Brian Lawley

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-24-2022

Are you just starting out as a product manager or looking for a guide to becoming better at what you already do every day? The role of a product manager can be a strategic business driver for your company and, as such, a lot of people are watching closely to see what direction you take them in. This Cheat Sheet offers a guide to the different people product managers interact with, arms you with the skill set needed to catapult you to "great" status, and shows you how to acknowledge and resolve conflicts.

Article / Updated 11-08-2017

As a product manager, finding what doesn't work is sometimes easier that knowing what is working well. If you see the following symptoms, most likely your process isn't very effective. Decision making is extended. Every decision is hard fought and can be arbitrarily reversed at any time. And once you are allowed to start the next phase, you're often in a rush to complete your product. No one really says yes. If you're not sure that your project is funded or can't find someone in authority to agree to proceed with a product idea, then your company may not actually have a product life cycle process at all. Different departments deliver information in different ways. In this situation, management can't consistently make decisions on the same basis and in the same way. Or they have to keep asking for different kinds of information which one department doesn't routinely provide. Some phases are ignored or shortchanged regardless of the negative impact on overall product success. You can tell that this is your failure point if you have just completed a product and your sales people don't know who to sell it to, and the first customers who look at it can't tell why they'd want to buy it. Product management doesn't routinely participate in parts of the product life cycle. Product management and product marketing are restricted to just a few of the phases and participate in developing and defining only part of the whole product.

Article / Updated 11-08-2017

You may know of a commonly used product life cycle that starts from the premise that a product is in the market. It has four phases: Introduction: The goal in this phase is to build market awareness for the product. The job here is to educate customers as to the value of the product. Growth: During the growth phase, the company is guiding market share and creating brand preference in the eyes of the customer. Maturity: Strong growth slows, and the product may encounter much more competition. If your product has good market share, you need to defend it. If your product is new in this market, your chances of success are diminished unless your product is vastly better. Even then, the cost of marketing a new product from a new provider in a mature market is expensive. Products can remain in the mature phase for a long time. Arguably, lightbulbs have been in a mature market for over 100 years. As new technology arrives, customers need to understand only the difference in technology and pricing to buy the new products; they already understand why they need lightbulbs in general. The actual companies that play in this market are remarkably stable. Decline: As sales decline, companies have a limited set of choices. One is to maintain the existing product and sell what they can. Another alternative is to reduce costs and focus sales to a loyal niche segment. And another option is that the company decides to discontinue the product or sell it to another company who is interested in remaining in the market. The four-phase cycle is a useful tool for understanding what works best in gaining ground for your product at particular points in time. In fact, another name for this life cycle is the industry life cycle or market life cycle. The four-phase life cycle doesn't have decision points between each phase. Instead, you emphasize different aspects of marketing and sales activities at each phase.

Article / Updated 11-08-2017

A product begins life as a small thought: a "what-if" spark that captures the imagination. But before a product sees the light of day or reaches the customer's hands, it must go through a series of phases that involves all the departments within a company. These seven phases capture everything that happens with a product throughout its entire life and all critical decisions that must be made. Following the product life cycle gives product managers a road map on what to do for their product as it gets closer to being released. Here are the benefits of using this process: Clear decision making. The appropriate information needed to make a decision is available at the right time and presented to the people who have authority to make that decision. Information delivery is consistent and complete. Everyone knows what to expect and where to look for it, and the information available is sufficient for the next phase to start off well. Each phase is accounted for and completed correctly. Creating products is stressful. In the rush to get a product out the door, it's tempting to skip a phase. A good process ensures that you don't miss doing something and make a mistake that will be hard to recover from later on. Product management and product marketing know their role in each phase. These roles participate fully and appropriately during each phase. They know what they need to complete to ensure a great product. Both roles support delivering a complete product using the whole product concept. Phases and gates The seven-phase model uses a phase-gate approach. Each phase consists of standard tasks that must be accomplished. Different departments and functions are aware of their work during the phase and the deliverable they bring to the party when the decision is made at the end of that phase. To complete a phase and move on to the next one, the product must be scrutinized at a gate. The gate is a decision based on the work in the phase. The figure shows the phases and gates of the product life cycle. At the gate meeting or approval session, the company can decide to move forward with the concept or product, put it to one side, cancel it, or ask for more information. Critically, the information for a gate decision ensures management can correctly evaluate the risk and opportunity of investing significant money or resources. Mapping phase-gate to Agile methodologies A phase-gate process is well known and commonly used in the development methodology called waterfall. In waterfall development, product management describes a product and then hands it off for product development to create. When the development folks are finished, they hand it off to quality assurance. There's no explicit review loop during the develop or qualify phase that allows teams to catch mistakes or misinterpretation. In reality, there are continuous reviews during each phase between project team members to make sure that the product is still on track and to deal with out-of-bounds issues as they arise. Phase-gate processes are great for making sure that the right thinking is done at the right time with the result that products are more successful. In software development, many companies have shifted to Agile development processes. There are different versions called scrum, Lean, and kanban. The following figure compares what product managers and product development are doing when under both waterfall and Agile. Here's how to use Agile with a phase-gate process. Agile is great at managing the uncertainty and risks of software development. It isn't great at keeping track of the long-term direction your product is headed during development. The strategic context provided by the conceive and plan phases keep projects on track as the focus is on a longer time horizon. The big difference between Agile and waterfall development methods is in the level of product detail defined in the plan phase. Under waterfall, every detail is supposed to be defined before the engineers start. In Agile, the high-level market needs and the problem that the product should solve are defined during the plan phase. The actual implementation details are left for product development and the product manager or product owner to flesh out as the work proceeds. The figure shows that under Agile in the develop phase, the product manager is still refining requirements. They then work with product development to plan the next small chunk of work (called a sprint). And then the development team proceeds to design, code, and test before coming back to define the next sprint.

Article / Updated 11-08-2017

As organizations grow, the complexity of who is responsible for doing what becomes greater. Product managers have a long list of responsibilities, and making sure that everyone is clear on what they need to be involved in and what they can safely pass onto other roles is important to document. There are two management tools that are useful for making sure that everyone knows who participates in finishing an activity and who makes a decision about a particular topic: RACI: Who is responsible for completing certain tasks? DACI: Who decides on a course of action for a particular task or function? Depending the whether the issue is one for responsibility or decision making will guide the product manager in which tool to use. Going the RACI route A key concept that solves the responsibility part of the puzzle is called RACI. The acronym stands for the following: Responsible: Who is responsible for participating in completing an action? Accountable: Who is accountable for making sure an action is complete? Consulted: Who is consulted during the process of completing an action? Informed: Who is informed about the state of an action? An example is planning a company potluck beach party. Preparing for an event means that anyone responsible for bringing food or other materials as part of the event is listed as responsible. Volunteers for food, blankets, and so on are accountable for making sure that commitments are met. Executives are consulted on key matters as the event is rolled out. And anyone who isn't a volunteer is simply informed as to the state of affairs. The table shows a completed RACI chart for an Agile development group that uses scrum methodologies. Creating this chart as a group will allow the product manager or product owner to clarify who is responsible for which tasks and decrease confusion among group members. Agile Group RACI Chart Agile Group RACI Chart Product Manager Product Owner Scrum Master Engineer User Experience Quality Assurance Mgmt Develop QA tests I I I C I R I Attend daily standups C R R R R R I Create product vision R C I I I I C Estimate story points I C C R R C I Taking a DACI direction For many organizations, creating a RACI chart like the one in the preceding section works well. Product managers face further complications. They're trying to move forward on various fronts. Without clear decision making, entire projects can stall while everyone gets to the point of saying yes. This situation is why many product managers turn to a DACI chart. It's just one letter different, but the organizational impact is dramatic when all levels in the company adopt it. DACI stands for Driver: Who drives a decision to a conclusion? Approver: Who approves a particular decision? For best results, keep the number of approvers low. Contributor: Who contributes to a decision? Informed: Who is simply informed about the final decision? The DACI model is great for clearing up decision confusion. For the picnic example in the preceding section, the vice president of human resources is the driver. She wanted a team building event for the company. The CEO is the approver for the plan to have a picnic, and the contributors are the employee activity council who helped the vice president of human resources with decisions like inviting employee family members or not. The rest of the company employees are informed about the event. It's the same event, but there's a world of difference between who drives and who is responsible. Multiple people can be responsible, but only one driver is allocated in the DACI model. Who is in charge is crystal clear. Who is allowed to approve, who can contribute a point of view, and who can stop the project is also very clear, as shown here. Agile Group DACI Chart Agile Group DACI Chart Product Manager Product Owner Scrum Master Engineer User Experience Quality Assurance Mgmt Decide on product vision D C I I I I A Decide when product is ready for release A C C C C D I Get a user story ready for the team to review C D C I I I I Agree that user story is ready to be made part of the sprint I C C D C C I Using RACI and DACI effectively The best time to create a RACI and DACI chart is at the beginning of a project. Program management would be called in to assist in working through the details since this is a company process If you wait to create this agreement after conflict arises about who does what and who can decide what, agreement is harder to reach. Depending on which issues you expect in your project, plan a working meeting to detail every task that needs to be finished and then clearly allocate responsibility. If your team is having difficulty making and sticking to decisions, hold a DACI meeting and hash the issues out. You may need a facilitator. Human resource personnel or trainers often have training in facilitation. Ask them to run the meeting for you so that you get impartial results. And a key decision maker is always welcome at the meetings to provide weight in a tie-breaking situation. Once you have agreed on a DACI or RACI configuration, you can reuse it from project to project. If you find yourself in disagreement again or there's a large turnover in the team, it might be worth hashing out a new one. One last benefit: If you're drastically overworked, a RACI chart makes this imbalance obvious to everyone. Then you can negotiate taking certain tasks off your plate.

Article / Updated 11-08-2017

Becoming a great product manager is the work of a lifetime. The work is complicated. The skills and talents that you have to bring to the role are many. And just when you think you've mastered them all, you realize you haven't used one in a while and need more practice. Having the characteristics and skills of an amazing product manager make the job a great one if you like variety and challenges. The following discussion details the eight most important traits of great product managers. Business acumen You know that product managers need to focus on getting the product right and listening to customers. However, your company needs to make money to survive. This hard-core business acumen is what it takes to make profitable products. Business acumen includes careful consideration of the following topics: Pricing a product at the level that leads to a safe profit margin. You need to know the complete cost structure of your product and offering, including corporate overhead. Double-checking all contractual business terms to make sure you haven't given too much away to your channel, your partners, or your customers. Being aware when a business negotiation with an internal and, especially external person or organization isn't proceeding with your interests in mind. You need to balance both sets of needs. You don't pick up business skills in a vacuum. You get them from more experienced people in your company. Luckily, most of your negotiations focus on internal exchange of resources like people and money. Prior to any serious negotiation, get as complete a list as possible from your manager as to what is allowed to be part of the discussion and what is outside of the discussion. Then walk in with a list of the boundaries that you can operate in. Don't lead with those boundaries. If you're uncertain, stop and double-check to make sure that you haven't given up something that your department shouldn't commit to. Safe is better than sorry. Industry knowledge and expertise Many product managers come from the industry that they serve. They're industry specialists first and product managers second. In general, this attribute is great because you're already familiar with your industry and the key business drivers. What happens when an industry is in transition? As you use your industry knowledge and expertise in a product management role, keep an eye over your shoulder for industry disruptors. Imagine you were a product manager for the taxicab industry. Would you predict that a service like Uber would transform the taxi industry? You then need to shift your energy to convincing your company that it's time to move — or possibly watch your company die. Technical knowledge One of the fun parts of the product manager role is having a technical conversation with someone even more technical than you are. Yes, you need to know the core technology that supports your product. So ask a technical person to give you an in-depth briefing on all the ins and outs of your product. As the briefing continues, add your own notes as to the difference this information makes to the customer. Your goal is to know the technical terms and translate that into the value that the technology delivers to your customer. The "Why is this important?" part is where you add critical value as a product manager. The world is filled with products that have a great deal of technical coolness but don't deliver real value, such as the self-stirring coffee cup that ensures the mocha or sugar in your coffee stays thoroughly mixed. On the surface, this technological innovation is wonderful, but from a customer's point of view, the additional value may not warrant spending $10 more to buy each cup. People skills Look at the many business books on the shelf at a bookstore. Now calculate how many are about the ins and outs of business dealings and how many are about working in the best possible way with other people. The ratio is strongly tilted toward books on people skills versus books on spreadsheets or business plans. Good people skills underpin much of your success as a product manager. As much as you spend time analyzing and planning your next product, you need to analyze and plan your strategies in working with your co-workers. The basics are simple: Listen carefully, ask open-ended questions, and make sure you communicate requests and delegate clearly and succinctly. Decision-making skills The reason product managers have such a large impact on their companies is that they're one of the key functions that is asked to make forward-looking decisions on a regular basis. This is great if the decisions you are asked to make are ones where you have expertise. For example, which target markets and customer groups to pursue with your product are topics that should be your call. The problems product managers face can have many possible right answers. The question you have to answer is, "Which is the best answer with the amount of data I have available right now?" You're trading off an early decision that creates forward movement with a more certain decision you could make at a later date. Some useful questions to ask yourself include these: When is the last responsible moment to make a decision? Can I make progress and leave some flexibility down the road? What happens if I don't make the decision now? What are my risks? What are possible rewards of moving sooner or waiting longer? Problem-solving aptitude Product managers are known for adopting a can-do attitude. Actually, it's probably a bit more than that. Obstacles that are placed in your way are just opportunities to succeed regardless of the odds. Keep in mind that obstacles are boundaries. Give yourself permission to expand your area of control past the boundaries that seem to be in your way. When you're faced with a difficult situation, whether it be a holdup in the life cycle of a product, a misunderstanding with another department, or any number of issues that can arise, start by gaining a good understanding of the problem. Write down all the parameters and invite other people to help you figure out where the obstacles are slightly lower. Keep working on them until you can see a way through the problem. Many barriers are put there by organizations because they had a purpose at one time or another. If they no longer serve their original purpose, dig deeper to understand all aspects of the problem and you can find your way through. This mental toughness of not stopping until a problem is solved is an important attribute of a product manager. It's related to another critical attribute: optimism. No matter how bad the situation is, your ability to believe that you can solve problems gives you the opportunity at getting the best possible outcome. A cool head Product managers spend a lot of time under the kind of pressure that breaks many people. Product management is now considered the fourth most important job in corporate America, according to a 2013 CBS News poll. That just means that what you're doing is highly visible and very hard to do well. Many roadblocks can crop up as you prepare a product to go to market; how you deal with the problems is a measure of your character. Every person finds a way to cope with the stress. The ones who do it best are like ducks, outwardly calm, but paddling like crazy under the water. Here are a few hints for keeping your cool: When you get bad news, it's okay to leave and take a short walk — outside if possible. A deep breath (or two or ten) makes a big difference in your ability to respond calmly. Meditating regularly in whatever way you find productive is very helpful. So are gardening and long walks. The main idea is to look for the gap between your surprise and your reaction. In that gap, you can choose to be calm and cool, taking the mental space to call on all the other skills that we cover in earlier sections. You're going to need them all — and a smile to go with them. Leadership chops A product manager needs to have leadership skills. When you're asking others to go above and beyond their comfort level, you need them to trust you. You can read about leadership for the rest of your life, but learning to actually be a leader takes time and practice. Leadership is a practice of kicking all the traits in the preceding sections up a notch. Business acumen: Do you know everything your decision will mean as it rolls out into the real world? Industry expertise: How confident are you that what you know to be true today will be true as your market evolves? People skills: Are you really listening? Decision-making skills: Once you listen deeply to people, can you integrate all the information to come up with a truly creative decision? Technical skills: Is the technology really going to evolve in the way you believe it will? Problem-solving aptitude: Can you find a solution no matter how dark the situation seems to be? When all else fails, rely on the following four qualities as part of your leadership chops: Can people trust you? Do you instill hope? Do you have compassion for your people and your customers? Do you make people feel safe?

Article / Updated 11-07-2017

As product manager, you touch almost every part of an organization and may not even realize it. Only many years after you've left a product management role and find someone in an obscure part of the company who recognizes you do you realize the extent of your reach. It's a humbling thought. One excellent practice is to swing through the building once or twice a day checking in with key functions. If certain functions are remote, check in with them via email, a meeting, or a phone call at least once a week. You can address any issues and concerns while they're small. Sales The overall goal of a sales function is to facilitate the sales process. A sales process is one in which customers come to the conclusion that they should purchase your product and then do so. However, sales isn't a monolithic function. Breaking down the sales department into its various roles shows how important they are to a product manager: Sales representative: These are the people who actively talk to customers and convince them that they should buy a product. Sales representatives are usually paid at least partly on commission. If they can't figure out how to sell your product, they'll sell something else so that they can "make their sales number." Your job as a product manager is to make sure that they have a deep understanding of your product and become successful at selling it. Along with your product marketing manager, your job is to make sure that sales representatives have the right information to make the case for your product. Sales presentations, competitive selling sheets, and benefit/feature and pricing comparison charts are a good place to start. Sales engineer or technical sales: For technical products, often someone has to have a highly technical conversation with a customer about creating an elegant solution to a complicated customer problem. This person is typically called a sales engineer, although this title can vary wildly. Just like the sales representative, the sales engineer explains your product story to the customer. The one big difference is that he might actually using your product at the time running a demonstration. You want to give your sales engineers a much more in-depth briefing about the technical aspects of the product than you give to your sales representatives. These folks have another important role to play in the life of a product manager: They talk to customers — in many cases, unhappy ones. If you can't get out and talk to customers directly because they are too far away or you simply don't have the time to see each unhappy customer, the sales engineer is great source of unsolved customer problems. And unresolved problems are a great source of new product ideas. Sales operations: Sales operations staffers make sure that the back office work is done to make the sale. Part of the nitty-gritty work you do as a product manager is to make sure that sales operations have done a great job of setting up any necessary business systems so that products can easily be sold. These people know what that job entails — in detail. Visit them often in case issues arise. They know how to create workarounds quickly and fix problems in the long term. Marketing In the sequence of getting product into customer's hands, marketing is the next function over from product management and product marketing. Though over time you communicate with the entire company, marketing translates what you do into the overall context of the company messaging for all products and brands. The marketing role includes generating customer demand, helping product marketing and sales respond to competitive moves, taking care of public relations, planning events, and creating material that supports the sales force and channel. You'll spend many productive and thought-provoking hours with marketing. Legal Your involvement with the legal department depends on the type of industry you serve. If you're in the insurance or medical fields, legal is highly involved with your product specifications. For many product managers, legal only gets involved whenever the company is making a contract with an outside party. For most products, your legal department needs to vet any kind of binding or implied promise made to a customer, partner, contractor, or third-party vendor. Product development Product development or, as it is sometimes called, engineering, is the organization that creates your product. Many specialties fall under this one title, including (but certainly not limited to) the following categories: User experience or interface designers Software developers Hardware engineers Quality assurance Your relationship with product development is key to your success as a product manager. The product development people translate the customer problems that you define into real products that address those needs. How well they do depends on your ability to clearly explain what customers have told you into something that product development can act on. The quality of your communication and influencing skills is critical in making sure that you're heard well. One issue that arises is how much direction you provide them. Engineers like to solve problems quickly. In many instances, you want to thoroughly discuss what the customer's problems and needs are while the engineers want to quickly get to a solution. Your job is to keep them in the problem space long enough so that they really flesh out the ins and outs of the customer problem. Once you believe that everyone on the team has fully understood the customer problem, you can use mind maps and other tools to work through possible solutions. Engineers take the lead once the search for a solution is underway. Finance Finance is really focused on keeping the numbers straight and making sure the company is making more than it spends. You work with this department on the following topics: Expenses: How much did your product cost to develop, and how much is the actual cost of the product to product or deliver to customers? Revenue and profits: What is expected revenue, and how much of that can accurately be allocated to profit? Pricing: This area is a combination of the two previous bullets. During a pricing discussion, you need to keep a clear head on the real value of a product to a customer given all the other alternatives. Avoid turning it into a discussion about the amount of money that the company will make per unit. If no one buys the product because the price is too high, the price is wrong no matter how profitable. Operations Operations ensures that your product actually reaches your customer with as few hurdles to overcome as possible. You want the process to be friction-free because each hurdle is another opportunity for the sale to stop. The operations department is in charge of mapping out each step, and you need to convince them to implement as simple a process as possible so that your customers can easily buy your product. You may also need to bring in product development to make sure your customer's journey is mapped out into as few steps as possible. Here are a couple of examples of ways in which having operations working with development improved customer experiences: Amazon wanted to decrease the required number of steps when purchasing a product from its website. The company eventually developed 1-Click ordering by engaging all aspects of its operations team to speed purchases. When Starbucks began offering Wi-Fi in its coffee shops, logging into the service took two clicks. Today, Starbucks has combined both steps so patrons can accept and connect with one click. Working with operations is detailed work. You must be prepared to sort out any of the following: Settings in the data tracking systems such as SAP that drive the company. How a part number is constructed to give internal audiences information. The actual process for requesting a part number. Who do you ask? Is there a particular form or way to make this request? Transportation flows of physical product as it moves from manufacturing through a distributor and eventually to a customer. Each company has its own way of setting up internal systems and processes so that the company runs properly. You need to understand the details of how these systems intersect with your goal of getting products in the hands of customers. In the end, it's rewarding work to get right, and your operations people will love you for spending the time to get all the details done correctly. Service and support Service and support are the unsung heroes of your success. Much like sales engineers, service and support people hear directly from customers — and mostly from unhappy customers (it is rare that customers contact support to tell them how pleased they are.) They provide the after-sales support that keeps your customers satisfied as they use your product. As a product management your interactions with service and support happen for three main reasons: You want to know what problems customers are having with today's products so you can improve the situation in the next revision or maybe even develop something entirely new, if the problem is big enough. If a lot of customers are calling to complain about a particular issue or bug, service and support are great at collecting data on the problem and letting you know (in no uncertain terms, at times) that the bug needs to be fixed. Be clear with them on any constraints that you have in fixing a product issue. Whatever you do, take their comments seriously. As part of the product launch process, plan training sessions with anyone who supports customers so that they are ready to take calls and answer customer questions on day 1 of product availability. When your service and support agents are great, they can keep your customers loyal for many years. Take time to visit them, train them, and respect them. Service and support are part of the whole product offering. The service and support department is often seen as outside the control of the product manager. However, if the department impacts your customer's happiness and willingness to buy the product, you should speak up and ask for support and service department changes if necessary.

Article / Updated 11-07-2017

Agile is a flexible way of developing products that mostly applies to software development. Agile has two very specific roles that you don't see in other development environments: the product owner and the scrum master. The scrum master is typically only used in a specific version of Agile called scrum. The following figure illustrates which responsibilities lie exclusively with the product manager (PM), which are shared according to preference and skill between the product owner (PO) and product manager, and which are specifically allocated to a product owner. Use this figure and the later sections on RACI and DACI to have a discussion within your own organization to clarify roles and responsibilities. Here are definitions of the specific roles: Product owner: The mission of the product owner is to represent the customer to the development team. A key activity is to manage and make visible the product backlog, or the prioritized list of requirements for future development. In fact, the product owner is the only person who can change the order of items in the product backlog. One unusual aspect of product owner responsibilities is that she must be available to the development team at all times to answer any questions team members have regarding the customer's view of how they're implementing a product feature. A product owner shouldn't be a scrum master. In many teams the product manager is also the product owner. This situation leads to a crushing workload and difficult-to-manage expectations because product managers should be spending a fair amount of time understanding customers' needs by being outside of the office. The need to be in the office as a product owner— and yet still have a deep understanding of customers — is a conflict that continues to create great difficulty for product managers and product owners in Agile development organizations. Scrum master: The scrum master role is to keep the development team working at the highest level of productivity. This person facilitates scrum rituals that drive the iterations with the scrum team and the product owner. She ensures that scrum processes and scrum-specified meetings are being followed and checks progress against expectations. Critically, she acts as a coach or facilitator for the team, helping team members solve problems and remove impediments to their progress. The scrum master can be a part time role or shared among multiple scrum teams, but under no circumstances should scrum master be a product owner.

Article / Updated 11-07-2017

Someone once compared product management to refrigerator function. You don't notice when it's running well, but when it's broken, things start to stink. Remember that when you do your job well, the company hums much better — even if it doesn't know you're the source of the humming. There is less confusion and more direction. Getting to function this well comes from really knowing how you fit in and how you drive your vision forward. With this idea in mind, try to draft your own product management manifesto. This document is your guiding philosophy on how you do your job and provide direction. Here are a few guidelines: The Is have it. This manifesto guides your actions. Start each sentence with "I": "I am committed to… ," "I have a plan… ," "I will do… ," and so on. It's a 360-degree view. List all your stakeholders and determine what your stance is for each of them. Balance is key. The one constant in being a product manager is that it involves a lot of trade-offs. Make sure you have a plan for communicating how you will decide between two courses of action. For example, "When in doubt, I will focus on validating my opinion using customer feedback." Know your decision-making plan. In fact, the entire decision-making process underpins your success. How will you make a decision? For example, write "I will be open to many opinions before I make a final decision." The manifesto should be no longer than one page and, because you're giving direction to other people, provide the philosophical support for how you approach your job. See the following figure for a sample of a product manager's manifesto.

Article / Updated 11-07-2017

Product management can report into various parts of the organization. In tech-heavy roles, it sometimes reports into engineering. In more consumer-oriented companies, it sometimes reports into marketing. More and more, companies recognize that a synthesis of what the customer wants and what the business can provide is best placed at the highest level of an organization. So VPs of product management now often report into the CEO or the executive manager for a division. This figure shows an organization chart example. If you're part of an organization that doesn't understand product management well, it may not be able to operate as effectively. This isn't a theoretical difference. A study by Aegis Resources Inc. found that when a company empowers product managers, products get to market 50 percent faster. That's a lot of profit left on the table. You may need to start educating your co-workers as to the best way to take advantage of product management. There are resources available on the 280 Group website that help you in transforming how your company can best take advantage of product managers to grow their business.