Does the Head of Product Need to Be the Best Product Manager on the Team?

March 11, 2024 by Jeff Martens in business

I’ve had this blog post in my head for a couple weeks now. I’ve been thinking about how to lay out a strong case for what I momentarily thought was a controversial topic. I figured the post would be long and go to great lengths to help readers come to the conclusion that I have.

But guess what? None of that is needed. there is such an easy answer to the question: “Should the head of Product Need to Be the Best Product Manager on the Team?”

No.

So why did I go on this journey? It was a moment of weakness that I don’t mind admitting to. Recently, I’ve had a bunch of great conversations with founders preparing to hire their first head of Product (VP, CPO, HoP). To my surprise, more than one has directly said or strongly implied that they expect their new Product leader to be “the best Product Manager on the team.”

In every leadership role I’ve been in, I’ve had at least one team member that I believe to be a better PM than I ever have been, and I have always seen that as a good thing. At the same time, I also believed myself to be the best and most capable of leading the functions I was responsible for. I guess these chats with talented CEOs made me start to doubt myself and I began pondering this question, assessing my own skills and abilities.

I don’t believe that anyone expects a CTO to be the best software developer on an engineering team. We don’t expect the CMO to be the best visual designer on the creative team. Why would we expect the CPO to be the best Product Manager on the team?

This may be cliche, but I used a sports analogy to help me put this question to rest: Steve Kerr, the Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors NBA team was not the best basketball player on any of his teams when he was a championship winning player (not even close). Yet, today he is recognized as one of the best coaches in the NBA over the past 10 years. Kerr will one day be inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame, and it will be because of his coaching career, not his playing career. He is a talented and effective leader of players that are all better than he was.

Conversely, LeBron James can arguably play all 5 basketball positions at a high level, and he is considered by many to be the best basketball player of all-time, but we have no idea if he’d be a good coach. In fact, he probably wouldn’t be. If you look at ESPN’s top 40 NBA players of all time, you’ll only find three that have had some notable success as a coach, and not a single one even close to being one of the best coaches in any given year, let alone the history of the NBA.

Why is this? The job is totally different! The skills needed to be a top tier coach are completely different from the skills needed to be a top tier team member.

If Steve Kerr thought that he was the best player, and didn’t try to “hire” players better than him, I suspect that the Golden State Warriors wouldn’t have any of their four championship titles in the last nine years, and Kerr would have been fired long ago.

Just as the jobs are different in sports, the jobs are also different in software product management. A highly talented head of Product is focused on building and up-skilling the best team they can assemble. They create an environment and playbook that allows each team member to be their best and play the role the team needs them. They are the expert when it comes to the customer and the competitors. The head of Product connects the organization’s goals to execution in the area by setting, owning, and championing a strategy to build the right products, for the right market, with the right investment, at the right time.

If you haven’t been a Product Manager, it will be much harder to be great at the things a head of Product needs to do. You don’t need to have been the best PM, but you better know the job inside and out, have witnessed it done well, and have recognized when it was done poorly (even if that was you).

That brings us to what I believe the head of Product does need to be the best at:

Setting vision & strategy: As a member of the company’s senior leadership group, you play a pivotal role in setting and guiding company vision, while owning a product strategy that guides the organization towards achieving that vision. Good strategy considers current customer needs, where the market is headed next, and what the company’s long term vision is. All packaged so that it is clear to all what the priorities are, why, and how we’ll act in order to reach defined goals.
Recognizing trends and opportunities: Product Managers and Engineers focus heavily on shipping products to satisfy a problem that exists today. While PMs are not exempt from seeing and planning for the future, I expect the head of Product to be the first to see where the market is going, to spot emerging trends, to find hidden opportunities, and then decide when and how much to invest today for big rewards tomorrow. Product leaders do this by being out in the market with customers (literally and figuratively), building user empathy, becoming a trusted advisor, and acting as a continuous student of the industry. The right team, in the right positions, with the right playcalling is a multiplying force that exceeds anything that a head of Product could ever be on their own.
Recruiting & nurturing talent: Product orgs operate at their best when they have the right people, in the right position, with the right coaching. It's not just about finding the best fit, it's also about convincing them to join the journey, coaching them to be their best, while fostering interest and excitement in the work. It’s not just about having the right people with the right skills, the head of Product needs to foster an environment and process that invites partnership from engineering through the Product Manager’s effective communication around the “what,” “why,” and “when” of their priorities.
Facilitating cross-team collaboration: Great product doesn’t mean much if it can’t be effectively marketed, sold, and supported. Engineering isn’t the only team that product managers must work well with. An effective product leader makes sure their team does not work in isolation. They expect their product managers to influence Marketing, Sales, Support, and other functions by partnering with the leaders of these functions and to set an example of collaboration and paving the way for two-way relationships that benefit customers and the business.
Communicating well: Absolutely everything in this list is dependent on being a fantastic communicator. I often say that product leaders really only do three deceivingly simple things: They listen (to customers, data, colleagues, etc), they think (about priorities, investment levels, timing, visions, strategy, etc), and they communicate (to win support, create understanding, set goals, etc). Being an effective communicator means winning support for strategy because it is clear, relatable, and powerful. Being a great communicator means selling the org on taking the right risks, at the right time. Being a stellar communicator means getting the best talent to jump in the boat with you and give it their all. A mastery of communication results in strong ties to customers where trust leads to openness and partnership.

Curious to see my thoughts on other aspects of Product Management? See those posts here. To see the conversations on this topic from the r/productmanagement Reddit sub, head over here.

When I do it again

July 06, 2020 by Jeff Martens in personal, business

In what feels like a lifetime ago, I decided to build my first, real startup. From February 2010 to February 2014, I served as the co-Founder and CEO of a small company named CPUsage. Me and two amazing co-founders took a crazy idea, explored a big problem space, began building a prototype, raised venture capital, built a team, built a couple products, flirted with providing value to a market, and then failed miserably. Four years, about a million in outside funding, destroyed personal lives and finances of at least one co-founder, and we had nothing to show for it. No meaningful revenue, no product worth something to others, no acqui-hire.

These were the most enjoyable and educational years of my career! I loved every minute of it! I learned more than I imagine an MBA or any set of degrees could teach. I’m a better human for this experience, and a better professional. Failure and all.

I learned so much about so many things, and in this blog post today, I want to focus on what I learned about what it takes to be successful when starting a company. Specifically doing so with the intent to innovate, grow rapidly, and return outsized rewards to employees and investors….in other words, a startup.

I try to limit regret in my life, but I do seek opportunities to improve myself by learning from my past. Through my experiences co-founding and leading CPUsage from 2010-2014, here is some of what I’ll do differently next time I start a startup.

Go deeper with potential customers

In short, I became a Product Manager after CPUsage because I quickly realized that we failed in part due to one specific reason: we didn’t go deep enough with customer discovery. We talked to a bunch of people, there was no shortage of potential clients or simply just people to learn from. The problem is that we got too excited, too easily. We stayed at the top level of the problem, we didn’t dig deeper to understand the root of their problem or how truly painful it was. We heard what we wanted to hear, went back and built what we thought the potential customer wanted, and then they never used it.

There was clearly a problem, and it was painful. We just didn’t know exactly where the pain emanated from, which meant we couldn’t prescribe the right medicine. We sought what we wanted to hear, not what we needed to hear.

I became a Product Manager because I wanted to master customer discovery and make sure I was equipped to prevent this mistake again. I loved building software, but I wasn’t going to build truly great software until I figured this out. Big thanks to Todd Etchieson for believing in me and giving me that opportunity at New Relic!

The next time I build a startup, I’ll do what I’ve done as a Product Manager since CPUsage: be relentless with customer discovery, seek deep understanding of the problem space, and build products that are 10x better or 1/10th the cost of the alternative.

Have a REAL go-to-market plan

So it turns out that taking a product to market is more than posting about it on Twitter or Hacker News and hoping people will come use it. Who knew?! Through my experience at CPUsage, I learned that my world may seem big and important, but it is just a spec in the universe of software, technology, and the market I am going after.

We honestly had no plan, and no idea how to win customers. We were building a two-sided market and easily figured out how to capture the supply side, but didn’t tackle the demand side. Seems obvious now, but it was far from obvious then. Tell a few friends and it will take off, right?

The next time I start a company, I’ll think about go-to-market from day one. We’ll make demand capture and distribution an inherent aspect of the product. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come.

Focus spending

I now know that in the early stages of a software startup, the most important thing to invest in is customer validation with product. There is little that you can spend money on that is as, or more important than, putting product in the hands of customers and prospects to learn from, and adapt to. Almost anything else is a distraction and likely doesn’t produce significant enterprise value.

Don’t hire sales people. There is no need for a CMO or even a marketing intern. It’s all about engineering at the pre-seed and seed stage. The co-founders can do the rest. Spend to learn, and learn through the eyes of your customers and prospects as they use (or don’t use) your product.

Seek accountability

If it isn’t obvious yet, I should tell you that my co-founders and I had never started a company before, never took funding, never built a real product outside of our day jobs. Not only did we need help, people to guide us, and hold us accountable…we didn’t even know we needed this. As the saying goes, we didn’t know what we didn’t know.

Within weeks our initial close of funding, we attended a portfolio event for our lead investor. For some reason, we thought this was the right time to ask our lead, “you gave us money but didn’t ask for a board seat, don’t you want one?” He probably laughed inside, and then told us that as a seed-stage company without a complete product or any customers, we didn’t need the overhead of a board. We should just focus on building our product, and let him know if/when we needed help.

We didn’t take him up on that offer enough. We talked to our investors frequently, but we were mostly on our own. We asked for help, but in hindsight we only asked for help a fraction of the time we should have, in part because we didn’t know we needed help.

We may not have needed a traditional board of directors at that point, but we certainly needed the accountability that a board with investors/outsiders provides, along with the sense of “in it together” that I believe board members share with founders.

When I do it again, I’ll ensure that I have a framework in place to hold myself more accountable. It may be a board with investors/outsiders in the early days, it may be advisors, it may be a peer group, it will probably be all of the above. Regardless of the form, I’ll seek accountability, asking others to say the things that are heard to hear, tell me when I am wrong, set high expectations, and ultimately walk with me on the journey. Business success is no one’s responsibility except the founders, but we can’t do it alone. That’s just human nature.

More goal setting

Especially in the early stages of a company, it’s simply impossible to plan very far into the future (you decide what “very far” means). That doesn’t mean you can’t plan, and those plans better be more specific than “build valuable things that people will pay for.” How will you know what the thing should be? How will you know when you’ve gotten here? How will you know what valuable means? I may not know what I need to do every day between now and ultimate business success, but I can predict with high degrees of certainty what questions need to be answered, and what milestones must be reached.

When I do it again, my co-founder(s) and I will drive our work from questions we know need to be answered, and milestones we believe need to be met. We’ll put short term and long term goals in front of ourselves. We’ll commit to doing achievable things in the near-term, then do them. We’ll create inflection points and forks in the road, and we’ll ask others to hold us accountable to these things. All this will be done while being firm on the vision and flexible on the details, giving ourselves room to be wrong, or change our minds, in service of the goal.

Fail faster

Did you catch this earlier in the post? About one million dollars and four years? As first-time founders, we falsely believed that stretching our money out as long as possible would give us the best opportunity to learn and build for success. We were so, so wrong! Our frugality meant we did less, in more time, and impacted our ability to learn quickly, from meaningful product development. Sure, we had 4 years to learn, but those learnings were each less valuable than they would have been had we gotten them in 12-18 months, instead of 48. In fact, we would have had a better chance at success had we spent the same amount of money over a shorter period of time. Building more, more iteratively, and more quickly would have created enterprise value. Both in the product itself and the trust we’d have built in our investors and customers. We would have had a better chance because we would have pivoted sooner, but also because we’d have more people believing in us and rooting us on, including ourselves.

We failed too slow because we made all the other mistakes listed above. We didn’t set specific enough short term goals and questions to answer. We didn’t have a framework to keep ourselves accountable to this work. We didn’t spend purposefully to develop products we could learn from. We had no clue how to get our product in the hands of customers. We didn’t really listen to the problem within the problem when speaking to the market or customers. All of these mistakes ate up time. Sure, they ate up money too, but most importantly they ate up time.

The above isn’t an exhaustive list of what I learned the first time I was an entrepreneur, nor is it a complete list of the things I’ll do differently. I am inspired not only by my experience as a first time, early stage entrepreneur, but also through my work in Product Management at New Relic, Pagerduty, and then Zenput. I also love to read and have found The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz and Sprint by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky to be incredible sources of inspiration and learning.

I’d also like to thank the people that gave me the opportunity to learn these things, and support me through the experience: Our investors (Ash, Ben, Eric, Omar, Damien), my co-founders (Matt and Shiv), our families (for me: Richard, Gayle, Kristin, Nate, Sabrina, and more), and our friends (including, but not limited to: Robert, Ken, Mike, Bill, Justin, Dionna, Shashi, and more).

Oh, and one last thing. I am doing it again. Now, today, this month, all this year, and next year! I can’t wait, not just to do it, but to do it better this time! Watch this space for more.

Effective Corporate Leadership

May 12, 2020 by Jeff Martens in business

Leadership is a quality that society values. It can be seen early on in a person’s life. It benefits those that excel at it, in school, in sports, with friends, and in careers. Many believe that people are born leaders, that it comes naturally.

I believe that leadership is a quality that a minority of people are born with. I also believe that one’s environment will hone this quality for some, and not for others. I believe that if you aren’t born with it, you can learn much of it, but many of the best leaders start with a natural talent.

What I don’t believe is that leadership qualities alone will make you successful as a business leader. Leadership personality traits are not the same as being an effective leader of a company. Being a successful leader in a business means taking your personality traits and using them in specific ways to drive results. Results don’t just happen because someone is a natural leader. Results happen when leaders take action.

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, so-to-speak. You don’t need a title to be a leader, but some titles require you to be a leader. You can be a great Business Analyst, a great Designer, a great Sales Executive, without being a leader, but you probably won’t be a great Chief Marketing Officer, or a great Vice President of Product, if you aren’t a great leader. It’s a choice, until it isn’t. If you weren’t born with it, you better start figuring it out.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what a great business leader is, and what a great business leader does. I say it that way intentionally, is and does. A definition and actions with outcomes. Below is what I’ve come up with. I am sure this is a far from a dictionary definition, probably because my take is less a reflection of business leadership itself, and more about what I personally strive to be as a business leader.

What a great business leader is:

Someone that inspires others, to act, to be great, and to grow
Someone that coaches and mentors their direct reports, bringing out the best in them
Someone that takes responsibility, seeking it out and rising up to it
Someone that puts the organization on their shoulders, not as a burden, but to carry others and raise them above the fray
Someone with vision for the organization and a course charted to reach it

The above is great, and impressive, but how do great leaders turn those qualities into action and results?

They see the bigger picture

Great, effective business leaders share a similarity with chess players: they see two, three, four moves ahead. They don’t stop at the obvious, they see what others don’t and can identify what really matters. With this vision, they can speak and act in a way that inspires others.

They have a positive outlook

Great, effective business leaders put energy into positives, rather than negatives. They don’t ignore challenges or concerns, but seek balance in their focus and how they communicate with others. They smile, show joy, recognize success, and lift-up the spirits of others. With this quality, they attract others to them and go into every opportunity or challenge leading people that believe in success is not only possible, but likely.

They say the right thing, at the right time

Great, effective business leaders know that listening is more powerful than speaking, and how to use their words for the greatest impact. They often don’t speak first, collecting the information they need to speak with authority later. What they do speak, their message is well thought out and organized. They have a way of knowing exactly what others need to hear, at any given time.

They are calm under pressure

Great, effective business leaders are the rock of an organization when pressure builds. They still worry, but they know that others will observe and mirror their behavior, so they remain clam in all they do, whether that be day-to-day work or a crisis. They don’t overreact or act too quickly, but instead they take a measured approach to challenges that is seen by others as well planned, organized, and thoughtful. They’ll never appear to be overworked or exhausted by the pressures of work.

They act and speak with confidence

Great, effective business leaders believe in themselves, their experience, and their ability to get the job done. When they speak, they believe it. When they act, they know it’s the right thing to do. They are confident, but not cocky. They may have doubts, but those doubts don’t hold them back, and instead drive them towards continuously growing and learning. This confidence inspires others to do the same.

They know the details that matter

Great, effective business leaders stay abreast of the details they need to know. They understand that they can’t lead while in the dark, and they seek to consume knowledge. They are properly informed on what their teams are doing, what their successes are, and what their challenges may be. They don’t micromanage and aren’t know-it-alls, but they recognize that information is the most important input they need to deliver the outputs their organization needs. Most importantly, they use this information to properly coach, mentor, and manage their team.

They show gratitude

A great, effective business leader recognizes the work of others and shows appreciation. They understand organization dynamics and that often teams accomplish greatness, rarely do individuals. They recognize the human side of work and understand the power of gratitude. They deliver that gratitude with heartfelt meaning and genuine appreciation. They deliver gratitude in big and small ways, not requiring a stage to deliver it on.

As I look back on what I just wrote, I see a common theme: Communication. Leaders and effective executives are great communicators. They communicate genuinely, thoughtfully, intentionally, and non-verbally.

I’m going to keep studying leadership and honing my abilities. I recently read a great book on leadership, What You Do Is Who You Are, and I may revisit my favorite book on communication, Crucial Conversations.

What is a startup?

August 19, 2018 by Jeff Martens in business

Recently, I was talking about business with one of my co-workers. I enjoy chatting about innovation, strategy, products, and everything that has to do with commerce. In the middle of this conversation, I said something that prompted my co-worker to respond with something along the lines of "my brother worked at a startup that sold belts online...." Wait, what? A belt startup? I steered the conversation in that direction, and probed more into this belt startup. Had they reinvented the belt to be dramatically better than what we know today? Nope. Had they come up with a new manufacturing process that would revolutionize the belt market? Nada. Did they maybe come up with a business model that would allow them to dominate the market? Not at all. I guess they simply sell a wide variety of belts online, maybe they drop ship, maybe its fast-fashion.

What ensued was a friendly debate about the use of the word startup to define new companies. I argued this belt company is not a startup, my co-worker defended that it was.

The world is in an incredible cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship at the moment. I want to say that we are on a 10 year run, but on the macro scale its a lot longer, and a philosopher may say its a never ending run. Regardless of how you look at things, with more innovation comes more entrepreneurship, and over the past 10-20 years, more entrepreneurship has lead to more use of the term startup.

What is a startup, anyway? I mean, most of us could give an answer, but how specific would those answers be, and would we all agree?

Does it even matter? Absolutely not! I do, however, find it an interesting topic, and there are some very mild consequences to correct, or incorrect use of the term. Go into a bank for a loan, say you are a startup, and you'll get laughed out of the building. Walk into a venture capital firm and say you are a small business, and they'll laugh you out as well.

I believe that all startups begin as small businesses, but not all small businesses are startups. Let's explore!

When I first had this question, years before the debate about a belt company being a startup, the first thing I did was search for a definition that I could hang my beliefs on. You can find a whole lot of textbook definitions out there, some are meaningful and others just confuse the question even more. Then I came across the definition by Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup (one of my favorite books on startups, entrepreneurship, and innovation):

“A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”

This definition, short and to the point, is spot on. There are two subtle things in this definition that stand out. First, the mention of something being new, not doing the same thing others do. Then, the requirement that the conditions be extremely uncertain.

When I have this conversation with others, I tend to use a very simple example as a test for this definition: a bagel shop. Their product, bagels, is not new. Been around for a few hundred years and consumers have clear expectations of what a bagel is. If you are starting a bagel shop, you likely aren't creating anything new. You also aren't entering a market of extreme uncertainty. The market demand is well known, or can be. You know how many people are in the area around the shop, what your competition is, and more. The knowledge is broad and relatively easy to obtain.

So, if I open a bagel shop, am I a startup founder? No way! I'd be a small business entrepreneur. Being a small business owner is a difficult task, one that most couldn't or wouldn't have the guts to do. I applaud these folks, and admire their work. They are an important to the economy, and good for the community. They aren't startup founders though.

I do think that Eric Ries is missing one thing in his definition. I believe that in addition to the product being new and the conditions being extremely uncertain, startups also have the potential for massive and hyper growth, with the economies of scale to turn an investment into outsized returns.

Now, lets take a look at a company that I would define as a startup, Tesla. At first glance, you may be thinking that a car company isn't new, and the market isn't uncertain. However, I disagree! When Tesla started, they were in fact creating something new, a mainstream electric car, and more specifically, an electric sports car targeted at wealthy buyers. The idea that a high price sports car could be electric was new and wild. The idea that an electric car could have broad appeal flew in the face of the ugly and underwhelming electric cars that had hit the market before. The plan to then create other models of electric cars for the mass market while remaining sexy, and at affordable prices, was down right crazy when Tesla started. The newness of the product is also connected to the conditions of extreme uncertainty. Tesla cars would have just a fraction of the range of a gas powered car, something customers may struggle with. There was no charging infrastructure, like there is a network of gas stations. Setting up automotive manufacturing is an expensive, upfront investment that may not pay off. In 2003 when Tesla was started, the economy was still coming out of the recession from the dot-com bubble bursting and 9/11 changing America forever. Gas prices were actually low in 2003, so Tesla couldn't count on that for help.

Tesla started by doing something completely new. They were doing so under the circumstances of extreme uncertainty. And they had the opportunity to create immense wealth through rapid growth. They currently do about $12 billion USD in annual revenue, with a market value of over $50 billion USD, making them about as valuable as the big three America automakers, in just 15 years compared with the 100+ years Tesla's competitors had to grow into that valuation.

The founders and early executives of Tesla were taking a risk that no small business owner can compare with. Their likelihood of failing was high, and being successful would require very specific skills, many that can't be taught. If they were successful, the reward would be at levels that most can't fathom.

The bagel shop owner and electric sports car company founder are both entrepreneurs, and should both be applauded. They don't, however, face the same job, the same risks, or the same reward. One can walk into a bank for a loan, the other can't. One can build a nice business that throws off cash to make them wealthy, the other can make tens of thousand of others wealthy and change an industry in the process.

Nothing would make me happier than if you, the reader, were thinking to yourself at this point that a bagel shop could be a startup, if they did things differently. I love to think that any and every industry is ripe for the type of disruption that Elon Musk brought to the automotive world with Tesla. Its not that online belt retailers and bagel shops can't be startups, its that they typically aren't startups.

So, let me know when someone revolutionizes the world through bagels or belts, and I'll update this post. That said, I'll never equate being a small business owner with being a startup founder.

More on Product Management (Part 2)

July 03, 2017 by Jeff Martens in business

Recently, I published a post that outlined 9 principles that make for great product management (On Product Management; May 23rd, 2017). I enjoyed writing the post as it was helpful for me to get my beliefs in a single place, and I was lucky to attract a great audience. My readers had some valuable thoughts, insightful questions, and astute clarifications via LinkedIn comments, Slack discussion, and direct emails.

In this post, I want to address some of those points of discussion, clarify a few things from my original post, and explore a few more principles that make for great Product Managers.

If you haven't read my original post, take a moment to read it and come back to this one. Finally, thank you to everyone that contributed thoughts, counterpoints, questions, and praise...you've helped me become a better writer, and a better Product Manager!

More on the Product Manager's role with vision & strategy

I started my last post out by saying that the role of a Product Manager is to shepherd through a vision...the vision of a Founder, a CEO, or a Chief Product Officer. I went on to talk about the PM's role as a leader, rallying the team around a vision and strategy, and developing products that serve multiple stakeholders. A couple of my readers pointed out that my message might have contradicted itself, and could be taken as a statement that vision and strategy aren't the role of the Product Manager.

This topic gets at a phrase that is commonly thrown around around Product Management, that being a PM is like being the CEO of a Product. I like this statement because it alludes to the type of work that a PM does, and the level of leadership they must demonstrate. I dislike this statement because it implies that the PM is ultimately in charge, that they can do what they want and have no equal in the organization.

While I absolutely believe that Product Managers should influence and contribute to company vision and strategy, and they should set a vision and strategy for their area of responsibility, the truth is that most of us work as part of a larger organization. Most of us have a boss, have a leader we work with. Many of us work at the companies we do because we were attracted to the mission and vision that their leadership put in place. If the Product Manager is setting company vision and strategy, rather than the C-suite, there's a problem. Similarly, if a Product Manager isn't helping the C-suite refine, build on, and advance the vision, there's also a problem.

Effective Product Management orgs report through the CEO

Something I didn't touch on in my earlier post was the placement of Product Management in the org chart. There are a two common reporting structures for Product Management: Through the CEO or through the CTO. While both can work, I believe the best results come from Product Management organizations that report through the CEO.

This preference of mine stems from the idea that Product Management is about more than engineering. Engineering groups are singularly focused on technology, whether its the technology that customers interact with directly, or the backend and foundations that the product is built on. Conversely, Product Management is cross-functional by nature, working across pricing, customer support, sales, marketing, and more.

While the Office of the CTO can effectively lead Product Management, reporting through the CEO is a better fit. Like Product Management, a CEO's role spans the entire organization, influencing all aspects of delivering a product. Reporting through the CEO avoids potential conflicts of interest, where tough decisions must be made and priorities identified, and more easily allowing for a solution that might not be an engineering one.

Product Management is about more than code

In my last post, I may have ignored a principle which I feel is so important. The product is more than your software. The product is the entire experience that a customer or user has with your company. From how they first learn about your product, to how they are sold to, how they are on-boarded, how they use the product, how they are supported, and even how they are 'off-boarded", so to speak. Its all your product to the customer, they don't put walls between your marketing and your code, or between sales and support.

Effective product managers influence and lead all aspects of the product. They think of things like user documentation as part of the product. They know that interacting with customer support is part of the value being delivered. Sometimes the best way to move a product forward, to move the needle on sales or net promoter score, is to fine tune the non-software aspects of your product. If a Product Manager doesn't take responsibility for a cohesive product experience, its likely no one will and each customer touchpoint will remain silo'd.

Nike doesn't just sell shoes, they sell an identity. Blue Apron doesn't just sell meal kits, they sell time-savings and the joy of cooking. Software companies don't just sell access to code, they sell solutions to problems.

Am I living in a Product Management dreamland?

So am I crazy, or is my view on effective Product Management realistic? Truth is, its both. I have outlined a bit of a dreamland, a perfect world, but not a world that I've experienced at any single company or role I've held. That said, every philosophy that I've outlined is one that I've experienced personally or seen at other organizations. All of these philosophies are reasonable individually, and together they are a rare but special reality.

Some of these principles are ones that we can do on our own, as individuals seeking to be better at our jobs. Some of these principles require the mandate and support of our organizations and our bosses. If you desire more of a strategic and leadership role in your work as a PM, ask yourself two things. First ask if you are doing the things you can do with autonomy to be a more effective and efficient PM. Then, ask yourself if you are working for a company that wants and values leadership in a Product Manager.

This is part 2 of a 2 part series on effective Product Management. If you haven't read part 1, head on over to On Product Management for principles exhibited by great Product Managers.