I had the privilege of speaking at Woods Creek Consulting’s Sales Executive Peer Group earlier this month, and the topic was “Price Increases”.   I’m always excited to work with this group – where else can I talk with a dozen VPs of Sales for an hour and learn about their concerns?  And pricing is certainly a ...

This post is for the Product Managers who work with software development teams.  Not just those working on commercial offerings, but also those who work with IT teams to build internally-used applications and systems.  “What’s software debt?”  you ask.  You know that long list of bugs in the tracker?  That – and more.  All diagnosed, analyzed, and explained ...

Can you imagine showing up for your big moment on Dancing With The Stars  and then not performing the same dance step your partner is performing?  You wouldn’t get very far in the competition. Organizations do this every day when they don’t bother to use consistent Product Management processes across the company.  So what? It might work ...

Wouldn’t you love it if your boss asked you this question? In June, our Input survey asked you to tell us the components of the perfect compensation plan for a product manager. And you did - we maxed out the limit on our survey responses almost immediately! Here are the results.

I was having lunch with one of the other UW Software Product Management program instructors earlier this week, and the topic turned to roadmaps.  I was curious to know how his firm approached creating roadmaps.  Start/Finish, High/Low Are Covered Like one of the firms we recently worked with, roadmapping is not a regular activity.  Both firms were ...

You know the drill… a key customer wants you and their Account Manager to show up and present your latest roadmap, so they can see when they’ll be receiving their long-awaited products or enhancement requests.  Of course, you did that nine months ago, promising said enhancement requests would be delivered… um… last month.  Ahem.  “Yes, well, ...

Great product managers know when they should speak up and when they shouldn’t – a key leadership skill that comes with long experience.  But if you don’t have the long experience, how do you develop this skill? Verbal Leadership - The Right Time to Speak Up One of the ways that product managers make their leadership evident ...

In the circle of influence, what is your proximity to key executives or managers?  Do you have daily contact and/or rapport?  Or is your proximity infrequent, rare or non-existent?  If you struggle from a credibility gap, consider paying attention to the language that executives use.  Think of the executives who have influence over your product.  ...

Now that you know the importance of a product information binder for your sales team and how to get started gathering the material, your next challenges are to distribute the information and get Sales to use it first, instead of calling you. Distributing the Information Most important – how does your sales team relate best to ...

Our April Input survey asked about your plans for your next role.  Your responses covered the spectrum, reflecting a “work hard, play hard” attitude.  Responses were distributed about equally between moving up and branching out, with a few focused on getting some serious down time.  But every respondent had a goal in mind – product managers are definitely ...