The First Product Manager

I recently read a post from On Product Management by Shardul Mehta (Street Smart Product Manager). The blog post was entitled Introducing Product Management into an Organization. As one of the first product managers in my organization and it being my first foray into product management, the post really hit home. Below are a few of the key points highlighted in the post along with my observations and suggestions as to how to correct them (as a first time product manager). But first some background...

...My company started a new venture in cloud computing about 2 years ago. After about 6 months of heavily engineering driven development, our senior management decided that things were moving too slowly - the answer was product management. A colleague and I were appointed as our organiations first product managers; reporting to the VP of Marketing (it was the VP of Marketing's initiative and forward thinking that introduced product management into this engineering driven company). My colleague and I had similar backgrounds, we were both engineering graduates with MBAs and we both just made the transition to marketing/strategy team. Our technical experience and marketing backgrounds made us the likely choices to be our organization's first product managers...

...Now onto the points in Shardul Mehta's post (again, his post is worth a read)...

1. "Unfounded unreasonably high expectations",  2. "Not all expectations are created equal" and 3. "What does Product Management do?"

My thoughts: This is spot on in my experience. Product management can easily be viewed as the organizations savior or as the role that no one knows what do with.  Slow delivery times, product bugs, inadequate marketing literature and poor sales support are expected to be fixed by the product manager. In addition, each discipline within the organization views their issue as the top priority.  Balancing these expectations can be daunting for any product manager let alone one dealing with an organization that is still trying to figure out what to do with product management.

Some Advice: Ensure that you are the one that sets the expectations. As the first product manager in an organization, you have the unique chance to define the role within your organization. Discuss and mold the expectations jointly with each of the different teams: engineering, marketing, sales and senior management. If this is done effectively, product management will become a driving force in the organization as opposed to a let down.

4. "Why do we even need Product Management?"

My thoughts: Again, a great point. My company had been successful in other ventures without product managers and a common question when introcuing product management into our organization was "Why?". Different reasons can lead to "why" as Shardul Mehta outlined in his post, but the bottom line is - there was a need or at least a perceived need for product management.

Some Advice: Ensure you have an executive sponsor for your role and encourage that sponsor to evangelize product management. Clearly define the "why" and the benefit to each of the different disciplines within the organization. Work with these discplines collaboratively and don't come in guns blazing, ready to radically change everything they know about product development, sales and marketing - otherwise you may fall into two other pitfalls on Shardul Mehta's list 5. "The scapegoat syndrome" and 6. "The bottleneck syndrome". 

In summary, there are a lot of gothca's and frustrations that can occur when introducing product management into an organization. My organization and I have absolutely experienced some of the above effects. A note to the product managers in any of the situations described above: there is a surefire way to enable success and acceptance into the organization - know your customer/user. A lot of the growing pains can be overlooked and forgiven if you are building products that excite your customers.

Do any of the points above or in Shardul Mehta's post hit home for you?