Tag Archives: organizations

Measuring Product Managers (in Swedish or English)

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I’m back from a week of product management workshops and seminars in Sweden, including a Product Leadership event hosted by Tolpagorni’s Magnus Billgren.

In a half-dozen discussions with the heads of product management groups, I was struck by how familiar their concerns are.  We could have been in Sunnyvale rather than in Stockholm.  Topics that came up repeatedly:Digital calipers

  • What metrics do we use for evaluating product managers, and how can we tell if they are doing a good job?   Are there PM KPIs*?
  • Our agile development teams tell us that roadmaps are no longer needed, but our customers and sales teams still demand firm commitments. Continue reading →

What’s A Vice President of Product Management?

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consigliereMy last two posts were about getting into product management and the climb to Director. This third post asks how Vice Presidents of Product Management (VP PMs) are different from Directors, why they are so rare, and where else Directors can look for organizational advancement.

Product groups vary widely and are not rationally designed. (Sorry.) So let’s imagine a pure VP PM position generalized from my own tours of duty plus a half-dozen interim/acting VP PM roles.  Your organizational mileage may vary.  Continue reading →

Moving Up To Director

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director's chairIn the second of three posts about the product management hierarchy, we’ll focus on technology product managers (PMs) who’ve been in their jobs long enough to consider what comes next.  (User story: “As a Senior Product Manager, I want to be promoted to Director so that I get more money and respect and glory.”)

Let’s break this problem into a few parts: likely candidates for promotion; how the Director job differs from line Product Management; and ways to show that you’re ready for a bigger role. Continue reading →

Getting Your First Product Management Job

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knocking on the doorLooking over dozens of discussions, presentations and Quora threads from the last few months, a frequent question has been “How do I get a job in technical product management?”  Here is the first of three posts split along job levels:

  1. How do I move into tech product management, especially if I’m currently a developer?
  2. How do I move up from an individual PM role to Director? 
  3. I’m a Director of Product Management, and want to be a VP. 

Continue reading →

Webcast with John Peltier

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John Peltier is a seasoned product manager out of Atlanta, and does a periodic  John Peltierwebcast with guest product folks posted on his Product Owner Vision blog.  He generously included me in an interview posted on12 December.  We recorded a half hour discussion covering:

  • How Product Camps can increase awareness among senior and executive level product management
  • How product managers can help engineering organizations to understand what product managers do outside of engineering to help ensure the success of a product
  • Options for a product manager to advance in the field

Listen to the entire session here.

Product Management Essentials for Project / Program Managers

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IEEE Technology Management Council hosted a talk by Rich Mironov, primarily for program and project managers as an introduction to product management.

“ProDUCT management is a murky role: poorly understood and inconsistently practiced across tech companies. It’s often confused with proGRAM management and proJECT management. Yet done well, product management is often a driver of IEEE TMCmarket success and effective development.” This session helped define the basics of product management, contrasted them with project/program management, and identified ways for all of us to work more effectively together.  An interesting, very energetic discussion followed, bridging various organizational gaps.
Continue reading →

Santa Clara MBA Lecture on Product Mgmt

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Prof. Kumar Sarangee of Santa Clara’s Leavey School of Business invited Rich Mironov for a guest lecture on Product Market Planning and Strategy class.  This talk included a quick overview of what product managers are (what they do), how this fits into the overall business of creating technology, and how to think about pricing software and roadmapping. Continue reading →

How Engineering Can Work Better with Product Management

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SDForumAs a break from stealth start-up work, I led a discussion for SDForum’s Engineering Leadership SIG on “How Engineering Can Work Better with Product Management.”  This was a VERY spirited discussion…
We gathered some (good and bad) experiences from attendees about their interactions with product management, tried to define what the PM role is, and shared some thoughts on how to cooperate better for great products and organizations. Lots of questions about how to get into product management, and why people would stay in such a role! Continue reading →

‘Getting Promoted’ Talk at SV ProdCamp

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svpcampThis year’s Silicon Valley Product Camp (the fourth!) drew the largest crowd ever of product managers and product marketers to share, network, learn and have fun! Estimated at almost 600 and hosted at eBay’s Paypal/San Jose location, it pulled attendees from around the continent for nearly 40 sessions.  It also included a job fair with a dozen local companies.  I was honored to be emcee and event coordinator emeritus, having passed PCamp management to new leadership.

I ran a session on Understanding the Next Job Up and Getting Promoted…

Continue reading →