Product Management Best Practices

Rosalee Gordon

VP Product, Payload Technologies

Founder and VP, Product Calgary Association

Executive Director, Calgary Associate Product Manager (APM) Program

Deal screener, Valhalla Capital

Project Advisory Committee, TECTERRA

Introductions and Objectives

• Who are you?

• What is your elevator pitch?

• What do want to leave with today?

Questions to consider

What drives your product today?

How can I build a successful product?

How do I translate my product ideas into something developers can build?

How do I prioritize all the new ideas I have for the product?

Where can I get more advice and support?

What drives your product today?

Founder vision

Single large customer

Sales opportunities & promises

Technical visionary

Support, operations, customer success

Bug list, technical debt, dev tools

Impressing investors

Market problems

How can I build a successful product?

80% of all new products and startups fail

This is a huge waste

“Fail fast” to minimize waste and maximize learning

Learn fast and succeed

24

Lean Startup

Lean Canvas Business Model

“Get Out

Of T he

Building ”

Steve Blank

15

Customer Development

Build, Measure, Learn Iterations

Agile software development

Pirate Metrics

Product Market Fit

How do I translate my product ideas into something

developers can build?

Start with your Business Model Canvas

Value proposition: high level product requirements

User Stories

Epics

Con

Product Requirements template in Confluence

Goals of the feature

Background & strategic fit

Requirements (user stories)

User interaction & design

Questions & outcomes

Not doing

Assumptions

Epic

Wireframes and prototypes

https://proto.iohttps://origami.designhttps://www.invisionapp.comhttps://marvelappcom

TOOLSPaper sketches – use index cards for mobile apps!Powerpoint – use hyperlinks & action buttons to link slides for clickable buttonsSofware

Build and launch incrementally

Agile Scrum Team

Product Roadmap

How do I prioritize all our great ideas for the product?

Great ideas come from many places

In addition, go out and proactively identify market problems worth solving

Customers Evaluators Potential customers

Noisy 20% Silent 80%

Discuss problems or jobs to be done, not features

Win/loss interviews Find them. Validate they have same problem.

Observe: What they do is more important than what they say

Main factors in buy / no buy decision

Discuss problems or jobs to be done, not features

Look for early adopter mindset Alternatives considered for solving the problem

Observe: What they do is more important than what they say

Look for early adopter mindset

Prioritize problems to solve

• Urgent

• Pervasive

• Market is willing to pay

Prioritization matrix example

Who? What? Why? Market Size

Value Size X Value

Dev Size ROI Strategic Fit

Final Priority

Position the product/feature before you build it

ProblemPrimary message

SolutionProduct

description

UniquenessSolution-oriented features

Innovate to solve market problems

Build - using your distinctive competencies

Buy or Partner – for the rest

Where can I get more advice and support?

Additional resources on product management

• Local community• Product Calgary meetups

• Product Calgary APM

• Training• Pragmatic Marketing

• Certified Scrum Product Owner (software)

• Blogs• Mind the Product (software)

Recommended reading

BUSINESSMARKET PROGRAMSPLANNING SUPPORTREADINESS

ST

RA

TE

GY

EX

EC

UT

ION

FOCUS

Pragmatic Marketing Framework

Pricing

Buy, Build

or Partner

Business

Plan

Product

Profitability

Win/Loss

Analysis

Distinctive

Competencies

Market

Problems

Marketing

Plan

Customer

Acquisition

Customer

Retention

Program

Effectiveness

Buying

Process

Buyer

Personas

User

Personas

Positioning

Product

Portfolio

Market

Definition

Distribution

Strategy

InnovationCompetitive

Landscape

Asset

Assessment

Lead

Generation

Thought

Leadership

Referrals &

References

Launch

Plan

Use

Scenarios

Requirements

Stakeholder

Communications

Product

Roadmap

Presentations

& Demos

Event

Support

“Special”

Calls

Channel

Support

Channel

Training

Sales

Process

Collateral

Sales

Tools

©1993-2016 Pragmatic Marketing Framework™0915

What does a Product Manager do?

For more info: Rosalee Gordonrosaleegordon@launchbrite.ca