I am currently working on a project which attempts to apply a value chain approach to the decisions, management and evaluation processes that are applied in the Human Capital Management arena. I am not "going gentle into that great night" as I am heavily armed with the research and mounds of ideals from one of the best know analysts in this space Naomi Bloom.
As I started my work this fine morning around 6 am, armed with a diet coke, something in the research gave me pause. The idea that developing, maintaining and evaluating organizational components is a strategic task. Now, if you ask most big companies, they will proudly show you their compensation and classification studies that they paid someone in the industry handsomely (a Hewitt or a Mercer) to develop for them. Nine times out of ten, I'd bet that the investments was predicated by a decision to avoid legal woes in the future and the other one time, it was because a Human Resources executive saw the task for what it is a daunting undertaking. I don't know that I ever really thought of this excruciatingly detailed task as strategic though.
When I poured through the sub tasks of creating job descriptions, position descriptions and assigning competencies though, I had my 'ah ha' moment. This is one of those tasks in life that while daunting and fraught with detail it is STILL strategic because it lays the foundation for organizational success. It reminds me of some friends that decided to build their own home (using a subcontractor of course). Every morning he would travel to the job site and watch the workers build the foundation of the house- this puzzled me. In response, my friend said, "I know if the builder screws up the foundation the house will never be right. So I feel it is important for me to be there through every step of the foundation."
I further pondered as to how this applies to the field of Product Management. Often, the Product Manager is asked to take on the position of Product Owner or Product Manager because of their knowledge of the product. Sometimes, as in my case, because they have strong project management skills and can deliver technology to their clients on task and on time. It is often this lack of clarity to the position description and the supporting competencies required to move the appropriate 'levers' on the job that make us Product Janitors rather than Product Managers. Additionally, we often do not take on the third verb in the sentence EVALUATE as the product lifecycle changes for a product.
As products mature, sometimes we leave those start up superstars behind- nursing a growth product into maturity. And to the opposite, sometimes we don't recognize that the competencies that are needed to bring a product to market might not be possessed or at least might not be as strong in a product manager that is successfully managing a mature product line. For example, during a conversation I had at SHRM with a peer in the industry who was struggling to find the right resource to join her team, I challenged her to look within her own team. One of the offerings that they manage is in a growth product cycle verses others that she is hiring for which are in 'introductory' and 'fix' cycles. Why not move the superstar from growth to introductory; they were the catalyst for getting the Growth product through it's introduction period.
All of this thought brought me to the same questions for our profession- How often do we include the step of evaluating the competencies required for the job at 'that' particular point in the product AND market life cycle for the product managers we manage? Are we thinking about these like a solar system with products orbiting their markets and the tilt and rotation of the product life cycle exhibiting gravitational pull on the required competencies of the job? Do we actively account for and apply individual strengths against specific market needs for that time?
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