Shaun Russell Returns from 1986

But let’s assume you’ve implemented both. What has changed?

• Your PM job is now tangible. When someone asks what you do, you’ll be able to answer that you provide precise usage, acceptance, and customer engagement information and reports for the product to which you’ve been assigned. Your information enables your team to compare results against suppositions and speculation, assisting them to plan for the future driven by hard facts and measurable results. You are constantly monitoring system data and customer interaction, learning more so you can provide the team and the company with more information and insight, thus driving responsibility and accountability to every level of the company. (Amazon has become famous for this approach.)
• You float around less. You’ll be spending more time analyzing your metrics and talking to your community (customers) via the system. When the stakeholders complain about the direction of your product, you can provide them information that buttress or refutes their beliefs. When they insist on doing something stupid, a breadcrumb of how the foul up occurred will exist. This may not lead to your being loved, but you will be respected.
• The job will still be uncertain. Remember, you’re the not the CEO and product managers were created to be scapegoats. But at least you’ll have learned valuable lessons you can take to your next job if, despite your best informed advice, you’re ignored and the Java hits the fan.
• You know more about how your product is doing than all the other people you work with. And in today’s world, the old cliché that knowledge is power has never been truer.
• Your work will still never be done. But work never is. You’ll rest when you’re dead.
• You have authority because as the most knowledgeable person in the room, every group will have to listen to what you say. They may not like what you’re telling them, but it’s hard to argue with facts. It’s not impossible by any means, but results are even more difficult to dispute.
• You probably won’t need a superpower. But perhaps it will be time for a new persona. You’re status in the company

 Product manager? You want to be this guy

will change from Pom-Pom Person to that of the guy on the right. And he’s always been cool. Even if he’s from the 60s.

Before concluding, I want to dispose of one particular bit of shade that was thrown my way by people such The Cranky Product Manager and Tom Grant of Forester when I first began to discuss the concept of PM as Data God in June of 2009. From SaaS Entrepreneur:

 “And what about market development? Our hypothetical SaaS vendor has already attracted a particular kind of company—say, medium-sized eschaton brokerage firms in the continental United States. But is that the ultimate market that you, the SaaS vendor, want to reach? By following the direct feedback of current customers, you may be missing the features that are important for the next market you want to enter, where neither streamlined imanetization or improved reporting may be the cost of entry.”

Excerpted from Tom Grant’s blog site, the Heretech, 06/19/2009. Grant is an analyst at Forrester Research.

This misses the point. Are you worried that your customers aren’t as smart as you? That they’re missing the big picture and that you’re missing opportunities because you’re focusing on the most communicative and knowledgeable users of your system?

No problem. Nothing about the community manager model prevents you from adding whatever features you want. Moving into new markets. Innovating as you see fit. It is your product. And if you have integrated analytics into your system, you should be able to measure the activities of the ‘silent majority’ in your subscriber base. But in a properly architected SaaS product, you’ll be measured on the acceptance and usage of new capabilities very precisely. Your community’s complaints about your failure to add functions they request will become palpable. And remember that as it grows, your community should also be thought of as active marketing place that is ‘trading’ in the future of a single commodity—your company. And markets are the most active predictors of the future ever developed. But if you feel the road to success ignores the input and desires of your customers, you can now precisely measure its impact on your business. And be accountable for your decisions.

By the way, I’m not speaking about the role of product manager from a theoretical viewpoint. As I said, I’ve been a product manager and am currently providing that function for my startup, DiiDit.com. We’re in a quiet period right now, but I will be discussing my experiences in this regard in Softletter in greater detail. I conceived of the initial concept for the product and wrote the first spec. Do I one day plan to hire a product manager? I certainly do. Will they have hiring/firing authority? No. that’s the role of an upper manager.

BTW, if Shaun’s description of how product management works has you nodding to yourself “Why yes. That’s how it’s done at my company,” I suggest you invest in a time machine such as the one pictured to the left. The model shown is optimized for trips back to the 80s, where good PM jobs for products such 123, Symphony, Javelin, WordStar 2000, Harvard Graphics, WordPerfect, Turbo Pascal, MultiMate and hundreds of others await you. If this doesn’t appeal, I suggest urging your company to invest in the types of analytic and community technology that will help your software firm survive. I’d also recommend learning how to whip up pivot tables at a moment’s notice and download a free copy of the desktop version of Microstrategy, which is an excellent tool to learn how to carry out more detailed data analyses.

There you have it. If someone will please find Shaun a good analytics system and integrated community for Outfitters, as well as buy him a copy of SaaS Entrepreneur, I know his next presentation will take place in the 21st century.  And I’m sure it will be a good one.

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