Married Inc.

Should you become the “Marketing Girl”???

Well I’m really not sure what that means to you, which I think I should be able to figure out as you use the word “Marketing” 5 times in your article….plenty of clues you would think eh! You stress the importance of “good marketing” and yet all it seems to be is messaging and copy writing… I am not sure that is what you really mean.

Like “Product Management” and “Love” the word marketing seems to have various meanings - Websters says “mar‧ket‧ing [mahr-ki-ting] is a noun, refering to the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.”
Hmmm I say sure ok but it sounds more like sales and logistics. Not a definition up to the pace of our 2.0 universe.

For me Marketing is a Verb - it is the analysis and re-analysis of our observations of our products in their ecology (as in my diagram posted earlier).
It is that part of the cycle where we take our customers use history and feedback - in the context of our competitors and trends - and analyze it with the express purpose of questioning and challengeing our own oh-so-dearly held ideas of what features define our product. And THEN effect those changes that give our product new life.

I do agree that the Product Manager certainly has to be the evangelical fashion-designing baby-sitting salesman - however it is the ‘Marketing as a Verb’ that defines the process of ensuring you are actually making something that your customers want - something that offers more value than your competitors.

So should you become the “Marketing Girl”???
I would say you already are - you just don’t know it. And more to the point - I believe that if you really can ‘Market as a Verb’ on purpose, and make a point of constantly challenging your own most closely held assumptions about what features are REALLY needed by your customers, you will be a much more efficacious Product Manager (and NEVER be accused of being a Control Freak!).

and as always…
Have FUN!
:^)
Brian

I don’t think there’s any intrinsic reason for the product manager to give up the UI design role, or the “babysitter” role, or any other specialized role that can be delegated. Give it up if and only if that will help the product. You might want to hand off the role to someone who can produce a superior result, or who is willing to take on a role that you can’t stand, or who can do a decent job while you’re freed up to do other things that can’t be delegated as readily.

If there’s no particular reason to hand off the role, and you enjoy it, keep it.

As for the question of whether you’re a control freak, are you unwilling to delegate even when that would help the product? If so, you’re a control freak. If not, then bear this in mind: if you really care about having a great product, and aren’t willing to compromise unnecessarily, some people may think you’re a control freak because of your insistence on having things a certain way. They would be wrong. That doesn’t mean you’re a control freak; it just means you’re committed to the success of your product. Which is your job.

Rohan’s on the right track I think - you don’t have to give up anything really.
Think of the growth of a company like a one-mand band turning into an orchestra, as more musicians are added your role changes and at some point you will realize you are the conductor of the band - the Musical Product Manager.
:^)
B

I posted something similar on my blog a while back. http://www.ninjatactics.com/blog/?p=14 is the direct link.

-adam

I think Brian stumbled upon a bias I have towards marketing. I keep talking about it, I keep mentioning how important it is, I keep DOING it, but I keep refusing to be a “marketing girl”. I think this stems from being an engineer, and making fun of the “artsy fartsy” people for 5 years while at Waterloo. Studying for my computer structures exam invariably went hand in hand with ridiculing the business students the next table over (or the kin students…I might as well offend as many as possible!). It was fluff. It was soooo easy. All the blond airheads did marketing.

I think I’m still getting over this stereotype (right or wrong it may be). I think it’s still clouding my definition of marketing.

As for giving up control, thanks for nurturing my love of UI…I love the “one-man band turning into an orchestra” analogy. Except that I get to play the flute AND conduct at the same time. If that makes sense…

I feel like you’re skipping one of the key components of being a successful Product Manager. I think many of your functions ( evangelist, UI, etc… ) are pretty tactical.

My view has been that to be a successful product manager you know your product’s market. I generally focus on the problems faced by potential customers and how your product will solve.

After you understand your market and your product, you can start to decide where to focus you’re time ( product promotion vs product production ). And more tactical functions come into play…

Colin, I was trying to cover the strategic aspects of product management in my first post (Part 1). This one was quite tactical, I agree. It was a bit of a rant as well in response to some frustrations I’ve come across lately. I very much agree that understanding your competition, the market trends, your customer are the fist steps in formulating a strategy, and then you get to tactics…

There is a customer-centric focus that we seem to be dancing around a bit, Colin sort of alludes to it, and Adam does so to - more by omission though. HOW do we make sure we stay connected to our customers?

Adam also has a lot of very good points about customers in his blog mentioned above (a must read folks!) - one point in particular though seems only half stated. (appologies in advance Adam if I just didn’t read enough of your blogs to find the bit that covers this!!)

Adam writes:
“Verification — Part of the testing process is Requirements Verification. Test is going to want to ask product manager for each item in the release specification “Does this do what you wanted?â€?
This a perfect tactical part of the question to ask about the product/customer relation - however what seems to be missing is the strategic half of the question regarding “Requirements Validation”. This too should be a formal part of the testing process (the first part) and asks this question:
“Requirements Validation asks the product manager to answer for each specification ‘Is this the best (most efficient and efficacious) way to do what you (the customer) wanted?’â€?.

V&V - First Validate a specification as the best solution (need to feature) and then Verify that it does the job intended (feature to benefit).

But HOW does one artfully accomplish this in the warp-nine pace of 2.0 development/deployment??? In the slower world of hard products there is TIME to ponder these questions and make thoughtful, studied decisions. But in the 2.0 pace things seem rather anarchic in comparison, there are no formal releases and as the V&V questions are arguably GO/NO GO gates at the top of the decision tree, it seems to me there is a danger of a huge disconnect from the fundamental needs of the Customer if either parts of the V&V question are sacrificed for the need for speed and are not asked…and answered.

So Malgosia, I am curious, does this concept of V&V Requirements jive at all with your approach to Product Management? I am guessing in some ways it does as you say “understanding your competition, the market trends, your customer are the fist steps in formulating a strategyâ€?. But I am not too sure……..

Have FUN!
:^)

Brian

I have to lean towards “buggering off” when it comes to design, or UI.

A (good) designer is trained to know what works and what doesn’t. It can be very irritating and frustrating when project managers start art directing; what designers need from a project manager is communication. The less a designer (or developer, etc.) has to worry about, the better their work will be. We rely on project managers to handle all those details that otherwise distract us from doing good work.

Hmmm. Well my first comment would be that I was talking about Product Management, not Project Management. Very different. John always confuses the two. Product Managers often work with Project Managers to help them manage resource/planning issues. Product Managers focus on the product, not managing Gantt charts.

My second comment is that’s I’ve met very few “good” developers in the sense of design. It’s very rare. That is when Product Managers come in and help with designing the UI and developers focus on implementation (with the technology of their choice).

I stand corrcted, I thought I read Project Management. However, my point still stands - I think it’s important that people in their various jobs are allowed to use their expertise, otherwise we could just hire trained monkeys to do all our work for us

I’ve also met very few developers who are good designers. I think it’s important the a Project or Product Manager gets the right people in those positions to do the job. We wouldn’t hire a chef to fix our car. I can;t help but think a product would be better if a good designer was making key design decisions rather than a manager. A manager is their to facilitate communication between client and team, and to make sure that work lives up to expectations, etc.

Watts: You seem to think that “managers” need do nothing but facilitate and manage what other people do. The reality is that part of the job of a product manager (and often of a project manager) is to do whatever isn’t being done by anyone else - and there is always such stuff. If a product manager is doing design, it’s usually because there is no designer. Yes, a freelancer can always be hired, but often it’s just not worth it if the product manager is capable of doing the job. (I was careful to say “if”. There are certainly product managers who believe they can do good design but are quite wrong.)