The 2016 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey identified four skills that are responsible for a significant increase in personal income. Product managers that excel in these four areas earn 25% more than product managers who don’t. One of these skills is called “pitch artist” and is defined as, “the ability to stand up to peers, managers and executives and sell them your ideas and conclusions.” When it comes to being a pitch artist — effectively communicating ideas and influencing others — there is no better expert than Nancy Duarte of the Durate design firm in Silicon Valley.

Nancy is a communication expert who’s been featured in several publications including Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company. Her firm has created thousands of presentations for the world’s top institutions, including Apple, Cisco, Facebook, GE, Google, TED, and the World Bank and has taught many more people how to create effective presentations. She’s also the author of Resonate, Slide:ology, the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations, and co-author of Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies, and Symbols.

There was so much to cover that the interview is in two parts with each addressing a different topic.

In Part 1,  Nancy shares how product managers can effectively communicate ideas and influence others to support their ideas. She takes us on a journey through story telling, movies, and tribal traditions, sharing what it means to be an idea Torchbearer through five stages:

* dream,

* leap,

* fight,

* climb, and

* arrive.

I had a special co-host, Dr. John Latham, guide the discussion in Part 2.  Nancy shared her experience taking a small innovative company and scaling it without losing what makes it innovative.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Part 1: How Product Managers can Effectively Communicate

* How has your thinking on effectively communicating ideas evolved over time? My first writing on communicating dealt with the micro view – how to create effective and compelling slides. Over time I have examined the bigger picture. Illuminate zooms out beyond the presentation and connects with the purpose of the presentation, such as driving change and transforming a group or organization.

* You call innovators Torchbearers – why? [In Illuminate I shared…”Leaders aren’t just the people at the top of the org chart—a leader is anyone who can see a better future and rally people to reach it. Whether you’re an executive, entrepreneur, or individual contributor, you have the potential to motivate people through your words and actions.” Anyone involved with product management and innovation is certainly included in that list.] In fact, Illuminate is written for innovators and how they can influence others to join their plans. If we called them leaders, it wouldn’t really capture what we were trying to convey. We landed on torchbearers and travelers. We were actually inspired by Frodo [in Lord of the Rings] in the sense that he was the bearer of a ring and it came with a burden. You have to be called to be a leader but then you have to accept it, almost like a mantle, but so many people just pass it by. We really liked the concept of bearing a torch, because in situations where you need a torch, usually it’s dark and damp and scary and not well-lit and unknown. You don’t know where you’re going and you need a torch. A torch basically illuminates enough right in front of you to make the next few steps bearable and understandable. That’s what communication does. It casts just enough light for people to join you and say, “I could go there, that’s not that scary.” That’s why we really like this concept of torchbearer and travelers, because it’s a journey and the leader should be on the journey with the team and und...

Product managers must be effective communicators. We have ideas and product concepts to share, but the best idea will fall flat if not properly explained in terms our audience understands and appreciates. Further, if the idea is complicated, we have to find ways to make it easy to understand.

 

This is the world that my guest, Lee LeFever operates in. He is the author of The Art of Explanation – Making Your Ideas, Products and Services Easier to Understand.

 

In this interview, Lee shares the 3-step approach to explaining any product idea – the 3Ps of…

* planning,

* packaging, and

* presenting.

 

Lee has also made a free eCourse available for learning how to share your ideas in ways that audiences fall in love with them. The free eCourse is called Explainer’s Secret Weapon.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* Product managers always need to explain ideas clearly, but there are two times that are most challenging and most important – explaining a new product concept to stakeholders, especially those who fund projects, and explaining a new product to customers. Is your framework applicable to both situations? Absolutely because they both require you to think really hard about your audience and empathize with them. That’s what I mean by thinking hard about your audience – empathy is something that has to be part of your process because explanations live or die based on how they’re perceived by your audience. Put yourself in their shoes and think, how is this going to sound to them. The problem is, when we’re busy, when we’re under pressure, when we have deadlines, that sometimes falls by the wayside and we revert back to the language that worked for us in other settings. I think you’ve really got to get out of your head and into somebody else’s head to make communication effective.

* Let’s discuss the three components of your framework – the 3 P’s: Plan, Package, Present. What steps do product managers take to plan for such a communication? Planning is thinking about a situation and asking questions about what you are communicating. Sure, you’ll consider if the information is factually correct, that it is the right information to communicate, this it is branded correctly, etc. But there’s a question that is THE question… is this understandable? Are you using familiar language that people are going to actually be able to understand? That’s the real message of the plan part of developing explanation is making understanding a priority and being very intentional about that. To plan correctly, consider these three guidelines:

* Anticipate needs of the audience

* Focus on the purpose you wish to achieve

* Ask if your message is understandable to the audience

* What is involved in the second P, Package? Packaging is the process of looking at the facts and the information you want to communicate and then figuring out a way or thinking through how to put that information into a world the audience will understand. An example that I use for this is superstitions and fables. Fables are a great example. Sometimes I say, “do you really think it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder, or is it really just not a good idea?” I think it’s really just not a good idea, but it doesn’t work just to tell someone they shouldn’t walk under a ladder. You have to repackage it and turn it into something that’s actually useful for them. I think there’s a lot of ways to repackage ideas, but the things that are most effective is to look at the facts you’re trying to communicate and ask what’s the context? Is there a story that you can tell or an anecdote that you can use to explain these f...

In this interview you are going to learn simple structures for answering product management interview questions. This is useful for anyone wanting to start a career in product management or making a move to another company as well as for product leaders who interview candidates.

My guest, Charles Du (Do), is a UX Designer, SCRUM practitioner, and award-winning product manager and coach. He led the design of NASA’s first iPhone app, which received NASA’s software of the year award.

Charles teaches product management in many venues and I tracked him down after I saw a course he recently launched on Udemy titled “Master the Product Manager Interview.”

In this interview, you’ll learn:

* what your first response should be to any scenario question,

* how to respond to any general question,

* three steps for the perfect answer to estimation questions, and

* five steps for the perfect answer to product vision questions.

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* You have taught product management classes in the past and have now created training for doing well in interviews for a product management job. How did this new training come about? In addition to teaching online, I also teach in-person product management workshops. I found that students often asked about getting product management jobs. Questions like how they can ace an interview and what are common questions? I realized that there are many different types of questions that interviewers ask and that I could teach how to answer the questions in a really easy to consume course.

* Who is the training for? It is valuable for anyone pursuing product management positions. The examples I use are from the software industry, but the structured responses I teach apply to product management, not to specific industries.

* We don’t have time to go through all types of questions that may be asked in an interview – which one should product managers who are interviewing master first?  That is the MIQ – the Most Important Question. It is actually a question the candidate will ask during the interview. At the beginning of every interview, you’ll be asked some type of question like, tell me about your background, or walk me through your experience. This is where you fit in the MIQ. Reply with,  “I’d be happy to share my background, but before I start, can I ask, what are the top 3 qualities you look for in ideal candidates?” The MIQ is basically a question that the candidate asks, to flush out all the things that the interviewer cares about. The reason that this is really important is because the earlier you ask this question, the more contextual you can make all your answers during the rest of the interview.

* What are the 3 qualities that employers typically look for? I have not found a lot of variety in how the interviewer responds to the MIQ question. They usually are looking for someone with product vision, execution ability, and leadership skills – these are the 3 big buckets. Knowing this, you can prepare examples from your past experiences that fit into each one of these buckets.

* What is an estimation question and how do you structure a response to one? An example is, “how many golf balls can you fit into a bathroom?” The interviewer wants to see your thought process – they are not looking for a right answer to the question but are examining your analysis skills. The perfect response is structured in 3 steps:

* Clarify the question. Ask details, such as what is in the bathroom, is it in a one-bedroom apartment or luxury house, etc.

* Provide a rough estimate that is structured with variables and an equation. The variables would be the volume of the bathroom, the volume of everything in the bathroom,

Need a better customer research approach? This is the interview to listen to. My guest has an impressive background in product management, having served in product manager roles at Apple, Intuit, and other companies before co-founding a company that solves an important problem for product managers—getting the voice of the customer in a timely and money-saving manner. The company is Digsite and its co-founder and CMO is Jane Boutelle.

In this interview Jane shares some of the problems product managers encounter when conducting and then sharing customer research data as well as how to improve these processes.

In this interview, you’ll learn:

* how customer research is often piecemeal

* the need to have a 360 understanding of customers, and

* ways to create an online customer community as an advisory board.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* Since you co-founded a company dealing with the voice of the customer, let’s start with your experiences with market research and uncovering the voice of the customer. I was the first product manager at Intuit for Quickbooks. We used ethnography to better understand our customers in their own homes.  It was called “follow-me-home” and I learned a lot in the process. However, in many organizations the consumer research work comes in little bits and pieces that doesn’t provide a cohesive picture and takes too long. Often what the last customer says is what is most heard. Also, many people in organizations don’t have the opportunity to get as close to customers as they want to.  A window to accurately view the customer is needed.

* Your company, Digsite, must address some of these customer research issues – what problem was Digsite created to solve? It’s all about understanding customers, differences in market segments, their actual needs, how they are responding to your offerings and those of competitors… what really makes customers tick.  We developed a custom system for creating online communities for consumer research that empowers companies to really know their customers.

* What are product managers at a medium to large-size companies likely missing in their approach to customer research? We are seeing a few things. Companies doing good ethnographic research find that it tends to be expensive and time consuming. Usability testing is frequently encountered and companies are using good online platforms for that, but in the process, they are missing a 360 degree view of customer – what really makes them tick. They need to move beyond usability testing to really understand consumers.

* What does customer research look like using Digsite? We create a community of customers for the product team and organization to learn from. We recruit customers for the community based on the product team’s objectives. It is essentially a little advisory team that the product team has access to throughout the product development project. Communities are typically 20-25 representative customers but can be up to 100 people. We conduct Digsite Sprints where a company can get critical feedback and insights in just a week.

* Product managers are always learning and I expect you have learned a lot as Digsite has grown – what is an insight about customer research you have discovered while at Digsite? We really need to make sure that we’re thinking about research, not as an end, but as a real means to understand. It is important not to let the research process get in the way of  what you’re trying to accomplish. The thing that I’ve seen at Digsite is that we can give an organization a research capability that aligns with their business needs and answers the questions they need to ask about their customers.

 

Useful links:

If you are involved in product innovation, you likely already know about the website Innovation Excellence, home of the global innovation community that provides connection and conversation among its nearly 200,000 visitors each month. The site was co-founded by my guest, Braden Kelley. Braden is also a speaker and executive trainer as well as an author with a growing list of innovation publications.

 

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Highlights from the discussion include:

* Organizations that are in trouble often turn to innovation to bail themselves out. They could have avoided the trouble by having an effective innovation program, which requires a culture that supports innovation.

* The biggest barrier to innovation is that it is a project, not an inherent capability of the organization.

The 5 keys to developing an innovation culture are:

* Learn the basics of culture change, such as the 8-step Kotter change model or the Leading Change Formula. Braden is developing a Change Planning Toolkit based on his experience and research helping organizations change their culture to support innovation. We’ll discuss this in detail in a future interview when the Toolkit is available.

* Build a common language of innovation. Define what innovation means for the organization. Braden’s definition is that innovation transforms the useful seeds of invention into widely adopted solutions valued above every existing alternative. Then build vision, strategy, and goals for innovation. Finally, consider what infrastructure is needed to support innovation.

* Create a connected organization. Design the organization to apply the additional talents and skills employees have but are not used in their primary role. This “overhang” of capabilities can be applied for innovation by connecting people with the work that needs to be done. One model, used at Cisco, is to create internal internships to contribute to other projects. Another is Intuit’s innovation vacations (my term) that allows employees to take a scheduled break from the regular work to work on a short-term basis for another project.

* Identify those who care about innovation. Recognize that some employees are most comfortable in day-to-day operational roles and maintaining the status quo while others are constantly looking to change things for the better. Those that are seeking to make improvements, especially from the customer’s perspective, should be identified to contribute to product development. This also involves unlocking employees’ initiative, creativity, and passion.

* Make innovation a team sport. There is no such thing as a lone innovator. All innovators have a team around them. Braden defined 9 roles for effective innovation teams: revolutionary,  conscript, connector, artist, customer champion, troubleshooter, judge, magic maker, and evangelist. See details in the blog post he wrote.

 

Useful link:

* Braden’s white paper related to our discussion, “Five Ways to Make Your Innovation Culture Smell Better.”

* Braden’s website.

* Innovation Excellence – the world’s most popular innovation website.

* Braden on Twitter.

* Braden on

Chad McAllister, PhD - Helping Product Managers become Product Masters

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42:04

TEI 023: How Lead Users Guide Product Management at a Golf Training Device Company – with CEO Sam Froggatte

https://productinnovationeducators.com/blog/tei-023-how-lead-users-guide-product-management-at-a-golf-training-device-company-with-ceo-sam-froggatte/

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 11:55:00 +0000

https://www.productinnovationeducators.com/blog/?p=3102

Sam Froggatte is a golf gadget guru! He is the CEO of EyeLine Golf, a company that specializes in creating and selling training aids for anyone to improve their golf play. Their training products are used by weekend leisure golfers as well as hundreds of PGA players. Sam’s route to becoming a product innovator in […]

Sam Froggatte is a golf gadget guru! He is the CEO of EyeLine Golf, a company that specializes in creating and selling training aids for anyone to improve their golf play. Their training products are used by weekend leisure golfers as well as hundreds ...

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Highlights from the discussion include:

* As a kid, Sam had the “karate kid” experience of golf where he became fascinated with the game. Later he had two sons who played competitively and he could not find training aids for them, so he developed them himself.

* Product ideas come from observing problems PGA players have, experiences of PGA instructors, and observing trends in golf. Each product is focused on solving a problem.

* Sam focuses on solving problems that PGA players have – they are the lead users and early adopters. If they find a product valuable, the weekend golf player will too.

* While Sam is creating golf products, they exist to help a golfer learn and improve a skill. Consequently, he devotes time to studying how people learn.

* 3 principles Sam uses to create successful products:

* Fundamentally sound – the product has to do the right things, built on sound principles and not faulty assumptions.

* Intuitive – products must be simple to use and require little to no training to use.

* Un-embarrassing – products that golfers will carry and tell their friends about.

* A real example of how Sam created a product…

* The problem was trying to improve putting alignment

* He created a rough prototype in his basement

* He field tested it by taking it to golf ranges and showing it to others and getting feedback

* He revised the prototype until it was a viable product, including being ready to manufacture

* Sam has never created a product that is “finished” – he focuses on getting products into users’ hands that are “good enough.” This is how you learn to make a product better – get it used by customers.

* Sam keeps his network of manufacturers motivated by showing them the completed products. For example, one manufacturer may make an extruded rail but not the final product. When they see the final product, it not only is motivating but also provides them context for providing solutions to improve the product further in future versions.

If I am emotionally connected to what I doing, I am more creative.  So are my vendors. – wisdom from Sam.

* Most important advice for new product managers: know the trends in your industry. Stay in touch with current literature, participate in industry events, talk regularly with users. Also, know your price strategy. Ask:

* What problem are you solving?

* How much is it worth to people who have the problem?

* Can you manufacture a product that meets the price expectations?

 

Useful link:

* EyeLine Golf website.

 

Innovation Quote

“Be still, and know that I am God.”  – Psalm 46:10a. Sam finds creativity when he is still.

“Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” –Proverbs11:14. Sam seeks the wisdom of others for feedback on product concepts.

 

Listen Now to the Interview

Raw Transcript

 

Thanks!

Thank you for being an Everyday Innovator and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers.

The guest for this interview came from the recommendation of a listener. Thank you! Keep the quality recommendations coming.

Nir Eyal has been a startup co-founder, a CEO, and now helps product teams build habit-forming products. He is also the author of the book “Hooked,” which tells you how to create products that capture the attention of consumers and create engagement.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Highlights from the discussion include…

* Nir’s interest has been in the intersection of human behavior and products that hook customers’ attention. He gained insights from his involvement in gaming and advertisement. Sometimes the techniques these industries used to influence human behavior worked and sometimes they did not. Those involved in the industries did not necessarily understand why certain techniques worked and others did not. He created the “Hooked” model to explain what does work.

* The “Hooked” model applies best to products that require repeat engagement. This is clearly appropriate for many software applications (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google) but can also be incorporated in the service aspects of other products.

* Even if your product does not require a habit – repeated engagement – there still is much to learn from the study of human behavior and thinking in terms of hooks for building habits.

* Any business can benefit from helping customers take the key action you want them to take by making it as easy as possible – decreasing the distance between problem and solution – need and reward.

* The 4-step hook model is:

* Trigger: a cue to action  that tells the user what to do next (e.g., “You got to see this video!”). A trigger leads to an action.

* Action: the simplest behavior done in anticipation of the reward (e.g., clicking on the link to see the video).

* Variable Reward: satisfies the customer’s curiosity or need for taking action. Adding a bit of variability creates surprise and enhances anticipation that keeps customers returning (e.g., mailing video updates weekly but varying the day they are mailed).

* Investment: for customers to be truly hooked, they must have some investment in the product themselves – some work they perform that helps create attachment to the product (e.g., enhancing or completing their customer profile).

* A case study of a habit-forming product YouVersion — the most downloaded Bible app in existence — illustrates the use of the Hooked model:

* Trigger: after installing it, the app asks you to start a Bible verse reading plan. Later the plan sends you a notification telling you what to do first.

* Action: open the app to be taken to the verse in the reading plan.

* Variable Reward: the reward is in the content of the reading plan itself – what you will find or discover by reading the next verse and seeing what is in it for you. Variability is added by sending notifications on an irregular schedule.

* Investment: you are shown a progress meter of your advancement through the reading plan and given the opportunity to choose additional reading plans. Your progress influences the notifications you receive, encouraging you based on your pace through the reading plan.

* A tweetable phrase from Nir… “Monetization is the result of engagement.”

 

Useful links:

* Nir’s blog with numerous details and examples about the Hooked model.

* Nir’s book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.

 

Innovation Quotes

The Lean Startup approach has brought a lot of visibility to the importance of getting out of your office and interacting with actual customers. And you do that so you can understand the details of their problems related to the solution or product you envision as a product manager and innovator.

However, accomplishing this brings up questions like: who do we talk with, what do we ask them, and what information is most important. The practical answers to all these questions is in a framework called Jobs-to-be-Done. When used properly, it positions product managers to greatly increase the success of the products they develop – because the products are solving a real job the customer has in a way the customer recognizes as being most valuable to them and easiest to choose.

To learn about this framework, I went to the source – the person who runs the website http://Jobstobedone.org, which has the support of Clayton Christensen, who was one of the original creators of the framework. This person is Chris Spiek. Chris is a software programmer who discovered the Jobs-to-be-Done framework and used it to create successful software products customers loved. He has also been a founder and co-founded his current company, the Re-Wired Group, which is a firm based in Michigan that creates improved products and new products for their clients by applying Jobs-to-be-Done.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* Your background is in software development. What took you from that to product management? I was involved in custom software development. Customers often pushed for more features, making negotiations and managing scope creep very challenging. I realized I needed to learn more about what the customers of my customer really needed. That led me to learning about customer personas, big data, and more. At the same time, I started doing work for Bob Moesta, who was one of the co-creators, along with Clay Christensen, of the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework. His specifications for products were a bit different from what everyone else was doing, yet they were always wildly successful. In 2008 Bob and I started the Rewired Group to apply, refine, and teach the JTBD framework.

 

* You tell people that “you develop great products that people want to buy using Jobs-to-be-Done.” How do you describe JTBD? It’s a way of gaining an understanding of how someone decides to purchase something new.  For example, think about the last product you purchased and ask: what was your motivation to make the purchase, what was your thought process, and how did your opinions change over time? At its core, it is a framework for thinking about how purchasing decisions are made. An example is buying a shovel to dig a hole. If you are the product manager trying to sell more shovels, the traditional approach is to think about what would make the customer love your shovel more. This might lead to different colors, lighter-weight materials, etc. Instead, JTBD prompts us to change the perspective and ask why the customer needs to dig a hole and what are the other ways this could be accomplished. This leads to realizing that the shovel is not competing with other shovels at the hardware store but with other ways of getting a hole dug.

 

* How are jobs identified? Can you walk us through an example using JTBD – who was interviewed, what questions were asked, what was discovered? One of the first applications was for the Snickers candy bar. The Snickers bar was competing head-to-head with Milky Way. Both were Mars’ products, similar to each other, and one was going to be retired. Bob Moesta was asked to help the Snickers’ product team. Bob ended up talking with people who purchased Snickers and people who purchased Milky Ways,

Most companies talk about wanting to be more innovative, but few take the steps needed. In this discussion, I discovered the five steps organizations can take to be more innovative, from someone who has successfully executed the steps many times.

Recently, Ingersoll Rand was ranked #9 for Innovation in Fortune’s Most Admired Companies 2015. They made the #9 ranking the very first year they appeared on the Fortune list – a great accomplishment.  Clearly something is changing at the company in terms of innovation, and this change is being driven by Michael Wynblatt.  He is the Vice President of Innovation & Emerging Technology at Ingersoll Rand. He has also led innovation at other companies, helping more than 40 technology-based products come to market. This includes serving as the VP of Innovation for Eaton Corporation and the VP and Chief Technology Officer at the Siemens Technology to Business Center. Throughout these roles he has learned a great deal about helping companies become more innovative and specifically how to create a culture that breeds innovation.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* What is the charter of your role as VP of Innovation and Emerging Technology at Ingersoll Rand? My main responsibility is to build the innovation capability of the entire organization. This includes developing processes, tools, and methods and then providing training for these. I also have a team that models and demonstrates what good innovation process looks like.

* How did that role come into existence? The role has existed for 3.5 years.  The need for the role came about because the company has been undergoing a transformation to take advantage of the synergies between the businesses through a business operating system. We are creating functional expertise around a lot of different areas, including human resources and engineering and operations, and innovation was one of those.

* At the Back End of Innovation conference you spoke on creating an innovative culture in large organizations. You know a lot about this as you have accomplished it at three large industrial companies. What does it mean to have a culture of innovation? Culture is how the company behaves and what we do. To have a culture of innovation, you need three things. (1)  Your leadership must aggressively promote the expectation that you should identify new ideas. (2) Resources actually get prioritized for taking action on groundbreaking ideas. (3) Your employees prefer to join the teams that are working on those game-changing kind of topics.

* You created a series of steps for creating an innovative culture. What is the first step? Step 0 (I start with 0 because I was trained as a computer scientist) is setting expectations that creating an innovation culture is a multi-year journey. In one experience I had, the first three years of the journey didn’t product a lot of success but that dramatically changed after year three. It takes time to get the culture thinking and acting differently.

* What is the next step – Step 1 in your numbering system? Step 1 is adopting an innovation methodology. Any innovation methodology is better than none – find one that works for your organization. A key here is what I call standardizing the antidote. Identify the real barriers that are preventing innovation today. Pick one or two that are really critical and make doing the opposite the standard in the company. That is how barriers are removed.

* What is Step 2? Next, you’re going to need some examples of success and people to create the successes. I call this step building the army – those people eager to be trained with the right skills and can hit the ground running in a very short order to create success. The specialists are the soldiers and the success ...

Rich Mironov is a legend in the world of product management. He is the founder of Product Camp, a collaborative unconference for product managers and marketers that has spread across the world. He also is the author of the book The Art of Product Management: Lessons from a Silicon Valley Innovator. Today he provides full-time and short-term product management direction to technology companies.

While our discussion is in the context of software product management, much of the insights apply to product managers in any industry.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* You coach a lot of people who are new to product management. What do you hear are the reasons people want to be product managers?  Typically three reasons or explanations are given. People becoming product managers want to make a difference in the products that are created. They also want to have influence. This influence can be from a positive or negative position. The positive position is the desire to help guide product selection and overall product strategy. A negative position is people seeking power for themselves. For people that are seeking personal power, they will likely be disappointed in their choice of product management. Further, they’re not the people others want to work with. A related reason that people get into product management is to be involved early in the product development process to help guide the creation of the right product – products that customers love.

* For all of its appeal, the role of product management has challenges – what are the frustrations people encounter in the role? Many of the challenges lie outside the scope of the individual product manager. One challenge is sales teams that are given free reign to close deals by committing to new features that don’t yet exist in products. Pressure can also come from the engineering/development side if a culture of “making it perfect” exists. There are no perfect products, only ones that customers love and buy. Another issue is making too much of an investment too early in architecture. For software products, the architecture needs to be sufficient for the current product, not for some future scale that may never happen. A key challenge is not having sufficient time to talk with customers. For product managers to be effective, they need to be spending about 30% of their time externally with customers and the remaining 70% focused on internal work. Finding that 30% is a real issue for many product managers. If they’re not working closely with customers, they cannot reasonably know customers needs, emerging trends, and the direction of the market.

* Organizations are creating many of these challenges. What is your advice to product managers to navigate them and increase their influence in the organization? Great sales people are masters at understanding other people, and in this sense, product managers need to be salespeople. A good tool product managers can use in understanding others is the Myers-Briggs temperament assessment. This is also related to the ability to talk with customers in a way that helps to uncover unmet problems without making assumptions or adding bias. The most important tool product managers have to overcome challenges is providing evidence from customers and evidence can only be collected if they are spending sufficient time with customers.

* Organizations are also trying many approaches to being innovative. It is the current mantra – to be more innovative. Let’s discuss what is not working and is working. The number one thing that seems like wasted effort is the so-called innovation day. Employees are excused from their regular activities and responsibilities and brought together to be innovative. Making innovation a one-time activity removes innovation from reg...

The discussion with my guest is about selecting ideas to be developed into products. Many organizations encourage employees, partners, customers, and other stakeholders to provide ideas for products, but only a few companies successfully manage organizing the ideas, selecting the best one, and executing well to turn ideas into valuable products.

Peter Duggan, a SVP and Head of Product Management & Development for Computershare Investor Services, has created a simple and effective 5 step process for selecting the best ideas for new products. He shared some of these concepts in a workshop at the Product Innovation Management annual conference and I am delighted to have him share the 5 steps with us.

After listening, you’ll know how to help your organization become idea-selecting ninjas through 5 simple steps.

 

Practices and Ideas for Product Managers, Developers, and Innovators

Summary of questions discussed:

* Before we can select product ideas, we have to first have ideas – how are ideas generated in your organization? How we don’t generate ideas is important to describe first– we don’t run campaigns with catchy names, that imply that idea generation is a temporary activity. Instead, we solicit ideas on a regular basis from employees that are close to the front lines. We tell employees that no idea is a bad idea – the objective is to generate lots of ideas and then to select those ideas with the most value for the organization. When ideas are selected, we also ask for the employee to identify the purpose of the idea, such as generating additional revenue, saving expense, improving client satisfaction, etc.

* The first element is cataloging- what is involved? Every idea is placed into an Excel spreadsheet – we like keeping the system easy and avoid using complicated software. A template is used to collect specific information about the idea, such as its purpose, potential worth to the company, etc. The list of ideas in the spreadsheet is essentially a pipeline, like a sales pipeline. As ideas move through the pipeline, actions are taken, including seeing the idea developed.

* The second element – sizing – how is that accomplished? This involves noting all the assumptions made, including specifics related to the purpose of the idea. For example, if it’s a revenue-generating idea, how large is the target market, what is the potential price of the product, how large of an effort is creating the product, what are the timing considerations for getting the product to market, how complex is the project, and what other stakeholders need to be involved.

* Prioritizing is the third element. What is your experience with prioritizing? A key question is what is the capability of the organization to manage change – the capacity to accomplish projects. The number of projects need to be maximized and aligned with the capabilities of the organization and the availability of required stakeholders. Consequently, the highest priority ideas need to be identified and balanced against the needs of the organization, considering the short term and the longer term objectives, and the availability of resources.

* Next is selecting – the fourth element. How is selecting accomplished? The highest priority ideas are evaluated by a team. Those selected enter a flexible stage-gate development process. Ideas that enter development are managed as a portfolio, aligned to the organization’s strategy. Each idea is assigned to a product manager. The portfolio is organized by the original purpose of the idea, either (1) revenue-generating, (2) expense saving, or (3) client-satisfaction improving. Ideas that are not selected stay in the idea pipeline but are moved to a “hold” state for revaluation in the future.