Small Form Factor
I’ve written before on keeping things simple; it’s important, especially in a start-up. But there is an element beyond that, after things have been stripped away to the most basic — building what needs to be build.
Let’s take an example where standard status reports don’t exist.
Up front, it’s useless to start putting a huge, lumbering process in place that tracks all development projects going on, with schedule variance %’s, time tracking to measure a cost variance, and other things. What IS important, is saying, “here are all of the projects, here’s the priority of each one, and here’s some estimated start and end dates, as well as status info”.
Sounds simple, right? It is — there is nothing hidden in there. It’s as easy as creating this spreadsheet and getting updates for all those involved in each tracked project every 2-3 days. What does this accomplish? In addition to capturing great details, a much broader goal is also accomplished - transparency.
It’s critical that those involved in the operations of a business know what’s going on so things can be aligned. For example, start-ups can change direction or branch out into unexpected strategic avenues at the drop of a hat. For that reason, the priorities of those actually making a change possible must be aligned to ensure nothing is going overboard. Sorry, but I love this and think it’s really cool. Like writing a solid piece of code, it’s the excitement of starting to see things come together.
Yes, there is room for cool stuff to be done. Don’t get me wrong - I love cool stuff.
What does this have to do with Product Management? You may be thinking this is a Program Manager’s job. Well, I guess. But, Product Manager’s can just as easily serve in this capacity. I happen to like taking part because of the insight it provides, and you get to work with folks and hear any roadblocks that may be preventing them from finishing something. It’s not always important to be the champion of something, but at the very least understanding how it all works allows you to be more involved in the business and operations.
And at the end of the day, don’t most of us want that? Maybe it’s only for geeks (on both the tech and business side) like me; I’ve only encountered this scenario twice in my career now and that’s been the case both times.
But, I could be crazy…
April 20th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Amen, brother!
I’ve been at my company for a year, but after being here six weeks, I put together the project dashboard that we now publish for operations review. It’s not flashy, but it gives everyone one common view of the projects in flight.
I get tired of the “that’s not my job” excuse, too. Last time I checked, the product manager was absolutely accountable for ensuring that they knew what was going on with their projects, even if a program or project manager was executing. Sitting back and saying ‘I don’t know because it wasn’t my job to keep track of it’ is not acceptable, in my book.
May 1st, 2006 at 9:33 pm
This is so key — everyone pitching in and helping where they are needed even though it may not be “in their job description”. You don’t see successful entrepreneurs dropping that line when the floor needs sweeping, or the trash has to be taken out…