New to product management

So You’re new Product
Manager…..
What Next?

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New to Product Management
Product Managers are recruited from all
areas of a business.
Its been coined the Accidental Profession
by Steven Haines from Sequent Learning
Networks.
Here are a few simple tips to help you
make the transition to Product
Management.
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Tip 1: Speak to People and Listen
Get organised! Make a list of the people across the
organisation that interact with and support your new
product. You may want to include your direct manager
on the list.
Firstly, ask them for a general impression about your
product. Secondly, ask them what they personally like
about your product and to detail any areas for
improvement. Thirdly, if the person is customer facing,
ask them what customers are saying about your
products

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Listen to what they have to say without making any
decisions or jumping to any conclusions about the
product. You will find that people’s opinions naturally
skew towards their particular area of concern. For
example, the sales team may advise you that they are
unable to close sales because a feature is missing
from your product. Resist the temptation to include this
feature on your roadmap without other inputs.

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If you have a B2B product, do some customer visits.
If you have a B2C product, spend time on the phones
listening to your customers or reading emails from
them.
Collate and analyse your data. Use this data to inform
any future decisions you may make during the product
planning process.
This information will generally give you a good
overview of what’s working well and what the product
pain points are. It will also provide you with material
to take to and discuss with your manager.
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Tip 2: Use Your New Product
Take the time to interact, consume, use, play with your new
product or service.
Personal experience will give you a depth of understanding that
cannot solely be obtained from internal and customer feedback.
Approach this process formally by listing the product’s features
and summarising the key benefit of each feature. Compare the
feature list to a range of competitor features. This approach
should help you to identify your product’s unique selling points.
Further, this will help isolate any of your product’s shortcomings
which you may include in your new product roadmap.

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Tip 2: Use Your New Product
The first time that you start to experience your product with the
“customer’s eyes” is invaluable. Shortly after this you may get too
familiar with the product and may overlook great opportunities
for improvement.
Also be careful not to let others who have been around the
product tell you the reasons for NOT fixing things. Often these
are perfectly good reasons but carry the baggage of previous
failure. By initially ignoring this type of talk you have an
opportunity to bring fresh new ideas and possibilities to old
customer’s problems.
The biggest challenge that a Product Manager can face is to keep
seeing their product through the customer’s eyes.

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Tip 3: Review Your KPIs
Its time to take a good, hard look at the numbers! Qualitative
information sought from customer interviews and the Call Centre
feedback is extremely useful but only to a point. Quantitative
results on the other hand, tell you how the market views your new
product. A combination of qualitative and quantitative data will
provide you with a holistic view of your product’s performance.
When you’ve obtained a set of the key performance indicators,
speak to your Manager or others in the business for a historical
perspective on any activities that may have affected the figures
during the past year. A dip in your sales numbers may tell you
that a price increase was enforced, or alternatively a substitute
product was introduced in the market. Without any past
knowledge of the business and its activities, you may still be
guessing.
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Tip 3: Review Your KPIs
For Product Managers whose products do not generate any
revenue, don’t assume that you don’t need to track any statistical
data. There are key statistical figures that will tell you if your
product is in demand.
Once you’ve collated and analysed your product’s key
performance indicators, determine if the numbers have under or
over performed compared to the business plan. This will further
help you during the planning process.
If you’re a new Product Manager, understand your position going
forward and review your product’s key indicators every week.

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Tip 4: Understand What the Market is
Saying About Your Product?
Now you need to stay informed. You need to know what your
market is saying about your product. Your market includes the
people who have bought the product, the people who use the
product AND the people who have NOT bought your product
(yet).
Conduct formal research.
If you don’t have budget, the good news is that it is easier than
ever before to find out because now customers are using the
multitudes of online communications methods to tell you.
Again put yourself in the shoes of the customer and search for
your product. Google it. Visit Technorati. Ideally they will find your
product at the top of the list. Either way, look at what they see.
What other listings come up?
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Tip 4: Understand What the Market is
Saying About Your Product?
The widespread rise of blogging allows customers to talk about
anything. The most passionate supporters or haters of your
product will most probably rise to the top of a Google search.
These will be the thought leaders for the market.
What you find may surprise you. The fact is that these are the new
authorities on your product. These are the people that the market
will listen to. Do not dismiss them and do not make decisions
purely based on their comments, but do treat then with respect.

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Tip 5: Locate & Review Product Documents

It may seem obvious but sometimes we tend to overlook the fact
that there is existing product documentation available throughout
the various departments of an organisation.
Seek out all documentation and find the most up to date versions.
Start with the documentation available within the product group.
There should be a Market or Product Requirements Document for
your product. Business Analysts and Solution Architects tend to
write and will therefore have comprehensive documentation. The
Customer Service Team may also have a training manual or
training sheet that you can review.

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Tip 6: Write a Product Document

If a Market or a Product Document was not created for your
product, write one.
Your knowledge of your customer and product will grow
exponentially as you write this document. The Product Document
will also form the basis of any future documentation that you will
prepare as you enhance your product.
It will be difficult making any changes to your product if you do
not have a baselined Product Document.

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Tip 7: Persist With the Product Document

If you are partway through the document and you feel that writing
a document may not be the most productive use of your time, I
recommend that you persist. Your efforts will be well rewarded.
Preparing such a document, even though your product is “in-
market”, has many advantages:
Information about your customer and product is contained within one
document
The document can be shared by others across the organisation
Any assumptions previously made about your product are either substantiated
or negated
You become the Subject Matter Expert and can converse fluently about your
product

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Tip 8: Be the Best

Seth Godin’s new book, “The Dip” teaches us the importance of
being the best. As Product Managers, it is important for our
professional development and our customers that we strive to be
the best that we can be in our organisation, in our industry and
amongst our peers.

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Tip 8: Be the Best

“Best” can be defined in many ways but for me, being the best
Product Manager is about:
Understanding your personal objectives. It is important to understand what
your manager expects of you on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis so
that you can create a personal plan to meet your objectives.
Aligning your personal objectives to your product’s business objectives. If you
feel that your personal objectives may not deliver the best product for your
customer, you may want to discuss changing your objectives with your
manager.
Delivering the best work for your audience. When preparing a presentation
pack or a document, small things such as spelling and formatting matter.
Making mistakes simply distracts your audience and your message may be
overlooked. If possible ask someone else to review your work while you still
have time to correct the small mistakes.

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Tip 8: Be the Best
Doing one thing at a time. As Product Managers, we generally have too
many operational activities that keep us from delivering the best product. Sort
through the chaff and decide what activity will give you the best return for
your time. Work on that “one thing” before starting work on the next activity.
Asking for help. We don’t always have the answers to all product-related
questions and issues. If you are struggling, ask for help.
Wanting to be the best. Being the best starts with wanting to be the best at
your job, being the best in the industry and delivering the best product for
your customers. If there is little desire to be the best, you may have missed the
opportunity to excel as a Product Manager.

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Tip 9: Review Predecessors Task List
This should give you a view of what the previous Product Manager
considered important and unimportant.
You’ll see what activities and tasks remain incomplete
It will help you to decide what activities to include on your task list
Why Create a Task List?
Its simple. Creating a task list helps you manage your time, plan your
week and plan for your Product.
Product Managers have a tendency to focus on operational
activities. Whilst fielding and managing operational issues is something
that is difficult to shun in any organisation, allocating time to think
strategically about your Product is essential. This is where the task list
plays an important role.
Make sure that you list as tasks some of the more forward planning
activities such as “develop a draft roadmap for 2008 – 2009″. This task
may not be urgent but it is important for the success of your Product.
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Tip 10: Plan to Update Your Skills
As a new Product Manager settling nicely into your role, don’t
forget to update your skills throughout the year. This may be in
the form of skills or domain training or attendance at relevant
conferences. Often this sort of activity costs money, so like most
other elements of Product Management, you will need a plan.
Preparing a plan will provide you with the opportunity to share
something a little more formal with your Manager. Your request
for funds to support your personal skills program may
be approved by your Manager if you’ve prepared a plan.

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Tip 10: Plan to Update Your Skills
What to Include in your Plan?
Before you create your plan, conduct a personal assessment of your skill
base. Your plan should include informal or formal training activities that
will grow you as a Product Manager. For example, if you’ve never had
experience calculating the return of investment on a new product, you
may consider a short course in Financial management. If you’re keen on
understanding the trends in your particular industry, you may want to
attend a conference.
Some activities that you may include in your skills plan:
Attending an industry conference or conferences
Going to local product meetups or product camp
Short courses in Product Management
Attending webinars
Joining an association
Subscribing to (and reading!) journals and trade magazines
Listening to relevant podcasts
Soft skills training (presentation skills, negotiation and influencing skills) Page no.

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Tip 11: Enjoy Yourself
One of the most important aspects of Product Management is to
really enjoy your job and love your product. If you’re having fun
at work, your colleagues around you will be more prepared to
help you achieve your goals.

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Tip 12: Do It All Again!
After a while, you tend to get to know everything that there is to
know about your product. The downside of this is that eventually
it may become more difficult to see your product through the eyes
of the customer. It starts to become all about the KPI’s of the
product and the business objectives. Meeting business objectives
is important but ultimately, to meet your objectives you need to
delight your customers. If you feel that you’re becoming
stale, then you may need to take radical action.
You should take steps to become a new Product Manager again.

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Tip 12: Do It All Again!
Product Managers have to be super confident about their product
and understand why their customers should love their product. As
the “owner” of the product, your belief in your product’s feature
set and benefits must be rock solid. If your customer focus wanes,
this may translate poorly internally as well as externally. You can’t
expect your Sales team to sell your product if you’re not
convinced that someone will buy your product. You can’t expect
customers to buy your product if you don’t believe that your
product resolves a problem well.
We encourage Product Managers that lose the customer feel for
their product to seek new opportunities. Find a product that you
are passionate about and start at Step 1. Reclaim your passion!

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Thanks!

We hope that you have enjoyed this series on being a
new Product Manager. If you think that we have
missed any key tips, please drop me an email at
actan@brainmates.com.au

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