Product management organisation.
Value creation
Product management is not about technology.
It is a commercial discipline to develop and deploy the things that create shareholder value - this may or may not involve tech.
We provide leadership, tools, processes and policies, as well as design organisational structure, to raise the commercial performance of in-house product management teams.
The myths of Agile product management
Product management is a function to identify opportunities and then marshal a company’s resources in the pursuit of creating shareholder value. When best in class, product management is agnostic of the tools it uses (third-party services, proprietary product development or manual processes) but laser-focused on the net value it creates in the immediate and longer term.
Agile development, so often associated with product management and the development of proprietary technology, is in fact an approach to project management - totally agnostic of what is being managed, and completely focused on quality of output.
It is impossible to build a high performing product group that is an empire – the function relies on the active engagement of many other functions, including marketing, sales, development, finance and customer services. So the best structure for a product group is as an internal service agent that implicitly supports others.
Our approach
As with our strategy development, we seek to up-skill employees and generate assets that continue to deliver value for a long time after our involvement has ended.
We bring leadership, drawn from deep industry experience, and provide tools, processes and policies that work for the current and intended state of the company.
We also gather and articulate best practices within the company’s industry and from leaders in other industries.
We usually assess the technical capability and organisational design to understand what is possible with the current resources. Where necessary, we will advise on changes to structure, reporting and KPIs to ensure the company can maximise the value that we deliver.
Objectives
We focus on embedding an innovative yet structured cross-discipline mind-set to drive shareholder value:
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Product decision making to support the corporate strategy (not ‘business as usual’ tech).
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Use of commercial objectives to drive product strategy.
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Quantitative analysis – of market opportunities, user behaviour, product-market-fit and product ROI.
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Data-driven decision-making.
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Multi-discipline communications and proactive management of internal and external stakeholders.
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Integration and proactive support for key operational functions including Customer Services, Marketing and Sales.
Scope of activities
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Product Opportunity Assessment (POA) - Arguably the most important element of product management, it is the quantitative assessment of market opportunities and the development of realistic business cases, with deep investigation into users, USPs and competitors.
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Product strategy - Operating business models and sales strategies for commercially viable products, development and deployment processes and reporting, market segmentation, alignment and differentiation, KPIs.
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Go To Market (GTM) strategy - Strategy and tactics for launching products, capturing market share and sustaining operations.
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Roadmap & catalogue - feature prioritisation and management of the product roadmaps.
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Portfolio rationalisation - decision making across a portfolio of products and services.
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Product management capability - Development of skillsets and introduction and refinement of processes and policies to enable consistent and efficient delivery and product development.
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Product and service retirement - when and how to withdraw a product or service.
If developing proprietary technology:
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Software development capability - Agile development focused on delivering commercial value.
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Hardware development capability - requires a to-speed development organisation if also developing software.
A note on Product Opportunity Assessment
From seed through Series A, companies typically have just a few products and the majority of the founding staff who still maintain a strong focus on customer needs and product requirements.
As a company goes beyond Series B it is quite common for the organisation to loose focus of markets, customers and new opportunities. Hence the need for structured and routine Product Opportunity Assessments - the identification of genuine and achievable market opportunities and the articulation of those opportunities in a way that justifies investment.
Scope of activities
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Market analysis – From TAM to SOM, with timeframes of product deployment and market share acquisition.
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User analysis – Personas, roles and market segments. Drivers of purchase decisions and drivers of user behaviours. Value opportunity and drivers of loyalty.
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Business cases – Why the organisation should pursue the opportunity at the expense of other activities, and how it intends to capture value (timing of deployment of capital, service model, customer service, product P&L).
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Product Market Fit – What it looks like and how to measure the direction of travel.
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Competitors – The product’s USPs and sustainable competitive advantage. Competitor alternatives and likely competitor response.