Product Management 101

1. Product Management 101 A “Getting Started” Guide -Kapil Raizada

2. Benefits from this workshop • Benefits for participants • Understand the Product Management function – Business drivers, role, responsibilities and expectations • Apply skills for a better partner engagement and delivery management • Identify potential new business opportunities

3. Benefits from this workshop • Benefits for the presenter • Learn from your experience • Get feedback about this presentation to make this better

4. Frequently asked Questions

5. Frequently asked questions • What is Product Management • Why is it required • What does a Product Manager do? • How is it different from a Project Manager • What skills do I need to qualify for this role? • Must I be a domain expert to get started?

6. Product based businesses • To understand this, a good starting point would be to first understand the characteristics of a product business • To highlight the differences, I have also compares this with similar considerations in the case of a services business

7. How is a product business different? • Time Span • The life of a product extends many years - beyond projects, programs, releases and even business cycles. Decisions taken today, will affect the product at a later time. Implications: • Product businesses value considered & mature decision making • Projects/Services business tend to value relationships and fire-fighters more! • PDLC implications: Products go through a lifecycle (more later) and require active planning for the future. • Changing competitive landscape • Changing consumer usage patterns • Changing technology • Etc. • Flexibility is the key: Given the longer term perspective, a Product Manager typically deals with more unknowns across all areas of operations e.g., pricing, positioning, customers, roadmap, etc. Its hard to predict these all the time. Therefore ability to change is valued

8. How is a product business different? • Type of customers • Product companies typically do not focus on a customer, but rather on a category of customers • Services organizations tend to have a culture of doing exactly as told • In a Product business, you may be doing a disservice to other customers, by following the biding of an aggressive customer. • Exception: Early stage companies may focus on a single customer as a boot-strap strategy, and this needs to be understood as such. • Customers, in general don’t expect tailor made products either. Instead, they expect • Configurability • New enhancements and fixes, that come as part of the product releases • Best in class features and capabilities • Learning from the “product” • Domain expertise

9. How is a product business different? • Lifecycle considerations • Almost all products go through a life-cycle (more details later in this presentation) • Investment decisions are related to the product lifecycle • Before you join an organization as a Product Manager, you need to be aware of the stage of the lifecycle for your product. This may have significant implications on your decision making process • A few points: • Cash flow is typically negative at the start of the product • Pay-offs start after a lag • During the growth phase, focus is typically on increasing acceptance, or adding registered users/new customers, etc. • During the mature stage, focus may shift to retaining customers

10. How is a product business different? • Products require Marketing & Branding • Marketing is essential because you want to send the same message to all the potential customers out in the market • Branding is essential to position your product separately from the competition • Revenue models • Products may have a one-time revenue + an on-going component. You need to understand the following to be able to take product decisions • How the product is priced & each component of the pricing • Which component makes money • Sales process • Selling depends largely on product capabilities. You should be able to communicate (marketing) and demonstrate the capabilities valued by your prospect • It’s typically hard to add functionalities after you meet a prospect! • If you don’t already have it, you’re lost. Good Product Managers are able to predict requirements and define target markets

11. Summary: Product business • Time Span • Type of customers • Lifecycle considerations • Marketing and branding • Revenue models • Sales process

12. Understanding the Product Lifecycle

13. The “standard” product lifecycle curve • Introduction: Product is launched. Typically preceded by an intense conceptualization, development and marketing efforts aimed at creating a separate identity and awareness • Growth: Increasing sales and entry of competition • Maturity: Industry consolidation, competitors exits, steady-state sales, price-cuts • Decline: Declining sales (due to unfavorable business conditions, changing customer tastes, new technology, etc.)

14. The “standard” product lifecycle curve • Over the years, I have realized that the standard graph is perhaps not ideal for capturing the “real” product lifecycle. • The shortcoming that I see are: • Its too theoretical. It represents a successful product launch (Statistics suggest that about 9 out of 10 products that hit the market, do not live to see the standard curve) • The Y-axis represents sales (which is why it is always positive). The entire early development phase, which requires upfront investment is lost. Plotting investment/cash-flow would probably give a better idea • It contains only 1 curve – which may give the impression that this is a likely scenarios. PDLC is probably better understood and explained through a family of curves that show the lifecycle of different product families

15. Standard SDLC phase C&D: Conceptualization & Design A&B: Assessment & Buy-In E: Engineering Post launch Cumulative Cash Flow Net worth positive Product development Starts Product Launch Cash flow positive • Green: Successful product • Yellow: Marginally successful product • Red: Unsuccessful product Terminated The complete product lifecycle curves

16. Some experiences during start-up phase • Delay in achieving success can be used to predict the duration or extent that the product will be successful • Longer is not better. Changing environment. Original assumptions regarding business may not hold • Emergence of other players. Losing the first mover advantage • Newer technology, etc. • Focus on key features that will generate quick returns initially • Till after launch, it is hard to predict the success of a product • Most start-ups look good during the pre-launch stage. Even after close experiences with about half-a-dozen startup products, the issue remains 

17. Product Lifecycle considerations that Product Managers should be aware of ..

18. Product priorities: Growth Phase • Typical goals : • Consolidate sales. New partnerships, reseller agreements • Implications: Good documentation, packaging, usability • Pricing options • Feature bundling / packaging • Performance & scalability • Internationalization/Localization support • Easy to upgrade • Role based access • Enhanced administrative console features • Product branding

19. Product priorities: Maturity Phase • Typical goals : • Feature complexity / configurations • Increasing focus on maintenance revenues • Feature bundling / packaging • Review branding and positioning • Spinoff new versions focused on specific markets

20. Product priorities: Decline Phase • Typical goals : • Focus on sustaining maintenance revenues • Harvest product – low cost enhancements for niche customers • Review branding and positioning • Spinoff new versions focused on specific markets • Possible splitting code-base for launching a new product

21. Product Manager - What skills are required? Why?

22. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why? • A Product Manager’s skill set requirement can be directly traced back to the business considerations of a product company • In the next few slides, I will take each business attribute and identify the supporting skill-set

23. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

24. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

25. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

26. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

27. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

28. Product Manager - What’s skills are required? Why?

29. Product Manager - Day-to-day Role

30. Product Manager – Day-to-day role • At a high level there are these 6 areas : • Market research (primary, secondary, tertiary) • Requirements specification and design • Project Management • What needs to be done, and the best way to implement it so as to meet market requirements. Make it easier for engineering!  • Product Marketing • One-pagers, case-studies, success stories, specifications docs, etc. • Product Lifecycle Management • Licensing & Pricing, product portfolios, reseller tie-ups, technical tie-ups, etc. • Product Support • The extent of actual involvement would depend on each organization and its practices

31. Working with Program Managers • I read the following quote somewhere, and is perfect for what I wanted to say: • Product managers are responsible for ongoing success. Once the project is complete, the product manager remains to manage the product through the entire lifecycle. • Good product managers know that all the features in the world will not matter if the project is continually delayed and never makes it to market, or if it is too over budget to be completed. • Project managers are responsible for the successful delivery of a project — a one-time endeavor with a goal, scope, deadline, budget, and other constraints • Good project managers know that the true success of a project is just not whether it is on time and within budget, but whether it meets the defined goals and objectives.

32. Other FAQs

33. Other FAQs • Do I have to be a domain expert to become a Product Manager? • It certainly helps. However, do remember • Product development is a team effort. Everybody does not need to be a domain expert. A large part of the activities may not even require domain skills. • From a hiring company’s perspective, its always hard to get a person in their precise domain. Each domain has sub-domains and each sub-domain brings its own uniqueness. Most organizations are very happy to get someone who knows the function and can pick the domain • As there are no well known professional courses for Product Management, my assessment is that the demand-supply gap for Product Managers favors the candidate. Even more so if you happen to be in India. Based on a recent survey, the total Product Managers in India was a lower end 3-digit number..

34. Other FAQs • What are the common roles within Product Management? • Some of the common Product Management roles are • Inbound Product Manager – Internal / Engineering facing role • Typically this is an engineering facing role. The main job here is to translate the market requirements / customer feedback across different customers, and ensure that these are in the engineering plans, as per the roadmap • Technical Product Manager – Another name for Inbound Product Managers • Outbound Product Manager – Market/Customer facing role • Typically, this is the market facing role. The main job here is to communicate the product’s value proposition to the customer (help sales), and pass feedback to the Inbound role. • An Inbound Product Manager can have multiple Outbound Managers e.g., products in different geographies, industry verticals, etc.

35. Other FAQs • Anything else that is not covered here regarding Product Management? • Yes. Product portfolio management (let me know if you spot other areas too) • Involves managing a portfolio of products. Additional considerations related to inter-relationship between products • There exist different models for managing a product portfolio • Typically this is a higher level role. More relevant for a product organization.

36. Thanks! Kapil Raizada http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=16308796&trk=tab_pro