High Output Product ManagersTodd OlsonCEO Pendo

A little about me...

CEO/Co-founder, Pendo

VP Product, Rally Software

President, 6th Sense Analytics

Chief Scientist, Borland Software

….

@tolson

What is Pendo?

3

ANALYTICSCapture ALL user behavior in your

application

FEEDBACKSurvey users in-app for incredibly relevant input

GUIDANCEDeliver contextual help to

simplify the user experience

A New Path to Product Successwww.pendo.io

Product Managers Don’t DO Anything

Can’t really measure it

Dan Schmidt, Quora

A manager’s output =The output of his organization

+The output of neighboring

organizations under his influence

Neighboring Organizations

Product

Engineering

Customer Success / Support

Sales

Marketing

Product Managers are know-how managers and “[their] potential for influencing neighboring organizations is enormous.”

Output of Neighboring Organizations

Organization Output

Engineering Quality Software Product

Marketing Marketing collateral, leads

Sales Revenue

Customer Success Renewals / Upsells

Support Resolved tickets, happy customers

A manager’s output =L1 * A1 + L2 * A2 + L3 * A3 …

where...

A = activity and L = leverage of the activity

3 Kinds of Manager Activity

1. Collect Informationa. Market, customers, product info, competition

2. Share Informationa. Market, customers, product info, competition

3. Make Decisionsa. Product prioritization, roadmap

Focus on High Leverage Activities

t

An action that affects many people / organizations An action that affects people over a

long time

For example...a Authoring a Single User Story

Product Management Activities in Engineering

An estimated 1 million technology jobs will go unfilled by 2020, according to a report put forth by Microsoft in 2012. Publications like The Wall Street Journal and even the White House repeatedly cite this projection, ringing a nationwide alarm of a severe shortage in technical talent.

Reduce Requirements Defects

The source of requirements defects is insufficient collecting and insufficient sharing of information.

Build Features that are UsedAre you done-done?

Are customers trying it? Which?

Do they continue using it after they started using it?

Did it deliver the intended value?

Follow-up and Collect Information“Great tool for notification about next releases in product. Keep up the good work guys!” - Customer 1

“not bad but they would be cooler if they didn't overlap the top of the page and instead added padding or margin to the top of the body” - Customer 2

“I want the option to push the entire content down if it is top positioned. Not just overlay from the top of the browser window.” - Customer 3

Features can have a very long shelf-life affecting lots of people over lots of time. Get it right!

Build High-Leverage FeaturesWhat can we build that enables others to innovate?

APIs?

Integrations?

Partners?

Product Management Activities Outside Development

SupportWhat are the top type of requests?

What takes the most time to resolve?

Are requests increasing or decreasing?

Are certain types of customers more apt to submit a ticket?

Is support fully up to speed on the latest features?

Collecting information.Sharing information.

Customer / User ChurnAre visitors who start with our product sticking with it?

Are customers who start with our product sticking with it?

How much did it cost to acquire each customer / user?

Why are they churning?

Optimizing the Sales Funnel

Marketing

Market knowledge

Product expertise

Who are the best leads? What personas?

How do we reach these people?

Collecting informationSharing information.

Sales Coach

Competitive win/loss

Overcoming objections

Pricing / Packaging

Collecting informationSharing information.

And report on the resultsOrganization Problem Activity Results

Sales Losing early in the sales cycle to competitor XX based on the ability of YY.

Went deeper in XX to discover more differentiation (collect info), built YY (made decision), and update sell against sheet (share info)

Competitive win rate against XX increase 100%.

Sales / Marketing

Churning a bunch of prospects early in trial

Went deeper to understand the type of customer, found we were attracting to the wrong type of customer (collect info) hence their expectations were incorrect. Work with marketing to adjust targets and messaging.

Reduce prospect churn by 50%.

Transition your thinking...

Own the visionBuild the roadmapWrite the stories

Share your know-how across the organization to help it increase its

output.

?What are the Highest Leverage Activities you can do TODAY in your Organization?

Questions?