A space for technology product management

Presentation: Steve Johnson on Product Management

Event Details

Time: May 18, 2010 from 7pm to 9pm
Location: Red Gate Software
Street: Newnham House, Cambridge Business Park
City/Town: Cambridge, CB4 0WZ
Website or Map: http://www.red-gate.com/
Event Type: presentation, pragmatic, marketing, steve, johnson
Organized By: Colin Millerchip
Latest Activity: May 25, 2010

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Event Description

Steve Johnson is a recognized thought-leader on the strategic role of product management, and we’re delighted to have him visit us in Cambridge.

We have some flexibility in terms of what we’d like Steve to talk about: for eg, it could be about the role of product management in general, the results of the recent Pragmatic Marketing survey of product managers, and tips for organization.
If you’ve a specific topic you’d like to hear Steve talk about, please add your thoughts below, and we’ll try to tailor the discussion to fit the interest.

Meeting outline:
7->7.30pm -- arrival and networking
7.30pm -- Steve's presentation
8.30pm -- possibly over-spill discussion & wrap-up

Red Gate Software has kindly offered to host this, and provide a light buffet ahead of Steve’s presentation.

If you want to attend this event, you must sign up through the CPM network. Numbers are limited, so first come first served.

Here are Steve's slides:

Staffing and organizing product management

View more presentations from Steve Johnson.

Comment Wall

Comment by Arthur Meadows on April 15, 2010 at 7:37: Geographic variation in PM: I do see a difference between PM in Silicon Valley vs PM in UK

Comment by Paul Burke on April 15, 2010 at 17:47: Nice one!. I haven't seen Steve for a few years now. He's a great presenter/speaker and has great knowledge of Product Management

1)What factors are causing changes to the Pragmatic Marketing framework and why.
2)Is agile development showing the anticipated benefits and resulting in better faster activity to adapt products to meet customer needs.
3)What difference does the reporting line to Execs (Tech, commerical, Marketing/sales) make to Product management roles, responsibilites and ability to have impact?

Comment by Mark Dalgarno on April 15, 2010 at 17:58: Damn! Can't make Tuesdays...

Comment by Colin Millerchip on May 11, 2010 at 8:38: Messenger of the market" or "CEO of the product" - two quite different "strap lines" for the role of product management. Do you have a view on these?

For eg,
- is one 'better' (more appropriate) than the other?
- does 'better' depend on the type of company / market / environment?
- is one a stepping-stone towards the other?
- ... etc?

Comment by Paul Burke on May 11, 2010 at 14:53: PM's should be driven by making their products successful but this is always constrained by resources, cost and time within the business plan of the organization. You need to do both CEO and market advocate roles to convince the business of the correct scope/time/resources to meet market needs whilst also optimizing the scope with the currently budgetted costs/time/resources and making the tough choices on where to forego market opportunites.

Comment by Ed Cawthorne on May 17, 2010 at 9:00: I would love to hear Steve's view on the state of product management - how is it evolving and what are the top 3 issues he sees product managers facing.

Comment by Elizabeth Ayer on May 17, 2010 at 13:03: So... any word on what Steve is planning to talk about?

Comment by Colin Millerchip on May 17, 2010 at 13:06: I believe that Steve's put together some slides to encourage discussion on the "CEO or Messenger" question. But I hope there will be time for general Q&A afterwards.

Comment by Colin Millerchip on May 18, 2010 at 22:44: My favourite quote from tonight's awesome presentation, from ProdMgr to lazy salesperson: "Let me read that off the intranet for you". Priceless.

Comment by Arthur Meadows on May 25, 2010 at 9:45: My notes / favourite quotes from the evening:
Quotes
1. Product Managers are Parents of the Product - "getting our products to leave and not coming back too often"
2. (Son, home is now clothing optional. You'd better call ahead, before you want to come home.)
3. Friends builds products, enemies write documents

Other gems
Marketing and Development build products for many
Sales and Support build products for one

What's your favourite MS Product?
- Word - then you're a Technical Product Manager
- PPT - then you're a Product Marketing Manager
- XLS - then you're Strategy Product Manager

Different functional groups need representatives to do one-to-one facilitation on PM's behalf:
- For Sales - Sales Engineering
- For Marcomms - Product Marketing Managers
- For Development - Product Owners

Key Question for interviewing a PM (and for PM to interview CEO):
You're a PM (or the CEO), sitting at your desk and you receive two incoming calls simultaneously. Which call would you answer?
- customer with a product problem
- a potential customer with the final question before signing the contract