In my career, I’ve worked on both sides of the fence between product management and product marketing. I enjoy both of them, but I recognize that they are very different functions. And while it is important that they be coordinated and aligned from the very beginning of any initiative, I’ve also seen that a company is best served when different people or teams do the work of these two jobs. It’s just too much to ask one person to do both roles very effectively.

To simplify it, product management is focused on the building the right product, and product marketing is focused on selling the product to the right customers. It’s a very important difference that we should remember. We don’t always have control over both sides of the fence in our careers, and we have to do the best with what we have, but I think a product person should learn both the product management and product marketing as much as possible. For me, I’ve seen it come up in several ways:

First, sometimes your company just doesn’t have both functions and you have to do both. The fact is, the work needs to be done if the product is going to be success. So if you don’t have a dedicated product marketer, then you have to be that person. And if the company has no product managers, then you have to push to influence development and engineering. So knowing both sides of the fence is important because sometimes you don’t have a choice.

Secondly, when there are two functions, they should be aligned from the very beginning. How many times have products failed when during the “hand-off” between product and marketing? We see it all the time. Therefore, its important to have marketing along for the ride. And the more you know about what they do, how they work, and what they need to be a success, the better.

Even better, it is important to have marketing involved with the customer development process from the beginning, so that marketers can see the value you are creating for their audiences. This saves time, creates aligned interest, helps perfect the messaging, and drives marketers to focus on finding the right customers.

Thirdly, both product and marketing should collaborate over time to be effective. They should iterate their respective tactics to learn, fix problems as they come up, and adapt strategies to changing realities. Information needs to flow back and forth freely. And for that, you need trust.

So my little tip is that if you are a product marketer, learn a bit about product management. And if you are a product manager, learn about product marketing.

Of course, this is a double-edged sword that you need to be aware of. If you ever do move to the other side, you also need to learn to let go and let someone else do that job. Otherwise, if you move from product to marketing, you could create tons of conflict with whoever fills your past role because they are not doing things the way you did them. And if you move from marketing to product, you need to let the marketers do their job, even if you would do it differently. Otherwise trust breaks down, and things fall apart.

This book about evidence-based management is an instant classic. I loved it because it totally destroyed so many common practice management techniques with evidence that they not only don’t work, but can often degrade company performance.  It is also well-written and enjoyable to read. Check it out.

Here’s a great book about the Customer Development Process, a term offered to us by Steve Blank. It’s a bit of an oldie at this point, but these days I hear everyone in entrepreneurship classes are reading it, and for good reason.

The content is a bit repetitive and could have used some serious editing, but I really like the concepts and systematic approach to building a market for your products from the ground up  (as opposed to building a product for a “potential” market). The reality is, both efforts should go hand in hand.

Personally, my biggest beef with the book is that it makes it seem like if you check off a few boxes and jump through a set of hoops that you WILL end up with a successful product. In my experience, that just isn’t true. I’m sure Steve Blank would also agree because he’s a smart guy and caveats everything he writes effectively. But I still get a sense that people will read this book as some kind of magic formula for guaranteed success in startups, and I don’t think it is.  I’ve used many of these techniques over the years and still failed.

The fact is, I always enjoy when engineers think they have “cracked the code” for delivering successful products  with some kind of newfangled process or product design model. In my experience, there is no secret process that will solve all our problems.  That is, there’s still quite a bit of magic pixie dust required for success that is found in the right timing, the right people, the right opportunities, the right connections, and being in the right place at the right moment that no amount of boxes, arrows and process charts will every replace.

But if the stars are aligned, then Steve Blank’s approach offers light upon light. So I recommend it  highly.

Enjoy.

Like most people in my field, I too like to dabble in both sides of product management and entrepreneurship.  I think its important to keep myself abreast of what is happening in the innovative startup world, even if it is mostly hype and noise and rarely actually adding value. But I think it is also useful to get bigger company and corporate experience so you have a steady stream of experience, connections, ideas [and income].

While there are similarities between product management and entrepreneurship, I think that they are VERY different things in many ways. This important to think about because I’ve seen a few startup-guys really blow up in the corporate world because they were too entrepreneurial. And I’ve seen a few big-company product people really drop the ball in the startup world. So it’s a good thing to think about from time to time.

First, some of the similarities I’ve noticed:

• They both have the goal to build a compelling product.
• They both rely heavily on engaging the customer from the beginning for ultimate success.
• They both should focus on the business model (or discovering it).
• They both require a multi-disciplined approach.

Some of the differences that I’ve noticed include the following…

Entrepreneur:

• More distractions at every stage because you’re not just building a product, you’re helping to build a business at the same time.
• More adaptability is required because there isn’t a lot of long-term momentum to tap.
• More raw will power to see things through because there are shiny objects under every rock when you’re in a startup.
• More tension and risk to manage (you will not be able to transfer to another division or product line if things don’t work out).
• More energy becuase the potential upside is a lot bigger for everyone (hopefully).

Product management:

• More focus often because you have an existing customer base or an existing market that you’re going after.
• More discipline because you need  to keep everyone on the same team and moving forward in the same direction.
• More political skill is required because you need to negotiate with many power brokers in your organization and get their support.
• More effort to inspire and encourage (cheer-lead) because people often don’t see what’s in it for them.

What does all this mean? Well, it is important to approach the jobs with a different mindset, a different skillset, and a different set of expectations. It’s not that one way is always better or worse than the other. They are just different types of roles and that’s useful to appreciate.  If you don’t learn to separate them, then I think you’re setting yourself up to really blow up your job (and possibly your company).

I know every company is different, every startup is different, and generalizations like the ones above are always easy to prick at. But these are just a few high-level differences that I’ve seen to get you thinking about it.

Enjoy.

I recommend this book at least once a month to someone: Will and Vision, by Gerard Tellis and Peter Golder. It’s  classic.

Some of the lessons I often think about include:

• There is no such thing as “first mover advantage” when it comes to technology. It’s often the opposite actually. The first movers make all the mistakes and invest all the up front costs, and the winners come in second and capitalize on you.
• It’s not enough to have the will to succeed. You also need a vision you want to realize. Without a vision you’re not sure what you are building, where you should focus, and what you should sacrifice to get there. A vision gives you a target to aim everyone at. If you don’t have that, then everyone starts thinking for themselves and their own careers, their own pocketbooks, and their own individual needs before the company. And when that happens, things fall apart, products start to suck, people miss deadlines, and you slowly decline into mediocrity.
• But it’s also not enough to have a vision you want to accomplish. You also need the will to get there. You need energy, enthusiasm, drive to accomplish your goals. You need people who care, people who get things done, people who are intrinsically motivated to succeed. Without the will to get shit done inculcated at every level of your organization people start to slack off, and the slack off disease spreads like the plague. But the key here is intrinsic motivation. It can’t be solved by throwing money or stock options at people. You have to inspire them to get the most out of them. You have to capture their imagination.

Anyway, I’m going beyond the scope of this book with my own ranting. But it’s still a good read. It will give you good ammunition to blow up the next argument from those who say “we have to be first’ for first’s sake.” No. We should never be first for first’s sake. We should be the best at how we want to distinguish ourselves in the market, and let’s focus on that instead.

Enjoy the book.

Here’s a great quote, “Take the mavericks in your service,” he tells new officers, “the ones that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and protect these people, because if they are not nurtured in your service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you.”

From Gen. James Mattis, USMC

As you know, every company does product management differently. But I always enjoys hearing about, asking about, and reading about these different approaches. I highly recommend gathering a big pile of these definitions and learning from all of them.

One interesting thing I’ve found is that people’s definition is often colored by their background, even subconsciously. For example, engineer-type product managers tend to focus on aligning technical requirements with business objectives. Sales and support-type product managers tend to focus on aligning customer feedback with technical and business objectives. Consultant-type product people often tend to focus on strategy, vision, and financial analysis. UX and design-type product manager like to focus on the user experience and the ‘story’ aspect of the product.

While the reality is that these are all important parts of the job, it’s pretty clear that it makes a big difference what background you have in determining what you see product management’s role as in the company. It happens to all of us, so we should just accept it. Knowing this about myself helps me want to develop skills and learn to appreciate other aspects of the job even more.

To get you started, here’s a great post from Phil Montgomery. He has a nice overview of measuring success in product management, and a refreshing twist on the old saying that a product manager is a ‘CEO’ of a product. Phil doesn’t think that description fits and offers some interesting points to consider.

Good luck!

Great video interview of Rajeev Singh, a co-founder of Concur. Sitting through the endless and annoying advertisements is painful, but the interview is great. Concur has been around forever, but their relentless commitment to adding value for customers and staying relevant in tech is impressive. The interview gets a bit personal (and a little creepy), but there’s some good stuff for sure.

OK. Every blog about product management has some obligatory post about whether an MBA is important or not in our field. So here’s mine.

Let me start with saying that, yes, I know an MBA is not absolutely necessary if you want to find success in product management (or in business for that matter). Getting an MBA can be expensive and provide a bunch of information that you could get if you were SUPER motivated and willing to read a LOT on your own. And we’ve all seen very smart people do well in tech, product management, marketing, startups, and life without an MBA. So it is not a requirement, and nobody is saying it is.

But since I have one, and I am a product management fan, a lot of people ask me if they should get one to be more successful in product management. Generally, I never give a definitive “yes” or ”no” to the question of whether a person should get an MBA. Instead, I just share my experiences, which goes something like this:

• I have to admit that I use the skills, capabilities, and knowledge that I learned (or honed) during my MBA almost every day in all the jobs I’ve had in product management.  That is, I use accounting, operations, technology management, marketing, negotiations, leadership, innovation management, M&A, finance, communications, or some aspect of what we learned in school in almost everything I do.
• My MBA has definitely opened doors for interviews that I doubt I would have gotten in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace. But getting an interview isn’t enough. I still have to know my stuff.
• My MBA taught me a lot about how to schmooze, how to ask smart questions, and how to “generally” not make an ass of myself in professonal settings (I learned many lessons the hard way in biz school, but that’s another blog post). As someone with a West Coast tech background, I was pretty raw when I started biz school. But at the end of my two years I think I came out somewhat more polished. Not a bad thing I suppose.
• I went out of my way to learn about the business world. I joined career clubs and went on the career trek trips. This was really an amazing experience that opened my eyes to some pretty different worlds then what I was used to. I got to be wined and dined by some of the most prestigious companies in the world. And while I didn’t end up working in consumer packaged goods, on wall street, or doing management consulting at some premium consulting shop (at least not for very long), the experience of being inside those companies and pretending that I was one of them was pretty cool while it lasted. I can tell you I will never be treated like that in any other setting, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I appreciate often.
• Lastly, I now have friends and contacts from my program who are all over the country, all over the world, and moving up corporate ladders at some pretty cool companies. Granted, they are are not all my BFFs or anything, but they are smart people that I respect and who I would try to help out if they needed something that I could assist with. And I think many would do the same for me. That’s a pretty nice thing to have.

Sure, I suppose that I could have just read the books that were required in biz school and gotten some of that knowledge a lot cheaper. But the reality is I never would have really read big fat text books on my own.  In addition, that would not be the same info that I got in my program. None of my professors taught out of the book. All of them had a ton of extra reading, group work, lectures, research, presentation work, and writing that I would never have been able to do on my own.

So those are some benefits I’ve found from my MBA. Here are some of the other things to consider to balance those elements out a bit:

• There are different types of MBAs out there. My MBA was a full-time program and really intense for me. As an “A/B student” for most of my academic career, I actually had to study, read, and prepare for class in graduate school. It kind of kicked my ass to tell the truth. But not all MBA programs are that intense. And if you are a good test taker and a good bullshitter, you’ll probably find it easier than I did. 
• But the fact is, not all programs are the same intesity either. There are some MBA programs that are like glorified toastmasters clubs with a little groupwork thrown in to make it feel fancy. Others seem equivallent to an online chat club with a reading list. I can say with confidence that much of the value I talked about above would have been diminished if I had done one of those programs. But I would probably have a lot less debt too, so you make the tradeoff.
• Not everyone who was in my MBA program found their dream job or had a wonderful experience out of it. I pretty much had to make of it what I wanted. There were plenty of complainers in the program who whined about how they weren’t getting what they wanted. Too bad for them I guess.
• If you can get into Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton, then you should really consider going for it. There are a bunch of people in that club who would never consider hiring (or promoting) anyone who is not in their club. So if you want to be in their club, you’ll need that credential. But Harvard turned me down, and I’m not in their club. So you should really probably talk with someone who went there if you want the real inside scoop. From what I’ve seen though, even if you go to Stanford or  HBS, life isn’t all easy street. You’ll still have to work to distinguish yourself and get what you want in your career. Jobs may pay more, but  the stress and lifestyle-price will be pretty heavy too. And again, you may get sweet interviews, but you will still have to close the deal on your own.
• Another consideration, if you want to stay in a smaller local market like Seattle, Denver, or Atlanta or something like that, then an MBA is definitely not necessary to get ahead. But if you want mobility, it helps to build some credibilty when you go somewhere and no one has heard of the companies where you worked, and you don’t have any local contacts to help you out.
• Also, you should know that an MBA may work against you at some times in your career. I’ve seen a few executives and managers who actually looked down on people who had MBAs. Maybe they have a chip on their shoulder or something, I don’t know. I figure it goes both ways in life. Just be aware of that fact too. 
• Lastly, if you want to do startups and be a serial entrepreneur, I recommend that you don’t bother with an MBA. You should just start your company and learn what you need to know as you go along. Good MBAs are expensive and, unless you have it bankrolled by someone, you’ll be burdened with debt for a long time to come. You don’t want that kind of baggage/or stress in your startup.

Anyway, that’s what I tell people when they ask. Now I can just point them to this blog post and save myself the trouble. Here’s a little video from some random dude with some similar advice.

Here’s a little prodman rant for you.

I have a pet peeve. I hate process. I hate it because I feel like it restricts my options, wastes my time, and because it too often inserts useless power struggles into everything.

Of course, I was a business process consultant for a while. So I understand the need for good processes to make things more efficient and effective inside of organizations. Without any processes you get anarchy and madness. And without some amount of processs nobody can get anything done. So some process is good.

But that experience also taught me the danger of processes. I’ve seen how too much process can sap the energy, enthusiasm, and spirit of people. I’ve seen how too much process can drive people crazy. I’ve seen how too much process can can make some people think they are more important then they should be. And I’ve seen how too much process can slow things down to the point that any normal person just gives up rather than get something truly innovative or creative done.

So when it comes to product management, my mantra for process is: “just enough, and no more.”

What that means to me is that we need just enough process to get things done, but we need to stop there. This means we need to fight the urge to solve every problem, every complaint, and every mistake with a new process. We need to be vigillent against the people who want to insert themselves into product management activities so that they can feel some kind of control, constancy, or order in their world. The fact is, making good products means spilling some milk, making some mistakes, and learning as we go. If we want everything perfect all the time then we’re in the wrong business.

If you ask me, making up new processes to keep everyone happy is what bad product managers do. Instead, a good product manager needs to lead, inspire, and encourage people to deal with a little chaos from time to time. So let’s not freak out every time something goes wrong and start inserting new workflows, new approvals, and new jobs for other people just so we cover our butts.

When it comes to process, “just enough, and no more.”

Some people think that a great process will make great products. I have to disagree. The fact is, in product management we ship products, not processes. We need to accept that some new products upset processes. And that’s a good thing. That’s what makes new products better, more efficient, and more effective. Sometimes a new product will change or eliminate processes. Sometimes a new product will even require a whole new set of processes. That’s OK too as long as we keep it simple from the beginning.

To me, part of the product management job should be looking for processes we can kill. Therefore, we need to be wary of becoming attached to any process, and instead keep our focus on brigning awesome products to market at every stage of the game.

In the end, we need to adapt process to make great products, not the other way around.

Ok. Enough ranting. Back to product:)