• Approach prioritization as a team activity
• Limit the number of items you are prioritizing
• Understand the customer value of each theme
• Put together a rough cost estimate for each item

Roadmap Strategy

Value Vs. Complexity

Business Value

Complexity / Effort

1

2

?

Low

High

High

Roadmap Strategy

Opportunity Scoring

Roadmap Strategy

Weighted Scoring

Communicate the Vision

• Propose your vision to key stakeholders for feedback
• Be ready to show how you created your initiatives and priorities
• Once you have feedback, provide a single source for roadmaps 
• Use a tool that makes it easy
  to update and communicate
  • Team Foundation
  • ProductPlan

Agile Product Roadmaps

A roadmap needs to be agile and treated as a living document

Recommendation: review and update once per month

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 Strategist

Product Requirements

Stories
(Issues)

Epics

Initiatives

As a parts manager, I want to automatically order replacement parts

Build out API 1.0

Integration with Parts Vendor

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 (type of user) , I want (action)  so that I can get (an expected result) .

As a user, I want to automatically order replacements parts so that I can keep my inventory low and have important parts on hand.  ​

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 user, I want the optimal inventory to keep my inventory costs down, yet still have the most often needed parts on hand.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Track FCO and BC needs to determine most commonly used parts
• Gather input from OEM on the most optimal inventory based on our dealership sales and service revenue
• Automatically order the right parts to OEMs and other parts suppliers

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​

Sprint Retrospective 

• Review previous sprint
• What went well, what didn't go well, what blockers
• View demos of anything completed in previous sprint
• Leverage learnings in next sprint

Agile Scrum at Procede 

• Have one "team", one sprint planning and retrospective meetings
• Review all products
• Use points to help scope how much to include in the sprint
• Product managers = product owners
• Project management = scrum master

Use TFS for your agile management tool

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 ​

Managing Your Product Backlog

• Keep enough "fully created" items in the backlog over and above your sprint
• Allows the developers to pull in an issue if there are done with their a user story is blocked
• "Just in Time" user story creation
• OK to have items in backlog that are not fully completed

Sprint 1

Sprint 2

Sprint 3

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 user stories across all Epics

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

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

Track Product Over Its Life

Product Metrics

• Track KPIs to monitor product progress and feedback
  • What are the most used features?
  • What features are rarely used?
  • How well is a new product doing?
• May require adding in the ability
  to track these metrics in the
  product

Product Metrics

• Not all metrics have the same value
• Best are those that help drive the business
  • Revenue per product
  • Uptime
  • Average revenue per customer
  • Lifetime value of customer
  • Customer retention

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

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