Simplicity

Attending WITI (Women in Technology International) this year in the Heart of Silicon Valley it strikes me that with all the discussion regarding the Internet of Things,  the Internet of Everything and the passing of Machine to Machine language that the future can really be summed up by the word Simplicity.  

If we think back to the days of the Internet's invention way back in the early 80's long before Al Gore invented Pants, we had to know and understand line commands that were unique to the people in IT.  I recall my first email in Zenix, RRoberts!write'Hey, where is my code, why isn't it checked in?' or something of the sort.' (Please forgive if it's not absolutely correct from a syntext perspective,  it's been 30 years.) 

As an avid cook, Simplicity to me means that perfect set of seasonal ingredients- it's a vine ripe tomato with a perfectly created burrata cheese and freshly picked basil. Sea salt and black pepper with a little olive oil. These ingredients work together because it combines what our palate's crave.  We want salt, sweet, acid to balance the creaminess of the burrata and the sweet 'grassiness' of basil just ties a bow on the whole experience. 

It is the same level of connecting things that have different origins (dairy meets garden) that the  Internet of Things/Internet of Everything is about.  The simplicity of being able to order a plant hanger, a big screen television and  a book about sausage making all in the same place.   Making problem solving easy or at least more simple is the key to product success.   Those solutions that simply tie unthought of combinations together.  At last year's conference we got to see the Google Car a true example of 'connectedness'.  Tying car computers, GPS and state highway systems together in a way we couldn't imagine prior. (Yes, we imagined it while we watched the Jetson's but those were flying cars.) 

Simply connected. 

My good readers,  it's been a while since I've written to you all, lots going on- trade show season is finally at a close, the kiddies are all back in school and fall is in the air.   Meanwhile at the old farm, we've undertaken an initiative to move all of our development teams to Agile/Scrum.   As the 'best practices' guru of our organization this has entailed some pretty extensive thought time regarding product management as a profession.  

Too look into Agile, what becomes apparent is that many of the reasons that product management began as a profession have eroded over time and one must seek to understand the value that product managers can bring to the business today.  

What reason's have eroded you might ask?  It feels as if product management's adoption in the service and technology sectors was due to a need to conserve the precious resource of product development.  Development was expensive,  it required a large investment in hardware, an expensive investment in developers and testing and finally an extensive marketing campaign involving shipping of software, direct mail etc.    Look at us now. 

Kickstart, jumpstart and other funding vehicles has eliminated the large dollars needed to go to market.   Amazon cloud has replaced the need for heavy hardware investments and coding; with frameworks, tools and other helpmates is not as expensive as it once was.  

Therefore, the value of the product manager is no longer as sifter of ideas- limiting the number of people that touch development and instruct development.   It's something entirely different.

Product managers today must help their organization create ideas.   Vet those ideas with clients, prospects and the market.  Determine if the market is willing to pay for those ideas ongoing (at least for a little while).  
Product managers that find themselves simply 'me tooing' the competition are not adding value.   In fact are decreasing value as their actions simply spend money to bring no additional value to the overall market place - there is probably some high brow equation for this- such as the current cost of cash * the future value of innovation that could have been brought to market with the same funding / time- or something of that sort = the value lost.

So given the very detailed assignment of product owner,  how do we balance the tasks associated with product owner with the increasingly needed ideation role of the product manager?    

More to come,  I'll leave you here this week- there is a lot to think about in the above- ponder all of the barriers to entry that have been eliminated in most fields.   Almost any start up can rent some 'space' in the cloud, start coding tomorrow and be your competitors in a matter of weeks.   Likewise the barrier to entry that the product manager created to access development has gone way too.  

Don't Leave Your Customers Behind.......

As I returned to Atlanta from Barcelona this week, I had the pleasure of experiencing Atlanta's new international customs area.   If you haven't been through the new terminal yet, it is truly beautiful.   It is lined with great art that is educational (floor to ceiling stained glass reflecting slide views of wood veneers) and promotional (photos of many of the places in Georgia).  Glowing ceiling lights illuminate the tunnel on your way to customs while soft zen music plays.   

What made it a product management moment was the division of customers.   (I use the word CUSTOMERS although I don't know that USCIS would every think of us as CUSTOMERS- that's a different blog.)  Individuals entering customs were divided into two groups,  those connecting through Atlanta and those with Atlanta as a final destination.  Those of us with Atlanta as a final destination had the pleasure of using the new customs area, those that were connecting were shuffled to the old E terminal to connect to their flights.  Of the 92 Million passengers that travel through Atlanta at least 2/3rd of these passengers are connecting passengers.  So the majority of visitors to the Atlanta airport will not experience this beautiful new space.   This reminded me of many a software practice where software is released, but under  circumstances in which only a handful of customers can take advantage of it's features or version.    

As product managers we are the owners of our product roadmaps.   Too often though we allow upgrade and migration requirements to fall to the bottom of our requirement priorities; opting to focus on getting new and exciting features to market first. Developing a strong upgrade process for new releases requires planning proper development techniques, the right architectural approach and investment in solid upgrade utilities. It also requires the dedication at at difficult time in the development process, usually between a first and second version when we are often faced with an enormous backlog of requirements from the new market. As owners of SaaS products, this upgrade strategy becomes a must.   When we OWN the environment for our customer's software without an upgrade strategy that brings our entire customer base to the new version in a flash cut, we are increasing our companies overhead exponentially by version.   Version proliferation and technical debt may not seem daunting initially,   but with a quarterly and/or monthly release schedule the costs quickly add up.  

Therefore good readers,  I recommend that with any green field development you begin your upgrade planning with release one and lay the foundation early.    If you haven't developed such a strategy and look at your portfolio and see a string of versions and (server farms) its time to hit the pause button and execute a strategy to consolidate.

Formulaic Job Descriptions - the product manager

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?

What does vacation teach us about product management?

So the spouse and I recently traveled to a series of National Parks.  We began in Vegas and toured Death Valley, Mono Lake and Yosemite.  We made a couple of side trips to a few really nice state parks as well, most notably to Lake Chabot (the link is included here- who knew you could camp in the East Bay?  http://www.ebparks.org/parks/anthony_chabot).

As we were speeding down the roads in our rental camper named 'Skittles' and watching the tourists mob Yosemite,  I was reminded of a few classic strategy principles- Valuable and Rare. 

Obviously Yosemite is rare place- a one of a kind Valley located in a glacier torn wedge in the Sierra Mountains.   Yosemite's rarity was enhanced by a decision to dam Hetch Hetchy valley in the 1920's to form a reservoir to supply water to San Francisco.  But what about value?  As product management professionals we often forget that a product is everything that you get for your money including the stream of benefits. There is a frequent disconnect between what product managers think they sell and what they actually sell.

For Yosemite, this might include such intangibles as relief from some of America's most crowded concrete jungles (San Francisco and Los Angeles), unimagined natural beauty and unparalleled rock climbing.   For Mono Lake perhaps the benefit is that of education and a chance to view the bizarre Tufas.  The point is each of these parks provides an experience that is unique with unique values.  Do product management professionals really think about the stream of benefits from the products they promote?  

How do we ferret out these values so we can best promote our products?   Never under estimate the power of a focus group.  You and your company can spend untold dollars using professionals (and if you haven't experienced a focus group with professional focus group handlers,  I highly recommend doing so) or you can use tools that are readily available.   LinkedIn groups, focus breakout sessions at user groups, win/loss phone calls, even web meeting voting options can work.   There are more opportunities to ask about the value and benefits received; just don't forget to ask.    

So my good readers,  my blog is short today- I've got 300+ emails piled up and at least 3 presentations to rework for next week's scheduled meetings and at least 200 pictures from the trip to edit.

      

Enjoy! And don't forget to take a vacation, they are good for you and the economy and you just might learn something.

Baby Showers and Product Lifecycles

Last night I attended a baby shower for one of our neighbors, a lovely young couple who (like a few other newer residents to the cul-de-sac) are morphing the neighborhood from 'Newlywed and Nearly Dead' to a vibrant place filled with children.

This neighborhood's transformation made me think about Product Lifecycle.   When a product is showing it's wear and tear as product managers we begin to think about ways to maximize our already sunk investment.   Can we institute a price increase while decreasing our investment in promotions and advertising to increase our margins on a lagging product?   What bells and whistles can we 'tack on' to extend the lifecycle or 'revitalize' without the massive investment to replace our product?

What we (product managers) do not think of is how to transform our products to another market or buyer, perhaps even to another purpose.  Similar to my neighborhood in the suburbs of Atlanta.  It's tree lined huge lots, mature houses (read dated '80's kitchens) and in a fabulous school district it's just waiting to be transformed into a family neighborhood.   The most frequently sited example of a product 'makeover' is coffee.   Starbucks transformed the cup of coffee from a .50 cent to go in a Styrofoam cup experience to an event.  Starbucks does not sell coffee, they sell an environment.   Just ask the Dunkin Doughnut drive through coffee fans they will tell you  "I don't have time to sit around and drive coffee, that's why I go to Dunkin."

What about other examples - How about the Tide To Go stick?   I have one in my desk drawer at work, what about you?  Certainly many of us have converted to using Dishwasher 'nuggets' those pre-measured dishwasher inserts vs. boxed dish washing powders.   In both instances,  the repackaging results in purchasing less product for more money and in the case of the Tide To Go Stick the product is used for a different purpose.

While the focus of this blog is not to advertise my employer,   I do feel compelled to mention ADP's RUN Mobile application. The mobile application allows small business owners to run payroll, track tax information and direct deposits via their mobile devices.  While there is absolutely nothing new about processing payroll, the ease of use and the access via mobile device changes the buyer persona.   We've heard testimonials from folks that pay their nanny via their phone each week and small business owners who say they'd never processed payroll before (offloading it to other more expensive services).  Making it easier to consume your product can shift the buyer profile as evidenced by the 250,000 clients that have selected to use the RUN application.

Sitting in my kitchen on a rainy Sunday morning envisioning the strategic planning process for FY'14 already.  Which begs the question - why now?  Is it intrinsic to the Product Management position to be forever forward facing?  Or is it simply the age old struggle of pre-planning due to a lack of current data? 

To the second question, I share as I've shared with many of my fellow Product Managers that one of the struggles with the profession of product management is being a change agent of the future while living in your past.   Depending upon the business you are in and development lifecycle that your product uses the product manager is typically wrapping up their road map 4-18 months ahead of a software release. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, daily issues abound with the current product- promotions, campaigns, maybe even a defect or two and certainly a host of user groups and call report sessions.  Like the specter of the 'Ghost of Products Past' the versions walk in and out of our lives.   But the profession demands that Product Managers keep pushing forward because when we stopping championing change and focus solely on the present the 'Ghost of Product Future' is there to bitch slap you.   You will find your product being called dated (the equivalent of being told your baby is ugly), lacking innovation or 'behind'. So the profession demands that you keep championing change in your organization and that you help others in your organization envision the future that you are moving towards. 


But why FY14, why now?  It is very easy to retrieve a lot of data and present it on a slide.   But translating Big Data from multiple source and tying them together to create a story takes time.   Additionally,  all too many product managers provide a strategic plan that only focuses on 'what we did',  'what the competitors did' and 'what we want to do'.   

A strong plan should include anticipating where the competitors will go (this requires a deep understanding of the competitor's value chain), a harsh look at 'how did we perform' and an analysis that includes a deep product life cycle review across the entire product portfolio.  The strategy should be built brick by brick according to the life cycle of each offering. Only after this deep analysis can you truly begin to develop an overall strategy at the company level for your plan.