By Oksana Walton
In our combined 25+ years of marketing and product management experience we’ve learned a few rules that seem universal. This is not exactly what separates good from great, but holds particularly true in small (<100) and medium (100-500) size companies:
1. Your opinion, while very interesting, is probably irrelevant. Back it up with facts. Marketing and business facts are good. Customer facts are better to help determine the best course of action.
2. Product management isn’t a “natural” fit for everyone. A good product manager has a technical background, business savvy, industry and customer relationships that he/she can leverage.
3. The product managers success and credibility comes from understanding and managing to all internal and external demands while keeping an eye on business goals.
4. Product management needs strong alignment and mutual goals with engineering to succeed at more than mere project management/product marketing in an engineering driven organization.
5. Equally, product management can not be successful, if deployed only to run projects for your sales staff.
6. To succeed at product management, develop a meaningful approval or buy-in process with senior management. Then stick to it.
7. Use product management to improve products, diversify, and differentiate rather than gearing your efforts around a one hit wonder.
8. And … Good products don’t’ automatically make winners – winning teams make good products!