Where Product Mgmt Sits
Product management has to report to the CEO. This is really not something that is up for debate.
There is a lot of data suggesting this is not presently the case for many organizations, especially in tech - and that has to change.
In order to be successful, product managers require a lot of input and clout over most of the cross-functional teams within an organization. Without the support of the CEO, it may be nearly impossible for the PM to strike a balance between marketing, sales, dev, etc… If the PM reports to marketing, that leader (vp / director marketing) will have a tendency to ensure all marketing priorities are put first. If the PM reports to development, same drill - what the dev manager (CTO / vp, eng or whatever) feels is important is what will be worked on.
Don’t even get me started on the prospect of product reporting in to sales.
Product management has to be able to move laterally (and actually make decisions) in order to ensure the best interest of the users / customers / market are at heart. If this can’t be done, the product will veer in one direction or another; and that direction may not have what’s best for the market as a clear intention.
I have had conversations with several colleagues in the space (Jeff Lash, Saeed Kahn, Scott Sehlhorst, etc…) regarding product management not being a “standard” role within an organization. In fact, I’d love to pose the question to VCs (say, Fred Wilson, Rick Segal, and Brad Feld). When you invest in an organization, how important is having a product manager on the management team?
Do you explicitly look for a director / vp of product management just as you would a vp, sales or vp, engineering? Maybe even a vp, marketing? Is hiring one a key action item for any CEO you are trusting with your investment? If not, how come?
A long while back I spoke with a recruiting manager for a very large social networking organization in the Bay area. He informed me that they were “incubating” product management in development, and the CEO “may decide” at a later time product should have a seat at “the executive table.”
Wow. That’s a whole lot of words telling me potentially a couple of things: 1) development is driving all product, which tends to be a common setup. And it’s not usually the best thing in the world. But then again, I’m heavily biased. 2) the CEO thinks they are doing a fine job and don’t want anyone challenging their decisions, execution, etc….
In my opinion, you need product management in the organization, and a PM lead that reports to the CEO and has management-level “authority” (whatever that means to you). Otherwise, the product has a strong chance of becoming heavily weighted or biased towards the group that’s charged with running it - unless there is constant intervention by the CEO.
Personally, I think a start to this is to get product management to be an actual subject / role / element taught to business students in MBA programs. Finance is. Marketing is. Sales, strategy, “organizational behavior,” etc…. Why not product mgmt?
Maybe I’m just too heavily rooted in software - it could be the role isn’t all I’m cracking it up to be in other industries.
Don’t Get Discouraged
When you are in the thick of things, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. That picture may be 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months (plus!) away, but people (myself included) can get wrapped up in not being perfect, seemingly not doing enough, or thinking you are doing things wrong.
You can’t get worried. Well, you can - if you don’t have certain key things in place.
It’s easy to get all down and razzled if you see constant new “competition” popping up all over the place every week, or other products getting press yours isn’t. Quite frankly, it’s just not worth it. Take it as inspiration, learn what you can from it, and press on.
Remember - it comes down to a couple of things. Are you solving a problem people have, and does your product add some good value while solving it? If everything from the top-down (I’m not talking organizationally, really) is aligned, that means you have placed your bets and can just worry about execution.
It’s all about placing a bet and executing. “Wow” features and “silver bullets” are not what you rely on to build successful products. It’s all in the fundamentals. Those things may come along, or maybe you are developing one without even realizing it - but you can’t hold things up waiting for those ideas to come along.
You need to just do a few things really well. In fact, things I’ve already mentioned:
- Ensure you are solving a problem
- Align things form top to bottom
- Execute — quickly and with confidence
This “top-down” stuff I speak of is from the vision / problem identification, to the roadmap, to the requirements, to each release being pushed out the door. There are a few strategies that go into shipping a product which I may detail in other posts (for example, is this product brand new? does it already exist? at what stage of the lifecycle is it?), but for now take solace in having a clear vision to which all decisions are baselined.
If you are focused on something (almost obsessively so) you are doing everything right. Of course the organization could fail - but all you can do is pick a problem and go after it as hard as you can. You can’t solve all of the World’s problems by building 15-20 products at once.
Remember — it’s all about being good enough. Well, in most cases. Tony Stark may have a problem doing that, but start-ups building Web applications should not.
