A Field Guide to Product Managers

Jennifer LiouProduct ManagerNCC Group, Domain Services@woobitron

iSEC & HackBright – SecurityPRO Night, Thursday, Feb. 5th, 2015

Tell me about these birds

• What is Product Management, anyway?

• Do I want to be a Product Manager?

• How do I effectively work with Product Managers?

What is Product Management, anyway?

Product Management is about managing products.

Thank you!

And thus concludes my talk.

Goodnight, everyone!

OK, so, what is Product Management, anyway?

OK, so, what is Product Management, anyway?

It’s about building products people will buy.

Combo of Marketing, Sales,

Dev Proj Mgt, QA, UX, and Release

Management, etc.

It’s done differently at each

company.

Communicating market problems to developers in

order to build solutions.

Bringing market context home to dev

A Field Guide

Where in the spectrum does PM fall in your organization?

Source: PragmaticMarketing.com

Product Management Spectrum

Market-Driven Decisions

Do I want to be PM?

Do I want to be PM?

• The answer depends. • Where on the spectrum do you want to be?• What kind of work do you want to do?– More or less technical– Constant customer contact or less– UX (concepts, mockups, wireframes)

How do I work effectively with PM?

Product Management is not the boss of Development.

“The scariest thing I’ve had to deal with when it comes to Product Managers is when they think they’re our boss. It’s about being a team. If you don’t get that feeling, then something’s wrong.”

-Emily, SecDev Developer

How do I work effectively with PM?

Market Insight

from PM

Document

Build Trust Trust

Need for Documentation

How do I work effectively with PM?

• Minimally Viable Product (MVP) vs Technical Debt

• Understanding market context, market problem

• Implementation Details: PM = What, Dev = How.

Tell me about these birds

• What is Product Management, anyway?

• Do I want to be a Product Manager?

• How do I effectively work with Product Managers?

OK, so what’s next?

• Resources:– PragmaticMarketing.com– Mincing Mockingbird: A Field Guide to Troubled Birds– http://gettingreal.37signals.com – http://www.mindtheproduct.com – Quora: The Top 1% of Product Managers.

http://b.qr.ae/18fedQX – The Rong Way to …

• do Agile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsB0UZR7XvE• do Standups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLmDe8pAc6I• do Requirements and Specs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=l1yWusiaLCM

Thank you