A Blended Approach to Product Development by Steven Starke (Part Two)

Actuation Consulting on the Blended Approach to Product Development

After reviewing the latest survey results, my colleague (Greg Geracie) and I put our collective heads together to do just that. We attempted to combine years of experience and practice with several industry-standard methodologies.

Our goal in creating this hybrid approach was to:

Start the conversation not end it…regarding methodologies. Methodologies and frameworks should evolve and be tailored to meet the needs of the business and the products they are developing.
Create a framework for undertaking technology projects that embraces and promotes evolutionary change throughout the entire life-cycle of the project and product.
Promote industry best practices that emphasize teamwork, customer involvement, and the frequent creation of small, working pieces of the total system.

We first looked at each methodology and identified common phases and descriptions of each. That initial framework took the shape of what’s being presented below in Figure 1:

Actuation Consulting's Iterative Incremental Product Production Framework

Iterative Incremental (Agile) Product Production Framework

Figure 1. Iterative Incremental (Agile) Product Production Framework

Next, we broke down each phase to better understand the role accountability, cross-functional team collaborators, and deliverables. The first part of the framework looks like this:

Actuation Consulting - Blended Methodologies (Strategy, Business Case and Roapmaps)

Figure 2. Strategy, Business Case, and Roadmaps

Figure 2. Strategy, Business Case, and Roadmaps

We paid specific attention to where checkpoints (toll gate reviews) would be needed across the overall lifecycle, but tried to maintain flexibility and adaptability to the overall framework. In addition, we ensured the identification of a true accountable owner of each phase was identified and their responsibilities were spelled out. We’ve found that accountability improves employee engagement and increases employee’s vested interest in their products.

We wanted to build in ways to obtain early and ongoing customer feedback, as well as, focus on improving time to market by regular releases of “workable” product components – rather than a big bang.

Iteration Release Planning

Figure 3. Iteration/Release Planning

It was extremely important that we built in clarity on expectations. Well defined roles and responsibilities was a requirement. As well as, an understanding of the hand-offs and interdependencies.

Actuation Consulting - Blended Methodologies (Deploy/Operate/and Retire)

Figure 4. Deploy/Operate/Retire

Figure 4. Deploy/Operate/Retire

The completed process (Figure 4) was meant to show everyone involved in the production process (roles, linkages, and deliverables) post release. Product development can’t just be about delivering code. It has to be more about commercializing the product. Whatever process you use, it’s critical that each participant understand the overall process, their role, and what’s expected of them.

We believe that starting with the hybrid, instead of backing into it, will save time, effort, and overall cost of product development. By sharing this methodology, we hope to generate conversation with the goal of advancing in the industry. When it comes to creating successful products, it shouldn’t be about which framework is better. It should be about what works. Why not start with something more tailored to your needs?

Let us know what works for you.

Steve Starke is a recognized expert in the field of project management and is the author of S.T.O.P The Project Management Survival Plan.

A Hybrid Approach to the Product Lifecycle by Steven Starke

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Blended Methodologies Are Becoming the Norm

Over the past several years, there has been a movement in the information technology industry to adopt better, faster, and cheaper ways to implement solutions. This movement is typically synonymous with Agile and Lean development methodologies. The movement has crossed over into the product development industry as well, as technology is being used to further advance customer-driven solutions. However, I’m finding more and more product development practitioners struggling to balance their efforts to create value, grow their products, execute consistently, as they also try to marry up Agile and Lean development with other product development methodologies and frameworks like Pragmatic, Phase Gate’s, and AIPMM’s product lifecycle.

In addition, each methodology and framework seems to come with their own holy wars on which one is better, further confusing the situation. Although, I’ve been a practitioner of Agile methodologies since 2002, I consider myself methodology agnostic. I consider any methodology a process-tool to be used in combination with other process tools to achieve the desired results. However, my observations over the years are now starting to be solidified by recent survey data being published throughout the industry.

Specifically, over the past couple of years, Actuation Consulting has been running a survey based on determining the ideal factors that affect product team performance. The results from the survey indicate that, as more and more companies try to adopt Agile, they appear to be backing away from “pure” Agile and evolving into a more hybrid (Waterfall/Agile mix) approach to product development. The time and effort to figure this out can be costly as teams experiment with trial and error approaches to customizations.

Therefore, the goal of this blog post is twofold: One, I would like to discuss some of the data from the 2012 and 2013 survey’s that back up these claims and, two, I want to introduce what this new evolved methodology might look like. First some statistics from the respondents of the survey:

Only 12% of global survey respondents report on time, on scope, on budget performance
28% of respondents report “hit or miss” or “miss more than we hit” performance
Approximately 53% of organizations are blending Agile methods with Waterfall (2012)
Lack of consistent definition of Agile – 57% of the 200 respondents had a unique definition of what Agile is![1]

In addition, preliminary results from the soon to be released 2013 Product Team Survey are indicating that:

Teams are focusing too much on internal development and not enough on product launch and commercialization activities.
Over 38% are indicating that their team effectiveness is hampered by poorly defined roles and lack of clear hand-offs between team members.

So, what might this data be telling us? It seems to be indicating that, Agile development is being met with mixed results. Although, software is being developed, we seem to be lacking focus on commercialization activities and true product success. In addition, there seems to be role confusion across the teams due to the myriad of methodologies:

Product Manger vs. Product Owner vs. Product Marketing Manager
Project Manager vs. Program Manager vs. Scrum Master

So, as practitioners, how do we solve these types of problems? Perhaps we need to start looking at all of these methodologies and constructing a best of breed framework. Taking only what works from each, and discarding the challenges that each brings.

This concludes part one of this two part posting. Next week Steven proposes a framework for

addressing these challenges.

[1] Market Snapshot Report on Agile Realities, Voke Study, www.vokeinc.com, 2012.

Steve Starke is a recognized expert in the field of project management and is the author of S.T.O.P The Project Management Survival Plan.

A Chat with David Radzialowski, President of the Chicago Product Management Association

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A Conversation with the President of the Chicago Product Management Association

David, thanks for joining me today.

Tell me about what it is like to run the Chicago Product Management Association. What do you find most gratifying and what is the most challenging aspect of the job?

(DR) I really enjoy working on the Chicago Product Management Association, or ChiPMA as we like to call it. It is the only organization in the area that is entirely focused on the Product Management discipline, so I think it is a vital part of keeping innovation rooted in the Chicagoland area. It’s a great way to keep tabs on the Chicagoland Product Management community while also acting as a Product Manager support group. Everyone there understands the unique challenges and frustrations that we face as Product Managers, so it’s a good place to go vent and reset your perspective.

As for the challenges involved, to be honest, I’m not doing nearly as much of the operational work these days. Eric Bingen has taken over the two challenging parts – finding quality speakers and publicizing events – so I get to come to the meetings, say a few words and socialize. It is definitely a challenge to find a variety of good speakers with relevant topics that are willing to speak for free. Luckily, he is doing an excellent job, so I can focus on other areas.

As for the most gratifying aspect, outside of the happy hours we occasionally have, I would have to say it’s when we have speakers at our monthly meetings that encourage so much participation that it’s more of a moderated discussion than a presentation. I feel that the members and the speaker both gain so much knowledge from those meetings and they provide actionable, real world concepts to help Product Managers increase their effectiveness.

How has the Chicago Product Management Association grown over the years? What’s changed?

Interestingly, while the ChiPMA has grown from about 20 members when Bernhard Kappe started this in early 2010 (he and Pathfinder Software are still heavily involved, by the way) to well over 600 now, we still have the same close knit feeling in our monthly meetings. This is probably due to the size of the meetings still being roughly about 20-30 people. People still feel that they can walk right in and join a conversation with their fellow Product Managers.

One aspect that has changed quite a bit is the networking opportunity that the ChiPMA provides. Now that we’ve established our name a bit, people know that they can come to the event when they’re looking to hire and typically find good candidates or solid leads. I can’t tell you how many times lately I’ve had someone come up to me at a meeting and let me know that they found their new opportunity either at a ChiPMA meeting or via someone that they met at one of the meetings.

As a contributor to the ProdBOK Guide, do you have a vantage on how the book might help industry professionals?

The ProdBOK Guide, I believe, will serve as a roadmap through the many aspects of Product Management. Product Managers come from a wide variety of backgrounds and each has their own idea of what Product Management is and what Product Managers do. Furthermore, most of the people hiring Product Managers don’t have a consistent idea of what the new Product Manager should be producing. So you’ve got inexperience paired with unclear expectations, which is a recipe for disaster.

The ProdBOK Guide can help Product Management newbies and their executive management plot a course from where they find themselves now to a successful product launch. It provides a structured sampling of methodologies, practices, and concepts that allows the Product team to pick and choose what works for their particular situation, industry, and product.

The ProdBOK also allows the more experienced product manager to refresh their memory on some areas of the discipline that they don’t use regularly or to shore up some weaknesses they may have in their overall execution. It presents a wide variety of topics with enough detail to give a working knowledge of the concepts without burying the reader in examples and edge cases.

David, why did you choose to participate in the ProdBOK effort?

When I heard who was going to be contributing to the ProdBOK, I jumped at the chance to work with them. These are the thought leaders and industry experts in Product Management. We follow their blogs, read their books, and beg them to speak at our events. I was honored to be able to collaborate with them.

Furthermore, Greg, you contribute so much to the local Product Management community here in Chicago, I was happy that I could help you in a small way. You have headlined many ChiPMA events, been an avid participator in ProductCamp Chicago and always been there for the Chicago Product Management Community. It was great to be able to give a little bit back to you.

Any final thoughts?

You have created something amazing which will be on the bookshelf, desktop, or Kindle of every Product Manager in the country and you should all be very proud. I learned a ton when I read it and was able to apply that knowledge to my day-to-day activities immediately. I’m sure that this will be an amazing success and a valued resource for Product Managers in all stages of their careers.

Greg Geracie is the author of Take Charge Product Management©, the Editor-in-Chief of The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge (ProdBOK), and the leader of this initiative. Greg is an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University and the President of Actuation Consulting a global leader in product management training, consulting, and advisory services to some of the world’s most successful organizations.

Beware the Red Flag – A Product Strategy Void

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Why is Product Management so Undervalued until a Crisis Emerges?

Product Management’s Time to Shine

Several weeks ago I wrote a post entitled: Why is Product Management So Undervalued until a Moment of Crisis?

This post caught the eye of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. They asked me to expand upon it a bit. So rather than ending the post with a question I added the following commentary.

What is it about the product management function that leads organizations to underappreciate the role until they find themselves in a situation where they desperately need it?

One of the conclusions I have come to is that organizations frequently diminish their product management functions without intending to do so. In fact, I think there is a common indicator that acts as a red flag signaling that organizations have unwittingly undermined their own success.The key indicator that I’m referring to is a lack of connectivity between the tactical product roadmap (typically a 12 month view of prioritized and planned release activities) and the company’s business goals and objectives.

Product management organizations that lack a coherent product strategy, which effectively links the company’s business strategy to the day-to-day tactical activities, often find themselves in the situation of reduced responsibility and perceived organizational value. This inward spiral, from championing market needs to owning functional requirements, portends the type of under appreciation that has become so common and contributes to the eventual crisis that many organizations face as they lose line-of-sight on the markets they serve.

So if your organization is headed down this path beware. The lack of a coherent product strategy often portends a looming crisis to come – your organization might be living on borrowed time and your time to shine may be just around the corner.

Steve Johnson on Agile, Strategic Product Management, and the ProdBOK Guide

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Greg Geracie, Steve Johnson and the ProdBOK Guide

( Steve Johnson on Agile, Strategic Product Management and the ProdBOK Guide

Steve, thanks for joining me today.

I would like to begin by asking about whether you think the role of product manager is becoming more or less strategic? And if less, what should we at the industry level do about it?

(SJ) For most teams, the product manager role has become more tactical. Development needs real-time access to customer information; so does Sales and so does Marketing. Your recent study of Product Team Performance reveals that almost half of the product manager’s time is spent in firefighting. And I hear this frequently.

The teams that have successfully found the balance between tactical and strategic are the ones who staff it with that objective. You can’t ask a tactical person to also be strategic in their extra time; there is no extra time! (Just think about what happens when sales people also try to do marketing.) So the successful model seems to be a strategic product manager or director, paired with a technical product manager or product owner, plus a product marketing manager for all the go-to-market stuff.

I know it sounds like a lot, but here’s the scary part: The strategic stuff is being done today in your organization but you just don’t know who is doing it. I wrote about this in my free ebook, Product Management Expertise at http://www.under10consulting.com/writing/expert

Every year Actuation Consulting conducts a global Study of Product Team Performance©. There is no question that Agile methodologies have been ascendant for the last several years. What are your thoughts on the impact of Agile on the product manager and the evolution of the product owner role?

(SJ) I’m seeing many companies struggle with integrating traditional product management with the new demands of Agile development. It’s the whole strategic versus tactical thing again. If nothing else, Agile reveals how understaffed product management teams are today. One VP of product management told me how the new demands resulted in doubling his staff.

Agile methods have impacted almost all organizations. And the most common challenge they encounter is whether product owner is the same as product manager or if it’s the same as business analyst. I think the leaders of the Agile movement want a strategic product owner, more like a product manager, but most teams seem to have relegated the product owner to business analyst.

Rather than one role replacing another, I’m working with teams now to define both the product manager role and the product owner with clear lines of responsibilities and hand-offs. Who has responsibility for the portfolio roadmap? Who owns the release backlog? These are questions that the industry hasn’t really addressed.

There are clearly challenges today for product managers ranging from strategic bandwidth to the high resource consumption rates triggered by the increased use of Agile methods. How will the ProdBOK Guide help to address these challenges?

(SJ) There are many great training resources for product managers, product owners, and product marketing managers but each takes a slightly different view of roles and responsibilities. My hope for the ProdBOK Guide is that it will help standardize the product management profession so that we all mean the same thing when we’re talking about ownership and artifacts.

What do senior company leaders need to know about product management and Agile?

(SJ) The Agile community seems to be “selling” Agile as a faster time-to-market solution but most teams are finding that Agile increases quality. There are fewer bugs, fewer surprises, and less feature-bloat. Yes, you can change your priorities quickly but Agile doesn’t mean execs can change their minds continually.

And Agile methods want a single voice of priority. Who is that in your organization? It should be the strategic product manager — the one who understands the market and its challenges. Senior executives need to know that product managers are trying to implement the leadership’s strategies. Give your team direction and let them figure out how to get there.

Any final thoughts Steve?

(SJ) I want product management to earn the respect of senior leadership, development and sales teams, and others in the organization. If product managers want credibility, they have to earn it —they need to act more like product executives and less like servants to others.

Steve Johnson is a recognized thought leader on product marketing and management processes. Under 10 Consulting is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble world-class product marketing and management team. Learn more at http://www.under10consulting.com/about

Greg Geracie is the author of Take Charge Product Management©, the Editor-in-Chief of The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge (ProdBOK), and the leader of this initiative. ProdBOK is an industry-wide effort to standardize the practice of product management sponsored by the Association of International Product Management and Marketing (AIPMM).

The ProdBOK mark is a registered trademark of AIPMM.

Cindy F. Solomon on the Art of Product Marketing Management (and 3 Tips)

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Cindy F. Solomon on the Art of Product Marketing Management

Part two of my conversation with Cindy F. Solomon on the subject of Product Marketing Management. Click here to read part one.

What aspect of the product marketing management profession is most under appreciated by today’s organizations?

Product Marketing Management is a strategic position ultimately responsible for providing value to all of the departments that contribute to the product during the entire product management lifecycle and beyond product development. The product marketing management function is responsible for listening, empathizing, facilitating collaboration and communicating the product value, product narrative, and product context across all touch points internally and creating the tools that enable that product value to be successfully experienced aligned with the product marketing business case through-out the product’s lifecycle – ultimately to increase, generate or maintain product revenue (or demand generation, engagement and retention) in the sales pipeline.

As a distinct profession, product marketing management is not distinguished as a career choice in smaller or technology driven companies and often is not distinguished as a separate role from product management. Product marketing management certainly is a function required for product success, but may only be recognized and funded at the front end of new product discovery or at launch of new products into the market. This is a mistake, as the role of product marketing management is to focus on identifying what’s important at any given stage in the product’s lifecycle, in terms of market conditions, competitive landscape, future threats, product versioning, innovation, channel and portfolio considerations, as well as customer demands, and guarantee that the business case, customer experience, design thinking and unique product value is communicated across all aspects of the product lifecycle, across all functions touching, developing, selling, and incorporating the product, to achieve the intended goals of the product business case.

If you had to share a couple key tips about what makes for a successful product marketing manager, what would they be?

My key tips to be a successful and sought after product marketing management leader, are to master the following:

1. Step away from the product. In order to remain objective, you have to be able to see the truth about the problems, mistakes, negative feedback, threats and losses in the marketplace in order to communicate to enable the product team to effectively address those issues. You must recognize the best actions needed to propel the product towards success. Being too in love with the product may cloud your ability to see what’s best, listen and recognize the dangers in the competitive landscape, and operate proactively.

2. Schedule regular meetings to listen to different perspectives on the product needs from outside the direct product team. Talk to customer service, community management, tech support, quality assurance, documentation, operations, and all of the internal functions responsible for servicing, maintaining the product, and interfacing with customers and the marketplace. Everyone in the company cares about the success of the product and will provide different insights, understandings and viewpoints. This is in addition to having regularly scheduled meetings with customers, non-customers, and observing customers in the wild. (There are various ways to meet – including telephone conversations – although human to human interactions are desired and provide the biggest wealth of information and return on time invested.)

3. Create a visual product health chart – this is distinct from the product road map which shows the plan for the product development process. The product marketing management health chart ideally provides the current picture of the product in the market based on data points and feedback, on where the product is falling off-course of the prescribed goals, measures alignment against the product business case, and tracks responses to the various strategies, programs and actions put in place to enable review, changing course and preventing tragic consequences. Sharing the visual product health chart (appropriately) will encourage further communication, collaboration and contribution to the success of the product as well as your product marketing management leadership.

(To learn more about Cindy or to listen to Global Product Management Talk’s weekly broadcast click here.)

The ProdBOK mark is a registered trademark of AIPMM.

Cindy F. Solomon of Global Product Management Talk on Product Marketing in Silicon Valley

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The View From Silicon Valley

Cindy, welcome to Take Charge Product Management©.

As you look across the product marketing profession what do you see?

(Cindy Solomon) I see that what may have previously fallen under the umbrella of the product marketing function, is gaining attention in the blogosphere with sexier names, such as Agile marketing, growth hacking, or customer experience management. These may be new approaches, but they are grounded in the product marketing managment function to increase current product ROI, identify opportunities for new product iterations, manage the value proposition via positioning of the product, and create the business case for remaining competitive in the current market conditions and future trends.

Product marketing management has always been charged with concerns about how to squeeze additional value out of products already in the market, align the goals of the product with the business case KPIs, translate the value of the company brand into every experience, extract information from non-customers, identify patterns from data collected across various inputs, increase efficiency across the entire product management lifecycle, attach ROI to every program attached to the product in the marketplace, streamline sales and marketing procedures, facilitate new partnership, co-marketing, and strategic channel opportunities, track the market opportunities, threats and trends, and make the case for new products and innovation.

Given your unique perspectives, how do you think the ProdBOK Guide will help address the challenges of being a product management or product marketing management professional?

(Cindy Solomon) Having a product management body of knowledge will clarify the skills, knowledge, language and perspective for the product management professional. The ProdBOK will provide an orientation for people being thrown into product management roles without any foundation and open the door to understanding all of the elements that comprise the knowledge necessary, the procedures available, and how to identify appropriate tools to apply at various points in the product management lifecycle.

For those seeking product management positions, and for those identifying product management functions within their companies, it will define the requirements, orientation and basic foundation which is desperately sought after by individual product management professionals, product teams, decision makers, HR departments, and organizations of all sizes seeking to increase market share and product success.

The ProdBOK seven phase product lifecycle framework provides the visual representation to enable conversations across functions for everyone in the organization to be on the same page to identify what needs to happen based on the maturity of the product externally in the marketplace and internally within the organization culture.

(This concludes the first part of our two part interview with Cindy. More on product marketing management next week…To learn more about Cindy or to listen to Global Product Management Talk’s weekly broadcast click here.)

The ProdBOK mark is a registered trademark of AIPMM.

Product and Project Managers: Managing Beneficial Change by Truly Working Together

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Stacy Goff, VP of Marketing for IPMA and President, asapm

Stacy, thanks for joining me today.

Results are an important measure of performance. However, I understand that an evolution in the thinking about results is currently taking place within the project management community. What’s your take on this?

(Stacy Goff) Yes, for some we are seeing an evolution in thinking. And I assert that some long ago evolved to the insight you speak of. Some people in the project management discipline think that project success is all they are after. And the most unfortunate among these otherwise savvy people focus on the easy-to-measure, but often lagging indicators of the “triple constraint” or other triangle schemes. Others have always demonstrated the “bigger picture;” these practitioners actually deliver business success. This is often very different than merely showing project success.

So this can become an entire article by itself, but the evolution is that there are some, including entire professional associations, that have long-advocated the easy to memorize, easy to test factors of project management. These people and groups have recently realized that those factors, while important foundations, do not add value by themselves. They are now pivoting to embrace the elements and competences of project and program management that do add value.

As a representative of several professional associations that have demonstrated this understanding for many years, I predict another looming insight: The realization that knowledge, skill, and even true competence, across the full suite of Project Management elements, do not automatically add value. These are merely inputs. They need to be correctly applied, with the right leadership and interpersonal skills, and well-managed within the business context, to reach the needed result: Improved business performance. Only then are we adding value.

The winner is not just the project teams that in the past worked their hearts out to little acclaim; and not the organizations that will begin to receive what they have all-along been paying for. The winner should be thriving nations and a global economy that benefits from the elimination of the huge waste of failed project initiatives and broken promises—and the realization of the originally intended 3:1 return on project investment that we were often promised and never saw. That is a results-oriented performance measure.

Over the last several years I have had the pleasure of collaborating with you on a variety of different efforts. I know how passionate you are about creating effective collaborations across the distinct professional disciplines. What is the driver behind your passionate belief that professional silos need to be overcome?

(Stacy Goff) Maybe it is because I came to this discipline in a different time, and in a different way. I was a practicing Project Manager in the 1970s. Next I moved to Program Manager (end-to-end complex, multi-organization, multi-project initiatives, including the ongoing operation of the result). Then I moved to Manager roles. In my managerial roles I was very much involved in Strategic Planning. My time horizon moved from 6-36 months to 6-36 years, so to speak.

It was through this series of roles that I learned the need for all disciplines and all stakeholders to have the same business success objectives, and to understand the clear delineation of roles of each in reaching those objectives. When I moved to project management/strategic planning consulting in 1982, I thought everyone understood the insights that I took for granted.

In my consulting engagements with major Consultancies, and with Aerospace & Defense contractors in the mid 1980s, I was able to bring together the different disciplines throughout the life cycle to eliminate a then-common problem: Big bid wins, but poor handoffs between the players; no profit, and few follow-on opportunities. We brought together Business Development Managers, Contract Managers, Proposal Managers, Program Managers, Change Managers (for internal initiatives) and Operations Managers in one team, and then allowed primary responsibility for each initiative segment to shift with the timing.

Whether we called it Four-Square or Integrated Product Teams, Integrated Leadership Teams, or Concurrent Engineering, it was difficult to begin but incredibly powerful once working. A typical Executive argument before-hand was that it would be too expensive. Afterwards, it became a consistently-demanded approach, that became their competitive advantage; they won more bids, and made more profit on bids won. They couldn’t believe that anyone could operate the old way.

I have a blog post at my Change Agents blog series that focuses on the disciplines working in parallel. See: http://asapm.org/chgagent/project-managers-playing-nice-with-others/.

Do you think the new ProdBOK Guide will help span some of these divides at the professional level?

(Stacy Goff) I think it can; from the project manager’s perspective, the participation you have achieved, with some of the best Project Management thinkers and writers helps. Of course, we need to encourage project managers to get access to it, then to actually read and understand it. Unfortunately, I have seen too many PM practitioners who took a class, took a test, and then thought their mastery was complete—when all they have done is to build a good foundation. They may not be interested in the insights your writers and editors have shared.

Of course, there are also many incredibly competent, high-performing Project Managers, Senior Project Managers and Program Managers at work today—many of them already understand your key points. Ironically, although they already grasp much of what you will share, they will be more likely to benefit by learning more. I think it would be interesting to track this hypothesis in your next survey: The ones who could benefit most will be least likely to read it.

Or said another way: Only the savvy Project Managers will make the effort to read it.

Why did you decide to contribute to the ProdBOK Guide effort Stacy?

(Stacy Goff) Several reasons, including the fact that I was urged to by people whose work I respect, and whom I trust. Thanks to Gary Heerkens, for example, who originally suggested that I participate. Next, once in contact with you, you answered my questions with responses that revealed a passion for doing what was right. And because I believe that the efforts of your teams can result in more successful projects and programs that more-effectively cooperate with other disciplines in product management initiatives. The result will be perceived by all stakeholders as successful.

Any final thoughts or comments?

(Stacy Goff) Those who know me well understand the risk of that question. We have barely scratched the surface in this discussion. But we have established some parameters for more dialogue between the disciplines we have discussed.

Thank you Greg!

The ProdBOK mark is a registered trademark of AIPMM.

Why is Product Management So Undervalued Until A Moment of Crisis?

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Product Management Plays a Critical Role in Value Creation.

Why Is Product Management Frequently Undervalued Until A Crisis Emerges?

Over the last 20 years I have noticed the same cycle play out time and time again. Organizations of all sizes continue to undervalue the product management function until they face a moment of crisis. Typically this takes the form of a change of control, difficulty scaling, and an almost endless variety of other possible combinations.

This situation is understandable in organizations that are migrating from startup mode to a mid-sized organization as the CEO or founder was likely playing the role up until this point in the company’s evolution. However, it’s less understandable in organizations that have successfully achieved scale. Yet, it’s clear that organizations of all sizes continue to struggle effectively implementing successful product management organizations that truly drive value let alone implement a sustainable system that stands the test of time.

Clearly part of the problem is the lack of effective training for product managers. Normally product manager training tends to focus on a particular element of the process – for instance strategic planning or requirements development – rather than understanding how all the various pieces fit together into a working whole.

Another factor is the lack of academic training for undergraduates. This is not a solution in and of itself but what it would do is to help overcome one of the largest challenges – getting new product managers to utilize a common lexicon to describe what product management is and what it does.

Today, all the players in an organization tend to see product management from their own vantage, not unlike the fictional blind men who all touch an elephant only to describe the animal based upon the part they’re directly interacting with. This lack of agreement about the entire entity impedes successful implementation and contributes to its lack of sustainability.

The problem is further compounded by frequent and in some cases severe understaffing of the function, the continued comingling of product and product management, lack of fundamental product management tools, and effective leadership.

Ironically, none of these problems are insurmountable and can all be easily overcome. Well rounded product management professionals can make a tangible difference and significantly improve the performance of underperforming organizations.

But at the end of the day, what is it about the product management function that leads organizations to underappreciate it until they find themselves in a situation where they desperately need it?

One-on-One with Linda Gorchels on Product Management Training and ProdBOK

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Linda Gorchels on Product Management Training and ProdBOK

Part of the ProdBOK® Series

Today I’m joined by Linda Gorchels a professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the author of several books on product management (as well as other topics). Her latest book is entitled Business Model Renewal.

It’s a pleasure to have you here today Linda.

Let’s start by delving into the area of product manager training on the academic front. What’s the current state of academic training for product managers from your perspective?

(Linda Gorchels) That’s an interesting question Greg, since “academic” training comes in many forms. While there are the traditional venues of undergraduate and graduate (for-credit) education, there is also a large professional development (non-credit) segment of academic education. Let’s take a look at the credit-side.

Most reputable universities with BBA degrees cover product management as part of their curriculum (at least in marketing), and many have courses in product management at the graduate level. The University of Wisconsin Madison is notable for its specialization in Brand and Product Management for the daytime MBA. We also, through the school’s executive program, have several offerings that constitute a Professional Development Certificate in product management.

That being said, successful product managers generally have strong industry and technical knowledge (e.g., engineering, medical, science, etc.) in addition to the required business and marketing strategy skills. A high percentage of my executive education customers from this segment have technical (undergraduate) degrees that they supplement with management and marketing knowledge to transition to product management.

What do you think needs to be done to increase the likelihood that academic institutions will more broadly adopt product management training curriculum’s at the undergraduate or graduate levels?

(Linda Gorchels) Product management is truly a multi-functional (as well as cross-functional) discipline. I sometimes liken the position to that of a team quarterback – a person who can play the game as well as make decisions. Therefore, having dual majors (or at lease a major and a minor) in the technical and business disciplines is often desirable.

Do you think the ProdBOK Guide could help spur the development of academic training programs for product managers as has occurred in other professions?

(Linda Gorchels) As I mentioned in my answer, product management is multi-functional. While many marketing, strategy, and management principles may be transferable across industries, that’s not always the case with the technical side. (In other words, not all quarterbacks make good hockey or baseball players.) So it’s important to distinguish between common and unique job requirements.

Why did you decide to contribute to the ProdBOK effort Linda?

(Linda Gorchels) Since I have studied product management across a myriad of industries over the past two decades, I have observed mistakes made when individuals try to transfer EVERYTHING about their view of product management from one industry to another. (I was even guilty of that initially from my personal experiences as a product manager.) It takes a broad, multi-industry perspective to identify the product manager competencies that are common across arenas and those that are more relevant to one arena. I hope I helped convey that perspective.

Any final thoughts?

(Linda Gorchels) Given the nuances I talked about, I strongly urge product managers to think less in terms of templates and “fill-in-the-box” solutions, and more in terms of innovation and novel solutions for challenges faced by their customers. This is especially difficult when product managers are “sucked into” daily fire-fighting, but this orientation is critical from a strategic perspective.

You can learn more about Linda by clicking here.

Editors Note: (Disclaimer) I’m an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where I teach graduate and undergraduate courses on product management.

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