The Productologist

I was at a SVPMA meeting last month where the presenter, Barbara Nelson from Pragmatic Marketing, was giving a talk about the “Politics of Agile” and during the course of the discussion, she brought up examples of products that she had managed in the past. What I noticed was that when Barbara talked about the products, she always referred to them as “her” products. That’s what I like–making the product personal.

As Product Managers, we spend a lot of time working with other groups—Prospects, Customers, Sales, Support, Engineering, Marketing, etc–to get our products up and running and out the door. Managing that diverse universe of contacts is an integral and frequently taxing function of the Product Manager’s role. But there is another group that many Product Managers that I know neglect to include in their universe of contacts: other Product Managers.

Popularity: 58% [?]

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.

My company is hiring. Maybe yours is, too. Or at least trying to. If you work in the Silicon Valley, then you are probably aware of how difficult it is to find quality staff for just about any position–Dev, QA, Product Management, Marketing, you name it.

If you aren’t familiar with the challenges of hiring in Silicon Valley, it’s a lot like buying a used car. There are plenty to choose from, but finding one that has all of the features that you want, in the color you like, with low miles, well, that’s where it gets tricky.