The Productologist

On my way back from a trade show, I spied an article in the airline magazine about how companies are starting to use the “novel” technique of Ethnography to understand how customers really use their products or to test out prototypes in real-world situations (this seems to be a hot topic, because after seeing the article in the airline mag, I also found a recent post about it at Requirements Defined, a blog from the folks at Seilevel and Experientia).

One of my goals for this year is to establish Product Councils for my products. Product Councils, or Product Advisory Boards, as they are sometimes called, are made up of people who are familiar with your product and/or the market. In most cases, they are external, meaning that the members are customers or industry experts who can provide strategic guidance or provide feedback on tactical implementations, but they can also be made up of, wholly or in part, internal members.

I plan to have two; one made up of internal team members and one made up of customers. Both are necessary to help me grow the product to meet the needs of the market.

At my company, it’s annual review time, which means that I get to spend quality time writing about what I have accomplished over the past 12 months and how it relates to my role as Product Manager. Now, as an individual contributor, I like the annual review process (I’ve been on the management side, too, and that’s not as much fun). It gives me an opportunity to reflect on how far my product has come from a year ago, identify areas for growth and lets me campaign for a salary increase. But in a role like Product Manager, what are the best ways to evaluate success?