The Best Product Managers are in Seat 12C
A post by Steve Johnson at Pragmatic Marketing raises the issue of Product Managers/Marketers spending quality time in front of customers rather than hiding behind other less personal forms of information gathering.
Surveys and phone interviews can be helpful, but nothing replaces the experience of entering your customer’s environment and spending a few moments gaining critical context for the impact that your product has on a business and its people. A sales colleague of mine was always quick to quip to me as his marketing counterpart, "the truth is in the field." Both Steve and my sales colleague are right.
Technical Leaders: It’s Time to Throw Out the Single-Track System for Developing Talent
I had the good fortune awhile ago to interview a remarkably successful and happily retired CEO about his career in growing and running a number of teams and businesses. This gentleman, a dedicated engineer, reflected modestly on his successes and candidly about his failures in a 45-year career in manufacturing and technology organizations.
One of the many priceless discussion threads during the interview, focused on the challenges of developing leadership and individual contributor talent in technical organizations. Specifically, he railed at the "single career-track" approach that in his opinion results in many otherwise great individual contributors pursuing leadership roles for the wrong reasons regardless of their interest or capabilities for leading. There is wisdom in his perspective.
Leader, How Do You Recharge?
This is my "back to work, I’m not ready for anything too serious, but I have a message for you," post.
I just returned from a trip to a warm locale (at least it was warmer than Chicago!), and had a great opportunity to mix a few great days of business with a long weekend with family and friends. A long weekend can barely be called a vacation, as my European friends are apt to remind me. Nonetheless, it was a great few days to shift mental gears, play with my new nephew, sample some great local restaurants and even spend some time with a quality Ken Follett spy mystery. The six inches of new snow and malfunctioning snow blower were a cold slap of reality this morning, but I suspect that I still benefited from the mental downtime of this trip.
Would You Work for This Character?
"The only way that you will succeed on my team is if you are married to the job!"
"The reason that I am not in any family vacation pictures is because I’m on the phone. If I’m in the picture, I have a blackberry stuck to my ear."
Yeesh. What a jerk!
The quotes speak volumes about this individual’s leadership style, priorities and character. A "my way or the highway" approach, coupled with an "I will succeed on the backs of your labor and you will help me succeed or else," philosophy. It also speaks volumes about the culture in the organization that tolerates this leader’s style.
The Product Manager’s Questions for Success
Thanks to a good friend and the person I credit with the creation of the "Why is a Product Manager Like the Office Photocopier?" joke, I recently unearthed a listing of questions that we had established with the PM team to help teach and remind everyone of the True Role of a Product Manager.
Rather than develop these on high, I recall a fair number of iterations across functions and through the PM ranks to refine the questions down to a list that we believed captured the essence of the role and its priorities. Of course, we dutifully passed these out as laminated, wallet or desk-drawer size cards. I think the questions still hold value and provide much needed context for the Product Manager in pursuit of his or her very challenging role. They are reprinted here for your use, adaptation or disagreement, in their original, unaltered format:
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