Product Management Best Practices

Where Sales Meets Product Management: Price

February 25th, 2011 by lindamerrick
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 ...

Lies, Damn Lies and Roadmaps

July 20th, 2010 by lindamerrick
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, ...

Gaining Credibility with Executives

June 22nd, 2010 by marakrieps
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.  ...

Motivating the Cross-Functional Team

June 15th, 2010 by marakrieps
Probably the best and the worst things about cross-functional teams are that they’re … cross functional. They’re great because you get all those functional experts working together to make your product more successful.  But the bad news is that each person on your team already has a full-time job, and making time to work on your ...

All Hail, the Product Info Binder

May 27th, 2010 by marakrieps
Is your popularity killing you? As a product manager, a great deal of your value resides in your customer, market and product knowledge, and so people should be seeking you out.  But if you find yourself fielding a lot of time-consuming and repetitive information  requests, consider the Product Info Binder.  This humble tool has the ...