A Call to Product Management Professionals Everywhere
By accompa on Jan 2, 2009 in Product Management
Happy New Year everyone - 2009 is here!
One of our sales reps is close friends with a sales rep from a competitor - let us call them Jim and Bob (not real names!). They actually spent the Christmas holidays skiing together.
One of the stories they commiserated on was how they both felt that executives (C-level) at most companies seem to place very little importance on their Product Management teams, compared to Sales or Engineering teams.
Are “Product Management” Teams Second-Class Citizens?
First let us share with you why Jim and Bob felt this way. Over the past year, they’ve been part of a good number of sales opportunities where the Director/VP of Product Management really wanted to buy the software for their PM team. But they couldn’t get approval from their bosses to purchase the software. Which left the Director/VP pretty dejected - and of course, Jim and Bob too.
The funny thing is - software from both of our companies is very affordably priced. Compared to what most companies spend on SFA (sales force automation) or Development (Engineering) tools - software for PM teams cost a fraction, often less than one-tenth and as little as one-hundredth in some cases.
Because of this experience, Jim and Bob felt that C-level execs at most companies place very little importance on Product Management teams.
If this were indeed true (we’re not 100% convinced it is true, due to reasons that follow) - then perhaps these C-level execs are stepping over dollars to save pennies. How so?
If PM teams turn out bad MRDs/PRDs - Engineering teams will waste their time working on the wrong things. Then Sales teams will waste their efforts trying to sell the wrong product. Everybody loses.
A Call to Product Management Professionals
Whether what Jim and Bob felt is true or not - one thing we’ve observed over our couple of decades in Product Management is this. Most C-level execs place far more importance on Sales and Engineering than Product Management.
This is kinda bad news to PM teams - especially in a bad economy.
Our call to Product Management professionals as we usher in 2009 is as follows:
- Justify your existence to C-level execs proactively, and regularly
- Demonstrate to C-level execs specifically how your PM team’s actions in the past year helped the company
- Be as specific as possible
- How did you help achieve higher revenue, lower costs, achieve competitive differentiation, etc
- Demonstrate to C-level execs how your PM team’s planned actions in 2009 will help your company
- Proactively structure the work done by your PM team to be of strategic importance, from the perspective of C-level execs. Then tell them about it.
In a nutshell: Justify your PM team’s existence by doing important work in 2009, and tell everyone (as loudly as you can!) including your C-level execs what you’ve done.
This will help ensure that the valuable contributions by your PM team is recognized by C-level execs - and will lead to PM team having a higher impact on your company, better career progression, increased job security for PMs, and may be even an approval when you want to spend a little money down the road to give your team a tool better than good ol’ spreadsheets! 
P.S. The reason we’re not 100% convinced with Jim & Bob’s feelings is this. Even in a bad economy, more and more companies continue to purchase tools from Jim and Bob to help their PM teams work more successfully & efficiently. We think that while many C-level execs may place less importance on PM teams compared to Sales or Engineering, it is unlikely that most of them place very little importance on PM teams.
What are your thoughts on this somewhat controversial topic? Click here to let us know…
1. Rich Geren | Jan 5, 2009 | Reply
This is a good question. I’ve worked at 5 companies during my career and in 3 of them PMs were treated as inferior to Enginerring and Sales/BD teams. But in the other 2 companies PMs were treated very well. It depends on the company.
2. hoewah.leong | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
hi,
it’d be great if you can be more specific in this article.
such as listing PM software you’ve come across or are currently using that’ll be great to have for other PMs.
rgs
leong
3. Matt | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
The topic caught my eye. Thought provoking definately. Sure, a lot of companies (smaller ones) don’t even have PM’s. I guess this proves that PM’s are not as important as sales & engineers because even small companies always have sales and engineers.
That having been said, I am a PM. I think PM team is essential for all successful companies. Your point about PM weakness will affect sales and engineer resources negatively is very good point. But companies do layoff PM’s and marketing first if need arose.
Leong: I think one of the software that is very good for PM’s is Accompa. Just a thought!
4. accompa | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
Hey Matt, I agree with your recommendation to Leong - Accompa is indeed an awesome software for PMs!
5. Chris | Jan 19, 2009 | Reply
Yes and No.
While some executives know the Product Management is important, Revenue is King. Thou who generates the Revenue calls the shots and gets the attention. Its not fair, equitable, rational, etc.
To be fair in larger companies that can afford to make strategic investments other groups may get a lot of attention. But especially these days, in this economy, Sales will be king.