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I believe Communities of Practice could help the product management community at large.

Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

Three characteristics are crucial:

•The domain: A community of practice is not merely a club of friends or a network of connections between people. It has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.

•The community: In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. A website in itself is not a community of practice. Having the same job or the same title does not make for a community of practice unless members interact and learn together.

•The practice: A community of practice is not merely a community of interest–people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.

Why participate in a Community of Practice

“I was able to engage two mentors to assist in obtaining guidance and counsel. As a result I improved my relationship with the client and was able to leverage subject expertise from individuals to assess and provide recommendations on an IT / business architecture in only three weeks, saving weeks of time. And we signed a $4m contract that would have gone to a major competitor.” IBM

• Improved Client Relationships
• Time Savings
• Increased Revenue
• New Business

“I used the community’s Q&A forum to ask a question related to a project I was working on. I received 10 or so responses. Some of my questions were answered outright whereas I received leads on where to find answers to other ones. It saved me time in that I didn’t need to spend time searching the web or researching. I was able to get quick and precise leads on things I was interested in. Difficult to quantify saving but probably in the order of three to four days work.” Siemens

• Access to Knowledge
• Time Savings
• Ability to Execute

“Documents and templates from other community members saved at least 60% of my time for the project implementation process and around 40% during the planning phase. It also helped with customer satisfaction, creating confidence that the project was conducted under effective methodology, process, and procedures. Potential cost savings may be in excess of 30%.” Johnson & Johnson

• Customer Satisfaction
• Time Savings
• Cost Savings

“The materials I received saved me and my teams between three and six months of research and distillation activities. That time allowed us to kick off the pilot program on time and more effectively than we likely would have done alone. I am convinced we benefited greatly from the improved skills. Certainly my performance review for last year would not have been as successful as it was if not for the level of expertise I gained from others.” Bristol-Myers Squibb

• Customer Satisfaction
• Project Success
• Employee Performance
• Increased Skills & Know How

How do I start?

There is a set of syndicated Product Management Communities of Practice, illustrating the cross-functional multi-disciplined nature of Product Management. You can start receiving the benefits discussed above by joining a LinkedIn group representing the Community of Practice of your choice. The images below are hyper-linked to Linkedin.

ByronWorkman Product Management

A lot of day to day activities within product management are about gathering and analyzing information. Information such as: your products potential market, your company’s strategic direction, competitive intelligence, your company’s capabilities and core competencies, resource availability, market trends, problem statements, business opportunities, requirement and feature status, etc. Most of us have a hard enough time gathering and managing this information that we don’t even have a chance to ask, “What do I do with it all?” If you haven’t gotten to this point… you will. If you have I am sure that you came to many answers, one of them may have been “to use the information to make decisions or selections.” So my next thought is if most of the activities that we are engaged in can all be used in one form or another to influence decisions and selections, a natural next thought is to study the selection process.

I recently talked with a Product Marketing Manager whose role was among many things, to select which out of the hundreds of proposed projects (products, or roadmaps in this case) his company should sponsor. We spent the majority of time focusing on selection criteria discovery and definition, but eventually I would have lead him a little by asking who else on his team makes the final decision. I am sure that he would have said that his team works together on the selection, but ultimately it was decided by him.

When products and projects fail there are always many reasons. Often it easy to point out that a major reason for failure was that change adoption was not addressed. Change adoption within the company developing the product and change adoption within the market that product was influencing.

Would anyone argue that when your team decides to go with your opinion you usually support it? Better yet, make sure it is successful, live it, defend it, go the extra mile with it? And when the team decides to go with something that you think is wrong how easy is it for you to give that same effort and focus? Depending on how much my Product Marketing Manager wants his team and company to be on board will really determine if he wants to come to a consensus or come to a vote.

A consensus is where the team looks at all of the rationale behind each position, and comes to an agreement on what the right approach is, because each person sees how one position is being selected, and agrees that that method of selection was the best method. A vote is where the arguments are given, and then the group with the most people in agreement wins. There is one thing that a vote will always create that a consensus will not… a minority. What are your thoughts? What are some more reasons and situations for consensus vs. vote?

ByronWorkman Product Management, Product Portfolio Management

Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It by Davila, Epstein, Shelton is a great book. Last year I was working with a client that was trying to incorporate the best practices in this book in his organization.  It was an interesting experience, and I learned a lot from it. This is an excellent resource on how to make innovation become part of your organization and culture.

In the beginning of the book it describes the 7 rules of innovation:

1. Exert Strong Leadership on Innovation Direction and Decisions
2. Integrate Innovation into the Business Mentality
3. Match Innovation to Company Strategy
4. Manage the Natural Tension Between Creativity and Value Capture
5. Neutralize Organizational Antibodies
6. Cultivate an Innovation Network Beyond the Organization
7. Create the Right Metrics and Rewards for Innovation

It went through and discussed how to go about implementing and ensuring these rules exist and are followed in your organization. One of the valuable things I got from this book was the discussion on Innovation Strategy and the Innovation Matrix.  It identified 2 major Innovation strategies: Play to Win (PTW) or Play Not to Lose (PNTL). The difference between the two was the different types of innovation that would be targeted from Incremental to Radical. Breaking each new innovation into one of the 4 types that are mentioned in the book makes implementing the strategy much easier. The 4 types are: Incremental, Semi-Radical Business Model Driven, Semi-Radical Technology Driven, and Radical.

Each of the Innovation strategies needs to have a certain mix of each innovation type (portfolio mix). I created a series of dashboards that enabled us to see that mix for each product roadmap and verify that the desired strategy was being implemented. We used a modified Boston Matrix showing Market Share vs. Growth and Revenue for the products in the product portfolio. Based on position in matrix we were able to determine our desired innovation strategy (PTW or PNTL) and based on that we knew our desired innovation type portfolio mix. We implemented the Innovation Matrix that is defined in this book on potential features. Using 6 levers described in the book we were able to identify the innovation type of each potential solution. We also implemented a series of performance scorecards containing a lot of KPIs and metrics identified in this book.

I found the book to be an excellent source for anyone, especially in a management position, who’s trying to become more innovative and create a culture that promotes, measures, and controls innovation, instead of relying upon spontaneous Eurekas. From creating the culture and organization, innovation strategy,  the external innovation network, learning organization, and instilling the proper metrics and rewards, this is a must have reference book. I highly recommend it.

DerickWorkman PM Book Reviews, Product Management

Product Portfolio Management (PPM) has often been positioned as an upfront process that is used to select which new product projects should be started. Once that decision is made then it moves into product or project management. I believe Portfolio Management is a horizontal process across the entire innovation value chain. It is not just about selecting the right new product or project upfront.  Portfolio management practices could and should be used throughout the lifecycle of a product. There are many decision points that need to be made throughout the lifecycle, such as analyzing market opportunities and deciding which ones to focus on, and in determining which features to put on the roadmap. Principles from portfolio management such as portfolio balancing and managing the portfolio mix can be used to decrease the total investment risk throughout the product development cycle. Maintaining a certain balance of innovation types in roadmaps and product releases so that you have the desired total risk based on the radical, semi-radical, and incremental innovations that are put into a product release. 

 In the Robert Cooper’s book on product portfolio management, he states the three main goals of portfolio management very well. First is to maximize the value of the entire portfolio of x (products, features, market opportunities, family activities, whatever you’re managing).   The second is to balance conflicting factors in your portfolio such as risk vs. reward, attractiveness vs. ease of implementation, etc. The third is to align the portfolio to strategy (product, corporate, or personal). If you simplify portfolio management it consists of 5 steps:

1.       List Alternatives

2.       Identify Selection Criteria

3.       Identify Ranking Metrics for Alternatives

4.       Weight Selection Criteria

5.       Determine Execution Capability

The first thing to do is make a list and identify all of your options. Once that is done, a set of selection criteria needs to be defined so that the selection is defendable and repeatable. Ranking metrics for each criterion need to be identified so that the options or alternatives can be ranked. The selection criteria need to be weighted based on their relative importance to your organization. Often times these weightings will change and be impacted by the current business driver of your organization. (Ex: increase sustainability, reduce cost, increase revenue, etc.) When this step is completed you have a ranked set of alternatives (opportunities, features, products, etc.) based on weighted selection criteria. The last step is to determine the capability of executing on the alternatives. This looks at resource demand and availability information to help select and sequence preferred selection in context of feasibility. Each one of these steps has best practices and approaches to performing them. In the future Portfolio Management Blog Series I will address each step individually.  

DerickWorkman Product Management, Product Portfolio Management

I find that often one of the issues that bubbles to the surface when dealing with developing new products is an organizational silo view of the customer. Support has a perspective of the customer based on their dealings with them, and so does development and marketing. Typically product managers engage in customer visits to try and gain a more complete picture of the customer. These visits are important for the product manager to see the customer in their own environment and feel the pressures that they have to deal with. Face to face discussion is typically more effective than phone calls, because you can see the emotions and reactions of the customer to your questions and the topics being discussed. Thanks to many best practice teaching organizations, many product managers are doing this today, but where we fall short is dissimenating that information to the the rest of the organization.

This creates the organizational silos, that prevent everyone to have a unified perspective of their customer. Even if they dissimenate the information gathered, can product management really gain a holistic view of their customer on their own? A product manager will be asking questions that they believe are important, and the feedback they are given from the customer will be focused on things they believe a product manager would care about. They probably wouldn’t bring up issues that are extremely detailed that only a developer or design engineer would be able to answer, because they aren’t in the meeting. This means that our customer visits are missing the customer perspective regarding issues that would be important to marketing, support, development, operations, and other organizations involved in the innovation value chain. These organizational silos cause everyone in the organization to see only a specific view of the elephant (customer) from a different perspective, and they all miss the entire elephant.

There’s a great book that I recommend to people, when trying to develop an effective customer visits program called “Customer Visits“. One of the key points in this book is that these visits should be made up of a cross-functional team inorder to address and discuss cross-functional issues that are important to the customer. By involving other organizations, these customer visits begin to foster a holistic perception of what who your customer is, what there needs are, and what type of solution would be most useful to them. When the product is being designed or developed, the engineer has an idea of the customer and can accurately imagine the use cases and scenarios that have been described. This complete view of the customer will enable each organization involved in the development of the product to more effectively execute on the plan and help the product manager to realize their product strategy.

The golden question today is, how do we do this in a downturn economy where everyone is cutting costs? Possible suggestions are to involve the entire cross-functional team in developing the discussion guide/topics and then have one person perform the visit. To avoid the silo, you can have a different organization responsible for each visit, so all of them are engaged.

I’d like to know some other ways people have come up with to gather this market research without spending all of their resources to do so.

DerickWorkman Product Management

What is the purpose of Product Management? Why does an organization need a product manager? I believe Product Management is all about executing strategy. Each product should have a strategy that is aligned to corporate strategy. Depending on what level you are at in the organization, you may be responsible for defining product strategy for individual products or for a product portfolio. For a lot of Product Managers the product strategy is already defined and they are responsible for executing on that strategy. So when people ask what is product management or what are PMs responsible for, I have to come back to executing the product strategy.

Everything we do as Product Managers should by tied to product strategy. We do win/loss analysis to verify our competitive strategy is working. We do competitive analysis to identify market gaps and differentiate in order to achieve a higher level product strategy, such as become market leaders in a specific segment. We develop roadmaps to communicate the strategic milestones we need to deliver in order to achieve our product strategy. We define/identify market problems in order to create business opportunities aligned to strategy…

So when asked how do we make Product Management success measurable and more strategic, I believe the answer is to develop metrics that keep the focus on executing product strategy and maintaining alignment to corporate strategy. If we are performing a product management task, we should ask how does this contribute, affect, or impact the product strategy. If we can’t answer this question we shouldn’t be performing that task. It may be a multitier relationship, but it must tie back to the strategy.  Otherwise product managers will get lost in the millions of tasks that don’t help them achieve their goals.

DerickWorkman Product Management

I recently saw a post called No Winloss Blame on the On Product Management blog where they posted results of a poll discussing why product managers don’t perform win/loss analysis. Lot’s of the reasons had to do with sales interference and not having any time. The one that jumped out at me was that many product managers don’t know how to perform win/loss analysis.

I thought I’d share my experience on the topic and some good resources I’ve found in defining and performing a good win/loss analysis. In an earlier post I did a book review on Business and Competitive Analysis. There is a section that gives a great starting point for win/loss analysis processes. I found some good sample questionaires from Pragmatic Marketing and also an article from Ellen Naylor. My friend and colleague Stewart recently had a post called Your Strategic Friend, Mrs. Winloss Analysis that gives some great insight on pointers on win/loss analysis.

The key I’ve found in working with product management teams, is trying to use it as a form of market research as opposed to a sales improvement tool. We don’t have enough time to go over every win/loss opportunity that sales has.

We need to define a target segment of opportunities to talk with based on our information needs in product management. Ex: Perhaps we have a new offering in a specific industry and want to know if our go-to-market strategy is working.

Define specific goals and information that we’re trying to validate or find out.

Get some background on accounts selected before talking with them. This could help you identify areas that you may want to dig deeper if possible.

I believe one of the biggest problems we have is that we don’t explain the value of win/loss analysis to others in or organization, inorder to get the support we need. I will try to sum up what I think are the three value propositions of win/loss analysis:

1) Be able to define more competitive products by understanding the product selection criteria of the buyer.
2) Create and validate competitive “Go to Market” strategies
3) Identify market gaps and increase product differentiation

Strategy Execution: Win/loss analysis is one of the tools that product managers can use to validate how well their product strategy is being executed, and if it is an effective strategy. Is the competitive strategy working with regards to positioning, product & service offerings, marketing, and sales and distribution?

DerickWorkman Product Management

I went to lunch with a friend of mine last week at the great BBQ joint Rudy’s. (Good food by the pound) We were discussing a current issue he’s having trying to manage a portfolio of many products by himself. All of the products are in different stages in the product lifecycle. We discussed the strategic direction he wanted to be able to take the portfolio. We then discussed how he wanted to manage and communicate these strategies. 

In brainstorming we defined a roadmap view that would be helpful showing this information in a graphical format. This roadmap would identify the types of products into different categories: Maintenance & Utilities, Enhancements & Improvements, and Breakthrough or Transformational products. We then discussed using similar techniques at the release planning level.

Based on the roadmap we’d know what type of product we were trying to launch. We would categorize features or requirements into each type: maintenance & utility, enhancements & improvements, and transformational. By setting target percentages for each of these categories, we can ensure that the product release is in line with the strategy.

This allowed us to tie the roadmap strategy down to the requirements and features being worked on in a release. I’d be interested to know how others have gone about ensuring strategy execution in release planning.

It was a great conversation with lots of possibilities and an excellent meal.

DerickWorkman Product Management, Product Portfolio Management

I was recently discussing competitive analysis and business methods with a client and I recommended the book, Business and Competitive Analysis by Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan. This book helps to understand and identify better methods for competitive and business analysis. I personally found the book extremely useful in not just understanding these different methods, but also in helping me determine which methods would be applicable and useful to my organization.

It gives a brief description of the method, background and expected benefits, and then it discusses the pros and cons of the method. There are over 29 different methods in this book. I found it very useful for defining a win/loss method. It goes through a step by step approach on how to perform win/loss analysis and even gives a case study about its application.

 It was a good starting point, but it was not meant to contain everything there is to know about each method. For instance, in the Win/Loss analysis method, it tells you to develop a questionnaire and even gives some suggestions on categories, but doesn’t give you examples of questions. It turns out there is a science to the number of questions and the types of questions. These are based on the objectives of the win/loss analysis. Because of the breadth of the number of methods covered in this book, it could not go into very detailed levels of explanation of the different methods. I’m sure whole books could be written about each method discussed.

 It acts as an excellent reference guide for someone interested in doing competitive and business analysis. And will point you in the right direction for getting started. I would recommend this book to product marketing and management professionals and anyone else involved in these types of analysis.

DerickWorkman PM Book Reviews, Product Management