The Rise of the SaaS Product Manager, Why Product Management is More Important than Ever with Tom Evans, moderated by Cindy F. Solomon
As the Software as a Service (SaaS) market continues to grow and change the landscape of IT products, some people are saying that the software product manager is an irrelevant and dying breed. While SaaS has changed some aspects for the Product Manager, such as the pace of new releases, the opportunity for increased influence of the user community and the ability to collect more useful data, these changes do not make the SaaS product manager irrelevant, but they do require the SaaS Product Manager to learn new skills and to use new tools in order for them to be effective and valuable in the world of SaaS.
In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how the principles of product management continue to apply to SaaS companies and then present a survey of effective product management practices currently being used by SaaS Product Managers.
Attendees will learn:
How the principles of product management continue to apply to SaaS companies.
Effective product management practices and tools currently being used by SaaS Product Managers.
Recommendations on how to achieve greater effectiveness with your SaaS Product Management Team.
8. The Rise of the SaaS
Product Manager
Why Product Management Is More Important Than Ever!
Tom Evans
@compellingpm
www.compellingpm.com
9. About Tom Evans
• Principal – Lûcrum Marketing (Partner with 280 Group)
• 15+ Years - Product Management / Product Marketing Experience
• Domain Expertise: Document Management, Call Center
Technologies, Financial Services, Process Automation, Aerospace
& Defense, Small & Large Company, Domestic & International
• Functional Expertise: Business Case, Soliciting Market Needs,
Product Mgmt Process & Documentation, Messaging, Sales
Enablement, Agile, Product Strategy, Market Strategy, SaaS
• AIPMM Certifications: Certified Product Manager, Certified Product
Marketing Manager, Agile Certified Product Manager
• Publications: Contributor – 42 Rules of Product Management, 42
Rules of Product Marketing
• Former Board Member/Sessions Chair – ProductCamp Austin 9
10. Discussion Agenda
• Spark of the SaaS Product Management Controversy
• What Product Management Isn’t
• What Is Product Management?
• Product Management Practices in Saas Companies
11. Sources of SaaS PM Controversy
The Death of Traditional Software
Product Management
• In SaaS, the concept of traditional
product management must be retired
and replaced by community
management.
• Silly Agility: The Myth of the Agile
Product Manager
12. This Isn’t Product Management
Office Space – Tom Smykowski & The Bobs
http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/storyimages/1021_wide.jpg
13. NOT Product Management
• PM sits in office and determines what they think the
customer wants.
• PM creates thick requirements document and expects that
engineering has all of the information they need.
• PM collects all requirements and gets cross-functional team
to prioritize.
• PM only writes technical specs and tries to tell engineering
how to do their job.
14. What is Product Management?
“Product Management ensures the
company delivers products that are
valuable for the customer, company and
partners throughout the entire product
lifecycle”
Adapted from Greg Geracie
16. What Does Product Management Do?
• Conduct market & competitive research
• Solicit, validate and clarify requirements from stakeholders
• Develop business case for major product investments
• Create product strategy and communicate requirements
• Define and defend the product positioning
• Prioritize requirements (User Stories)
• Validate resulting product with market
• Support marketing, sales team, channel (sales tools)
• Communicate clear & consistent market messages.
• Help achieve key business metrics
17. Most Important Aspect of Product Management
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the
customer so well that the product or service fits him and
sells itself.
Peter Drucker
Discover Market Needs That are Worthy of Solving!
18. Discovering Market User Needs
• User communities / • Win/Loss analysis
user groups • Social media
• Usage analytics • Competitive analysis
• A/B testing • Support issues
• Feature requests • Industry analysts
• Product advisory • Potential customers
committees • RFPs
• Customer calls/visits • Etc.
19. Balance Needs of Multiple Constituents
The role of a product
manager is to serve as a
communications "hub" for
a publisher's software,
coordinating the different
and frequently conflicting
wishes, needs and
priorities of development,
sales, marketing and
customers. – Merrill R.
(Rick) Chapman (2004)
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3SJS38JIQMU8L
22. Product Management Practices for SaaS
• Define and improve key product metrics
• Create dynamic interactions with customer community
• Align customer feedback with product strategy
• Represent customers with development
• Apply usage analytics appropriately
• Create buzz around new capabilities
23. Improve Key Product Metrics
• Metrics that drive your business model (e.g.)
– Conversion ratios/times
– Usage statistics
– Net Promoter Score®
– Support issues
– Implementation time
– Time to usage
– Cost of Acquisition
– Etc.
Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.
24. Dynamic Interactions with Community
• Participate in the conversation
• Actively solicit feedback
• Present new ideas for feedback
• Develop consensus
• Identify customers for working groups
• Build buzz about new features, capabilities, etc.
25. Represent Customers with Development
• User Stories are a start of a conversation around a need to
be met.
– Elaborate via a grooming process
– Engage customer working groups to elaborate
requirements
• Regularly demonstrate working software to customer
working groups (after each iteration)
• Give customer working group first access to final version
26. Align Customer Feedback with Strategy
• Case Study - Mint.com
• Many users requesting Quicken/MS Money type features.
• Not their value proposition, not their target market
• Clearly understood their key user persona & thus their
product strategy.
• What if they had responded to customer requests (not
their target market, would have changed their positioning,
etc.)
27. Apply Usage Analytics
• Application of analytics depends on user interaction
– How often and how complex of interaction
• Simple workflows
– Analytics provide valuable insight
– Easy to do A/B testing
• Complex interactions
– Analytics is an important indicator, but in and of itself is
not usually sufficient
– Must understand context via customer discovery
28. Create Buzz Around New Capabilities
• Challenge: no major launch events to build buzz
• Active participation in online community and other
online/social media
• Plan schedule of new capabilities to create bundles that
synergistically increase customer value
• Make major announcements around bundle of new
capabilities
29. Characteristics of a Successful Product Manager
• Passionate about understanding market needs
• Engages well with customers & non-customers at all levels
• Provides leadership (vision, strategy) for their products
• Works well with and develops respect with all parts of the
organization
• Understands how their product supports corporate
strategy, goals, objectives
• Delivers requirements to development supported by
market evidence
30. Acknowledgements
• Tom Hale, Chief Product Office, HomeAway
• Erik Huddleston, Executive VP, Products and CTO, Dachis
Group
• Audrey Montgomery, Senior PM – SaaS Products,
Blackbaud (Convio)
• Denny Lecompte, VP – Products, SolarWinds
31. Product Management Training Dates
• Optimal Product Management & Product Marketing
– Jan 28 to 30
– April 1 to 3
• How to Be a Phenomenal Product Manager
– Jan 31
– April 4
• AIPMM Certification Prep & Exam (CPM, CPMM, Agile)
– Feb 18 to 22
• Additional Dates & Locations www.280group.com
The Certified Innovation Leader body of knowledge and credential is aligned with The Association of International Product Marketing and Management. AIPMM was founded in 1998. It provides professional development, training, and certification to those involved in product management, such as product managers and developers, marketing managers, brand managers, project managers, and many more. The certified innovation leader credential is one of four certifications provided by AIPMM. The others include: certified product manager, certified product marketing manager, and agile certified product manager.
So what you do is you take the specifications from the customers and you bring them down to the software engineers?That, that's right.Well, then I gotta ask, then why can't the customers just take the specifications directly to the software people, huh?Well, uh, uh, uh, because, uh, engineers are not good at dealing with customers.