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 ...

In these Agile and Lean times, collaboration within teams and across departments is key.  But in our experience, every department speaks its own internal language, which can stand in the way of getting all the brilliant people in your organization to communicate – particularly the techies and non-techies, right? So grab your engineers and sign up ...

Tom Grant’s recent post “Product Managers Must Have The Opportunity to Be Leaders” got me thinking again about this concept of authority and Product Management. Tom wraps up his post with this thought: “Best practices for PM’s role in innovation, or any other job function, are great, as long as PMs have the authority, capability, and ...

If you could go to the pantry and gather ingredients for the perfect Product Manager, what would they be? Readers of last month’s newsletter gave us their secret recipe: Preheat oven to 98.6 degrees. Marinate the Determination in the Realism while you prepare the other ingredients. 1 C. Flexibility 1 lb. Determination 2 clusters Analytics 1 package Realism 1 pint Self Confidence, ...

We’ve heard lots of discussion on how to fit Product Owners into organizations.  The answer is often  “It depends” … but we don’t see much discussion of the primary driver of that decision.  It’s not your culture, not the org chart, or the existing skill sets. Or necessarily what your Agile consultant/coach recommends.  It depends ...

Welcome to 2010!  For most of us, January brings a flurry of activity preparing for the annual Sales Kickoff.  Your Sales team is an important “window” into what’s going on in your market place.  Here are three of our favorite ways to make sure the window stays open and the right information flows both ways. 

At first glance, last month’s survey responses make it seem like the relationship between PM and Sales is a one-way street. Product Managers train sales reps, answer their questions, provide input into RFPs, and even go on sales calls. So far, that describes almost every respondent’s relationship with Sales. But when it comes time to reciprocate, Sales ...

A regularly scheduled product retrospective is an important part of the product manager’s job. As we close out the calendar year, it’s a good time to complete this work. What’s the best way to to it?  Some take a “rear-view-only” pragmatic approach: report on release delivery, revenue and units sold. Here are our best tips for a more ...

The November Pivot Point Newsletter survey asked you how you get focused on the product strategy and the overall company strategy. Most of the Product Managers who responded to the survey say they start by looking at information from the market. This approach was chosen by 71% of respondents. Says one PM: “One of my favorite ways ...