Intended primarily for an audience of engineering leaders and development managers, with this agenda: - Product management is about doing the right things. Engineering is about doing things right. - Prioritization is political and strategic as well as algorithmic - Symptoms of weak product management and how Engineering can help This was a talk for SVForm's Engineering Leadership SIG on 21 Aug 2014.

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MASTER TITLE
STYLE
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
IS NOT OPTIONAL
Rich Mironov
EL-SIG
21Aug2014
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2. • Veteran
product
manager/exec/strategist
• Business
models,
pricing,
agile
• Organizing
product
organiza8ons
• HP,
Tandem,
Sybase,
6
startups
as
“product
guy”
or
CEO
• The
Art
of
Product
Management
• First
Product
Camp,
first
agile
product
manager/owner
tracks
ABOUT RICH MIRONOV
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3. • Product management is about doing the right things.
Engineering is about doing things right.
• Prioritization is political and strategic
as well as algorithmic
• Symptoms of weak product management
• How Engineering can help
AGENDA
3
Product
Mgmt
♥︎
Engineering
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4. • Delivers market-relevant whole products
• Targets segments, not individual customers
• Protects the plan but listens for surprises
• “Combines technical AND market decisions to drive
product revenue and competitive advantage”
WHAT DOES A PRODUCT MANAGER DO?
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MASTER TITLE
STYLE
market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, epics,
user stories, backlogs,
personas, MRDs…
product
bits
strategy, forecasts,
commitments, roadmaps,
competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,
targets
Field input,
Market feedback
Segmentation, messages,
benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
Markets &
CustomersDevelopment
Marketing
& Sales
Executives
Product
Management
WHAT DOES A PRODUCT MANAGER DO?
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6. • Drive* whole product strategy and revenue
• Make* hard trade-offs among complex choices
• Communicate and align around (current) plan
* Get the smartest people/ideas into the room
* We collaborate but it’s not a democracy
* Take personal responsibility for market outcomes
HOW PRODUCT MANAGERS ADD VALUE
6
STARTS
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7. Can fill out paperwork (user stories) all day long…
• But decisions require strategy and market analysis
• Bottom-up story ranking never creates strategy
• Need whole thoughts,
coherent/cohesive products,
economic justification
DELIVERABLES ARE INSUFFICIENT
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8. • Building the wrong product
• Unnecessary features
• Excessive paperwork or documentation
• Partially done work (WIP)
• Task switching
• Waiting for information
• Defects
-­‐
aIer
Mary
and
Tom
Poppendieck
*My
SWAG
SEVEN WASTES OF SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
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• Building the wrong product (100% waste*)
• Unnecessary features (20-50% waste*)
• Excessive paperwork or documentation
• Partially done work (WIP)
• Task switching
• Waiting for information
• Defects
-­‐
aIer
Mary
and
Tom
Poppendieck
*My
SWAG
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9. 9

10. Product manager or product owner? Titles don’t matter.
“Person who makes hard trade-offs about what we should
BUILD and MARKET/SELL given LIMITED RESOURCES in
order to deliver REVENUE”
In practice, most product owners work at the scrum/story/
feature level, not the product/portfolio/revenue level
RICH’S AGILE BIAS
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11. • Deep product usage experience
• Huge premium on technical chops, story writing
• No requirement for market-side experience
• No demand for
organizational
“blocking” skills
• Well aligned with
“Internal IT”
decision-making style
HOW DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS
TYPICALLY PICK PRODUCT OWNERS
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12. “As
a
programmer
who
knows
nothing
about
being
a
technical
product
manager,
what
should
I
learn
before
interviewing
for
/
transi<oning
into
a
technical
product
manager
role?”
-­‐
Real
Quora
ques8on
to
Rich
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13. "As
a
professional
race
car
driver
who
knows
nothing
about
so@ware,
what
should
I
know
before
interviewing
for
an
enterprise
so@ware
architect
role?"
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14. • Customer/field demands
always far outstrip resources
• Discard 90%+ of requests
• Decisions are semi-quantitative
• Huge error bars on revenue impact, market
reactions, development work, support costs
• We must constantly defend product architecture
• People and organizations matters
WHY IS PRIORITIZATION HARD?
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15. • Logic and facts are not enough
• Sales teams get paid for
closing individual deals
• HIPPO
• Responsibility without authority
• Keep the process moving
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:
INHERENTLY POLITICAL
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16. • Pulls into product station every day
• From customers, sales, execs, engineers, analysts…
• Delivers hundreds of “good ideas” each day
• One or two might be new and earthshaking
• Always >> engineering capacity
GOOD IDEA TRAIN
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MASTER TITLE
STYLE EVAL
/
RESEARCH
/
RANK
FEATURE REQUEST CYCLE
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SHIP
INPUT
PM
QUICK
SORT
BUILD
Customers
Sales/Prospects
Support
Execs
LeanUX
Analysts
Compe8tors
…
~95%
~5%
Size,
impact,
biz
case,
goals,
tech
debt…
“DEEP”
BACKLOG
WIP
TOP
OF
STACK
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18. • Japanese alternatives to “NO”
• Product koan: "Thank you! That's a really
interesting idea. Let me put it into the
product backlog so we can address it
when appropriate."
HUMBLY ACCEPTING INPUT
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19. 1. High interrupt rates
2. Lack of problem context
3. Unstable backlog/roadmap
4. Missing/understaffed
product management
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS
THAT LOOK LIKE ENG’G PROBLEMS
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20. “Is it done yet?
“Who can handle this urgent fix?”
“Where in the backlog is my item?”
“We need to size another hot-deal feature.”
“This one is really easy, probably < 10 lines of code, so
can fit into the current sprint.”
“Competitor A is going to announce teleportation. That
can’t be hard to do, so I promised it to a customer.”
1. DEVELOPMENT INTERRUPTS
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21. RANDOM INTERRUPTS DRAIN
PRODUCTIVITY AND MORALE
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Your product manager should buffer everything
• Except P0/system down
How you can help:
• All developers point all interrupts to
product manager
• Even (especially) executives
• Allocate time for collaborative rough-sizing
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22. • “What problem are we trying to solve? Who’s the
user?”
• “I’m working on a story, but don’t know where it fits”
• “This feels like a HOW instead of a WHAT”
2. LACK OF PRODUCT CONTEXT
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23. Your product manager provides why, not just what
• Problem statements, personas, strategy, context…
You collaborate on solutions and trade-offs
How you can help:
• Work one issue at a time
• Trust and working agreements, not legalism
• Accept reasonable answers (there are no certainties)
WE SOLVE PROBLEMS,
NOT JUST WORK ON TASKS
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24. Typically symptom of bigger issues
• Sales or execs overdriving product management
• Bottom-up prioritization instead of strategy
• Weak business justification/market analysis
• Excessive technical
debt
3. UNSTABLE BACKLOG/ROADMAP
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25. Product managers “own” roadmap/backlog…
… but need lots of support
How you can help:
• Don’t make it personal
• Identify what specific work/feature
will be delayed. What will we push?
• Jointly plan for likely interrupts
ROADMAPPING IS AN ONGOING
(POLITICAL) PROCESS
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26. Usually outside Eng direct control
But huge impact on product/company
Eng:PM of 10:1 or 12:1, but not 25:1
What you can do to help:
• Recognize the symptoms
• De-personalize the problem
• Escalate, escalate, escalate: demand
more (or better) product management
4. PRODUCT MANAGEMENT IS MISSING
OR UNDERSTAFFED
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27. IMHO:
Development
teams
should
be
rio<ng
in
the
hallways
about
underpowered
product
management/ownership
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28. • We’re part of the same team
• Good product management boosts development
productivity, morale and revenue
• Development pays a huge price for missing/
understaffed product management
• Your product manager doesn’t expect
a thank-you (but would love one)
TAKEAWAYS
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29. CONTACT
Rich Mironov, CEO
Mironov Consulting
233 Franklin St, Suite #308
San Francisco, CA 94102
RichMironov
@RichMironov
Rich@Mironov.com
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