The Product Pulse

There were many great takeaways from my recent 2-day session with Pragmatic Marketing. Their expert team, including John Milburn, a friendly upbeat guy with 20 years of product management experience in the tech industry including long stints at Tivoli and VTEL, has more than 10 years of experience working with over 70,000 professionals globally in product management training.

Let's start with the most important thing: The FOOD at the AT&T Conference center on The University of Texas campus (where the class was held) is excellent! This information is neither here nor there but if you get the chance, check out the conference center or hotel as an option next time you're in Austin.

From a more business-oriented standpoint we learned:

• Product management's primary job is to know and speak for the customer.
  • The following quote (with a few modifications) by Peter Drucker was used multiple times: "The aim of product management is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself."
• Product management's main responsibility is finding their market's problem. To do this, product managers should:
  • Contact customers (both their own and their competitors'), evaluators, and prospects.
  • Use various research methods including discovery (onsite interviews, focus groups, secondary research) and validation (surveys, choice models, experiments).
• Too often product management gets overwhelmed with tactical instead of strategic activities.
  • As Milburn noted in class, if product management doesn't do its job then the other departments will fill the void. Other groups have their own goals and ideas so if the product management team is not there to speak for the customer, an inside out product could result (one that solves a space problem but not a strategic one).
• By focusing on my customers' needs and wants, product managers can help their company build solutions that the market will buy, and what is profit if not the ultimate goal of any company?

After spending two full days getting my head stuffed with information (and my belly stuffed with yummy food), I was raring to go out and apply all these new tips and energy to my job. I was eager to see how much of what I learned in class was applicable to real life.

So far, most of the points ring true. I've spoken with multiple customers about their needs and concerns and gathered a lot of useful information. I have also met a good portion of the executives, sales, marketing, and development teams and worked with them on a hodgepodge of projects. It will be interesting to see how well I remember my role as Chief Customer Advocate once I get inundated with a lot of tactical stuff. I will try my best to focus on strategy, Milburn and Drucker!

I am new to product management, but there were people in my session with years of experience, and we each felt that Pragmatic Marketing taught us something useful. Just goes to show that no matter where you are on your career path, there are always opportunities to better understand the marketplace and your role in it. And, that information is almost as satisfying as the AT&T Conference Center's dessert bar!