Product Managers provide a unique role in a software company, something that may include skills in Sales, Marketing, and Development, but reaches well beyond the scope of any of those three functions. It's a role nobody else fills. Yet because of their in-depth understanding of the market and the reasons people want and need their ...
10Jun 2005
05011 Hit or Miss: Meeting Promised Development Dates
If you have worked in or with the software industry at all, you have lived through some dramatic delays in product development. For instance, Product Guernsey, originally announced last year, was due in January. It's now the beginning of June, and it's announced that the product, now called Providence, won't be out until September. Or ...
24May 2005
05010 Well Equipped: Giving Sales a Complete Toolkit
In small and large software companies alike, Product Management is usually the critical factor in creating an effective sales toolkit. That's because Product Management marries the strategic goals coming from the management team with the level of detail needed to support the sales team. Product Management takes its understanding of everything from the business model ...
10May 2005
05009 The Real Ideal: Strategy to Tactics and Back
Product Managers, because of the nature of their responsibilities, carry out the unique function of making strategies real and turning realities into strategy. Since they are often called upon not only to view the product from the perspective of management and competitive strategy but also to apply the software tactically, and with great mastery, Product ...
26Apr 2005
05008 At Each Other’s Throat: Handling the Competition
For any of you who have been closely involved in a sale where your product was competing directly against another product, you know that selling against a competitor is tough. Product Managers, as part of supporting the sales force, need to provide guidance and support in selling against the competition. But there is no formal body ...
15Apr 2005
05007 Guest Article: How to Write a Case Study
I'd like to showcase an entertaining and useful article that recently appeared in the newsletter from the Boston Product Management Association (BPMA). It is written by Mike Urbonas, Contributing Editor for the BPMA newsletter and can also be found online at www.bostonproducts.org. I encourage you to take a look at the site and some of ...
28Mar 2005
05006 Testing the Waters: The Product Quality Stream
It is with some apprehension that I launch myself upon a discussion of product quality and QA testing. While product quality is promoted by Marketing and management, people rarely want to see and touch the distasteful details of the QA testing that helps improve software quality. I suppose an outstanding quality effort flows like a stream, ...
27Feb 2005
05004 Fits and Starts: Creating Product Management At a Startup
A startup faces many daunting challenges as it moves along the path from an idea on paper to a full-fledged company that can stand on its own. It has to be built out piece by piece, function by function, and there is probably no function where I've seen companies, both brand new and established, struggle ...
27Jan 2005
05002 Getting Your Priorities Straight: A Twisted Path
A major challenge that faces every software product is determining the priority of the oh-so-many suggestions that come to Product Management as requirements for the next release. This is one of those areas that wind up containing a heavy dose of mystery masquerading as rocket science. Requirements get prioritized using a complex formula that is ...
13Jan 2005
05001 The Trophy Spouse: Partnering With Startups
Happy New Year! This is the first issue of the newsletter in 2005, and the 78th issue since December 2002. I hope you'll continue to find this material helpful. Two issues ago, I wrote about partnerships between companies, which are so important in technology and software, and how to make them successful. In the last issue ...