1. Introduction to
Product Management
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:
A JOURNEY
Calum Tsang
tsangc@mie.utoronto.ca
www.productcamp.org/toronto
May 30, 2010 – Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University

2. Who is this session for?
 People who are entering the field of product
management for the first time
 People who’ve been thrown into the role Product
Manager and need definition
 People who see a need for a product management
role in their organization and want to know what it
entails.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

3. Does this sound like you?
 Do you feel like a firefighter?
 Do you end up juggling some combination of
 Angry “Hot site” calls
 Sales demos
 Design decisions
 UI mockups/wireframes
 Tradeshows
 Bug review/triage calls
 Marcom/copy reviews
 Executive reporting/calming
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

4. What is Product Management?
 Product Management defines what we’re developing
and selling by identifying who buys the product and
their needs.
 It supports the development, sales and marketing functions.
 It leads the product strategy process.
 Product Management is hard to define, but we’re
going to try.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

5. Most Product Managers come from
 Product Managers often come from another area of
the business
 Technology/Engineering
 Documentation
 Marketing
 User Experience or Design
 Sales Engineering/Account Management
 What they bring in experience is their strength
 eg Developer has detailed product knowledge
 What makes them stumble is holding on
 eg ex-Developer starts doing architecture and coding
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

6. A destination for product management
 Product Management is inherently intertwined with key
parts of the business:
Development
Product
Management
Sales Marketing
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

7. The Interface to Development
 Product Management
 Represents the market to the Technology team
 Defines product requirements, prioritizes their development
 I get from Development
 Development scheduling, costs, budgets
 Product Deliverables
 Process metrics like defect level trending, dev velocity
 I give to Development
Development
 Market Requirement Documents
 Review product specifications
 Develops product roadmaps Product
 Agile product stories, backlog management Management
 Reviews bugs/triages
Sales Marketing
 Go/No Go for Release
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

8. The Interface to Sales
 Product Management
 Represents the product to the Sales team
 Supports the sales process
 I get from sales
 Customer requirements/pain points/desires
 Regular product advisory
 Time in front of customers to ask them questions
 I give to sales
 Sales training
 Sales tools (qualification guides, configurators) Development
 Guides creation of Sales process
 Evangelism
 Product demonstrations
Product
 Not too much Management
 Customer support/troubleshooting
 Fruitless sales calls
Sales Marketing
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

9. The Interface to Marketing
 Product Management
 Represents the product to the Marketing team
 Positions the product in the market
 I get from Product Marketing
 Marketing materials for content/copy
 Campaign execution
 I give to Product Marketing Development
 Go-to-market strategy
 Customer profiles/demographics
Product
 Marketing briefs/positioning documents Management
 Guidance for marketing campaign Sales Marketing
 Pricing analysis
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

10. Product Management or Marketing?
 Product Marketing
 This one should be obvious
 Pricing
Product Product
 Strategic pricing Management Marketing
 eg part of business case and profitability
should be Product Management
 Tactical pricing
 eg, offers/promotional, I’d say Product Development Marketing
Marketing
 Promotion
 That’s Marketing Product Product
Management Marketing
 Placement
 That’s Marketing too
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

11. Product Management Ownership
 While a lot of activities are interfaced with other parts of
the business, there are many activities which are alone
the responsibility of Product Management.
 Ownership includes
 Business case analysis
 Metrics and reporting
 Profitability
Technology
 Market share
 Customer analysis
 Competitive analysis/benchmarking
Product
 Win/loss analysis results for improvement Management
 Product roadmap
Sales Marketing
 Executive reporting
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

12. Product Management is not
 Project Management.
 These are people focused with delivering the project on time
and budget. This is the when.
 Product Architecture.
 These are development oriented people who are responsible
for the overarching technology decisions. This is the how.
 Product Marketing.
 These are the people who will take your product to market,
outbound to the rest of the world, including pricing, campaign
and communications.
 But you might do some or all of these things too.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

13. A matter of trust
 The product manager requires a great deal of trust from all
parties involved and demands respect.
 Technology developers
 must respect your decisions
 Marketing leads
 must trust your market positioning and product experience
 Salespeople
 must trust your interaction with their customers and respect your time
 Respect is a two way street
 Eg Developer respects your decision—but you need to respect their
timelines
 How do you earn respect?
 Build a rapport
 Take the time and effort to understand their side, explain your side
 State the (user/market) facts
 Don’t fake it
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

14. I don’t work for these guys
 But I took their course a few years ago and really
liked it:
 Practical Product Management
 Requirements that Work
 PragmaticMarketing.com
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

15. Discussion
 How do you formalize product management
responsibilities?
 How do you introduce a distinct product
management capability into an organization?
 How do you convince your boss to let you be a
product manager?
 How do you convince your boss that you don’t do
everything?
 How do you explain to your classmates at a reunion
what exactly you do?
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010