Tag Archives: product management

The Two-Word Value Proposition

Here I go again blogging on something in the area of Product Marketing … I should leave that up to April Dunford the Product Marketing expert; but I can’t help myself.

Can you create a two-word phrase that describes your value proposition? Something like ‘Change Ready’ or ‘Threat Resistant’. You should be able to attach them to the end of the phrase ‘Are you …?’ or ‘Is your whatever …’. You then can use phrases that contain these two words when you talk to a prospect or add it to the front page of your web site. Or maybe even trademark it.

The first word needs to describe the problem that you solve or the desired outcome and the second word needs to describe your solution to the problem. The problem, of course, has to be expressed from your target market’s perspective … i.e. it can not be what you do (no one cares about that).

My company – Ateala Management – helps tech companies with their product management issues. Outside of the realm of product management nobody gets this. The usual response is “huh?”. My target companies are those that are just beyond the start-up phase looking to scale their business to the next level. The problem they have is staying focused on meeting their business objectives with all the distractions being thrown at them. What I do is implement systems and processes and educate their staff to focus on making decisions that help in meeting their business objectives. I now ask if  they have an objective-focused business. So my value proposition can be condensed to “objective focused”. Is your business objective focused?

Try it with your product. Can you share your two-word value proposition?

Don’t Barf Your Message

Why do tech companies insist on barfing out their message. It’s like they have to spew out absolutely every competitive threat, differentiator, techo-wizardry, benefit, target customer in one single breath. No wonder nobody understands what they do and what value they provide. Just stop it!

I’ve run into so many tech companies that have great intentions, but eventually end up with something that’s barfed out. They start with a short, crisp, well-articulated message and then they start adding in the prepositions (by, with, including, etc.). Each crisp message, when delivered, should lead the listener to the next sentence. They should want to hear the next sentence. Each sentence should build on the next – eventually revealing the story. If fact the person you’re speaking to will guide what your next sentence needs to be; e.g. ” what do you mean by such-and-such”. I’ve been following the writings of Jill Konrath; especially her views on value propositions. Keep your messages short and crisp and your audience will understand what you’re about … remember that your audience needs to understand your message, if they don’t then you’ve wasted your breath.

Business-Driven Product Management Podcast from PCamp Toronto

During ProductCamp Toronto in October I was interviewed by Donna Popacosta on Business-Driven Product Management. She turned this into a podcast which is now available on the ProductCamp Toronto website. Thanks to Donna for putting all this together.

Product Marketing for an Agile World

At this month’s OCRI Zone5ive meeting I delivered a presentation entitled Product Marketing for an Ever-changing World. [The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is Ottawa’s leading member-based economic development corporation for fostering the advancement of the region’s globally competitive knowledge-based institutions and industries.] The goal of this presentation was to educate the Zone5ive membership on how they can become more effective as the development team shifts to Agile development. This transition does not just impact the development team, it also impacts Product Marketing, Product Management and Marketing.

The net result is that product marketing (and product management) teams will have the ability to engage customers early and often throughout the project which will increase the chances of a successful product (or release) launch. In other words, by engaging customers during the project, they will feel like they helped shape the release (or capability or feature) and so will be in a better position to talk to the press and industry analysts. They will also help you with your messaging, i.e. they will provide with real value statements.

Product Management and SaaS Security Issues

Earlier this week Scott Wright of Streetwise Security Zone and I got together and created a podcast exploring security issues that product managers wrestle with when they transition to a SaaS model to deliver their product. Scott in this podcast offers some great tips and advice on the following topics:

  1. Moving from isolated software products to offering them as a service
  2. Basic considerations for securing services, assurance for customers
  3. Separating data between clients who could be competing with each other
  4. User login security considerations
  5. Who administers users, and who administers the system?
  6. The big picture – communicating new kinds of risks to senior management

I highly recommend product managers visit Scott’s website and blog to expand their knowledge in security. Thanks Scott!

Social Business – Are You Ready?

Marketing and Operations together to leverage social networks to conduct business – that’s what social business is. This includes Product Management, Product Marketing, Product Development, Sales, Service and Customer Support. All of these groups within a company need to leverage social networks in an organized fashion to conduct business – i.e. generate revenue, improve customer satisfaction, etc.

As with any earth-changing technology, social networks are changing the way business needs to be conducted – companies need to get involved in the conversation as an integral part of they way they do business – Product Managers especially. Testing new ideas, improving existing capabilities, watching your competitors, etc. are all activities that the Product Manager needs to do on social networks – Twittter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The first step is to identify your community – in other words the people and companies in your target market. Find out where these people have their conversations? All / some networks? This includes customers, prospects, competitors, influencers, users, etc. Product Managers must be part of the conversation to help achieve your company’s business objectives.

Are you ready? You had better be.

ProductCamp Toronto 2009 Sponsor

Ateala Management is proud to be a sponsor of #PCT2 (ProductCamp Toronto 2009). We look forward to meeting everyone. If you have not registered go to: http://pct2009prereg.eventbrite.com/. If you have not voted for your favourite session go to: http://productcamptoronto.uservoice.com/pages/28890-productcamp-toronto-2009-sessions.
We're Sponsoring ProductCamp Toronto, Oct 4, 2009

Ottawa Product Management Assoc. Meeting

#OPMA #ProdMgmt – The first meeting of the Ottawa Product Management Association will be a “meet ‘n greet” gathering at a pub (tentatively Tuesday October 6th, starting at 6:30pm). In order to attempt to make the location as convenient as possible (closer to work or closer to home or whatever suits), please complete the following poll.

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Thank-you very much … look forward to seeing everyone in October!

Product Management is a Philosophy

Too many companies view #ProdMgmt as a set of product managers who’s primary role is to manage the product requirements / backlog. They believe that as soon as they have hired one or more people to fill the role, product management is covered. That’s it; done … on to the next issue.

They can’t be further from the truth. Product management is about managing the product portfolio from initial concept through to end-of-life (EOL); maximizing the revenue their product(s) generate. This is the life-line of product companies … the entire company needs to realize that messing this up could be disastrous. Hence, product management is a philosophy that everyone needs to understand and determine what their role is in it.

This philosophy is about understanding that every decision anyone in the company makes has implications on the management of the product. Decisions by executives about where to invest or which markets to target are the obvious ones. But decisions by the finance group regarding contracts and/or licenses impact pricing and packaging or agreements with 3rd party suppliers impact the content or profitability model of the product are examples of those that are not so obvious. I challenge everyone to think of every department in their company and write down the decisions and actions by each department that potentially could impact the product(s) … you will soon see that there are many that impact the management of the product(s).

So as an executive, impart this philosophy on all of your employees … mandate that decisions and actions by everyone are fed into the product management process ensuring that fact-based product decisions are being made. As a product manager be proactive and set up your internal network so that you meet face-to-face monthly or quarterly to review the latest news to find out what will potentially have an impact on your product(s) … don’t be blind-sided.

The Changing Role of the Product Manager

#ProdMgmt This is where I reveal my age! Ok, sort of. I remember the challenges of Product Managers 10 years or so ago. The major challenge back then for me was the activity of gathering information. Yes you would hear from your customers, but mostly when they wanted something or when something was not working – it was up to you to pick up the phone and call them. Another avenue for information was from analysts; an expensive option that returned slightly skewed information which was not really worth the money. Tradeshows were a great source of information – competition, customers, thought leaders, etc.; but incredibly expensive. Bottom-line – it was just plain tough and especially time-consuming to get solid, reliable information with which you made product decisions. The act of getting the information occupied a large percentage of the Product Manager’s time. Add to that, requirements writing and teaching / helping sales and well, there was no time left for anything strategic, let alone to try and stay ahead. Even after your release went GA and you distributed it to your customers, it took some time to get feedback … Beta programs occasionally worked, but not always.

Putting this into a Lean context, taking the time to gather information does not add direct value to the customer and therefore should be eliminated. In other words it is Muda.

Many Product Managers still operate this way today, but I’m seeing a growing trend of companies where Product Managers are spending their time responding to information rather than gathering it. In other words, instead of spending the time gathering information, they are doing something with it to add value to the product. Communication and the ease with which we can get information has the ability to significantly reduce the need to spend the time gathering information. Tools such as Twitter provide almost instant feedback from users. SF.com’s Ideas portal allows customers to post and vote on enhancement requests. The ability to intertwine your product and web-oriented feedback mechanisms makes it easy for customers to send you their feedback. From a Product Manager’s perspective the information freely flows in through these new mechanisms and they can now focus on what to add to the product to give the greatest value. The one new addition to the PM role is to monitor these new feedback mechanisms.

Two companies I know of push  a new release up to their site on a Friday and start monitoring the uptake and users behavior on Saturday. By Monday morning the Product Manager can assess and prioritize what needs to be done during the week. Another company uses their blog page for feedback. The link to the blog page is right there in the product to make it easy for customers to give feedback. Trends like these will continue far into the future.

Why is this happening? I see two reasons – and they are linked. First is that the rate and amount of change has increased. It is very difficult to maintain a steady course for more than 3 – 4 months. I remember not having to deal with change for a year. The other is the speed and breadth of communication. The web and the tools to mine data or the tools to send you data automatically has dramatically increased. They are linked because the more information available the more need to change what was decided.

It is very clear that our world has become and will continue to be agile – the roles of Product Manager, Product Owner, Business Analyst are in for a very exciting change. I look forward to this evolution!