The product manager is the person responsible for defining the ‘why’, ‘what,’ and ‘when’ of the product that the engineering team will build.

1. Zit product management in je DNA?
@kurtbiesemans
Kurt.biesemans@atendi.care

3. Who am I
• Gestart met software ontwikkeling in 1995
• Via traditionele pad van ontwikkelaar naar analist
tot business consultant
• Laatste jaren focus op ondernemen met ’zwak’
voor product management
• Co-founder & product manager atendi.care
• Missie: Bedrijven te helpen om product
management in hun DNA op te nemen

4. Who are you?
• Naam
• Startup / organisatie
• Rol
• Wat zijn je verwachtingen?

6. What is Product Management
create customer value and business benefits
by identifying customer problems
to create product experiences
that outwit the competition
over a sustainable period
BUILD PRODUCTS THAT DELIGHT!

7. What is Product Management
?? create customer value and business benefits ??

8. What is Product Management
?? by identifying customer problems ??

9. What is Product Management
?? to create product experiences ??

10. What is Product Management
?? that outwit the competition ??

11. What is Product Management
?? over a sustainable period ??

12. What is Product Management
BUILD PRODUCTS THAT DELIGHT!

15. Time spending
• Product Strategy
• Getting market insights
• Tracking requirements
• Prioritization
• Road mapping
• Stakeholder Management
• Metrics & Analytics
• Mockups

17. • Fire people?
• Spend big money on products?
• Descide salary increase of contributors?
• Direct reporting authority?
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
PM = CEO of Product?

18. • Manage through influence not authority
• Advocate for the customer
• Go out in the market and find problems
• Work with a team of smart designers and engineers
to brainstorm possible solutions => concepts
PM = CEO of Product?

20. Challenges
• Engaging all the stakeholders, know who to involve,
when and how
• Struggle to delight customers / users while juggling
overtaxed resourced and tight deadlines
• Capture market requirements

21. Challenges
• Ensuring on-time, within-budget delivery of the
right product
• Finding critical information you need at the
moment you need it instead of searching through
mails, spreadsheets, SharePoint, …..
• Prioritizing and re-prioritizing what goes in each
release, based on new info, pressure, …..

22. Challenges
• Fast changing market dynamics
• Legal stuff
• Product Manager needs to be the expert in
everything
• You are on your own

24. Product vision

26. Simon Sinek
• Author of best seller ‘Start with the Why’ (2009)
• Talks about the golden circle
WHY
HOW
WHAT

27. Start with the why
We make……

28. Start with the why
De relatie tussen patient en apotheker verbeteren
Compliance van medicatie inname verhogen met als
gevolg….
Voorkomen dat ouderen die alleen wonen,
urenlang…
Beter evalueren of oudere nog in staat is om…

29. Then How and What

30. Product Vision canvas

31. Market research
• Why
• Get to know the market (size, evolution, shifts,…)
• Get to know competition
• Validate your idea / Product
• Validate your business model
• Validate your pricing strategy
• Validate your placement (distribution, image,…)
• Promoting / Seeding

32. Market research
• How
• Go out and talk with people
• Influencers
• Users
• Prospects that will ‘never’ by your product’
• Interviews
• Surveys
• Collect data and analyze
• Events
• Focus groups
• Define persona’s
• Do it yourself!

33. Product
Roadmaps

34. What?
• It communicates the why and what behind what
you’re building
• High-level visual summary that maps out the vision
and direction of your product offering over time

35. Why?
• Helps you planning on the long term
• Set milestones for you and the team
• Strategic communication document
• Get internal stakeholders in alignment
• Help communicate to external stakeholders, including
customers
• Have something to measure success

36. Euhhh, but we are agile?
• A roadmap can be a living document
• Far shorter timeframes
• More frequent adjustments
• To reflect changing priorities and market opportunities
• Focus on goals that you want to achieve, not on
features

38. Backlog
vs.
Release

39. Backlog
• List of features (backlog items)
• Features that ‘might’ be implemented in the future
• Need to be groomed (continuous)
• Features have:
• Goal and/or initiative
• Priority
• (High level) Estimation
• Origin
• Status

40. Release
• Big ideas you bring to customers
• It has a capacity
• More then a ‘bunch’ well selected features from
the backlog
• Includes help files
• Includes training of CS staff
• Included training of Sales staff

41. Capacity

42. Capacity

43. Customer Delihgt
Delight

45. 5 W’s

46. WHAT?

47. Customer delight is
Surprising a customer
By exceeding his/her expectations
and thus creating a positive
emotional reaction

48. WHY?

49. • Leads to word of mouth, 92% consider worth of
mouth as most reliable source of info
• Directly affects sales and profitability
• Make loyal customers - retention
• New customers cost 4 to 9 times more time and money
• Have customers that are more profitable
• Avg delighted customers spend more with less hassle

50. WHEN?

52. WHERE?

53. • In the product itself
• Through any touch point of the company
• Customer service
• Sales
• Website
• Social media
• Advertising
• Billing
• …

54. (W)HOW?

55. • By interaction with people at the front line

56. ZOOM IN
By interaction with people at the front line
1. Interaction is the greatest source of opportunities
2. Can be personalized and tailored to customer
• Showing personal interest in the customer
• Offer small attentions that might please
• Find solution to specific needs

57. Conclusion
H2H communication is the most important to have
delighted customers
Front line employees are able to develop a relationship
between the customer and the brand.
We have to have motivated staff in the front line!
Continuous motivation
Clear leading

59. • Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Observation
• Point of Sale
• Customer Service
• Social Media
• Communities and Groups
• Email and Web Forms

60. Abraham Lincoln
“You can please some of the people all the time, you
can please all of the people some of the time but you
can’t please all of the people all the time”

61. As
product manager
YOU own
The SUCCESS
or FAILURE
of YOUR product