Product Management in an agencyJanuary 20, 2015

My background: worked at several agencies that have the tendency to

change names all the time. As we say ‘change is the only constant’ at

IceMobile, I like to follow that path in my career. 5 years ago I started at

Muse (digital agency) & IceMobile (Mobile agency) which later merged

into IceMobile. IceMobile was then merged with BrandLoyalty, who are

specialists in (short term) loyalty programs within supermarkets. We

then were acquired by AllianceData and work closely together with

LoyaltyOne who are the inventors of the Airmiles Program.

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I always had different strategy & creative roles in agencies, with the

most outrageous job titles. Once I started a product manager role

within IceMobile, I realised that I was already doing Product

Management for quite some years, without knowing the term. I then

attended the PM-course on UC Berkeley, and started joining groups like

ProductTank and met a lot of people like me.

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Magic happens at the intersection

Within IceMobile we believe that magic happens at the intersection. We

combine creativity & technology to work in interdisciplinary teams. The

key to creating experiences that people love lies at the intersection.

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This is also reflected in our logo, where these two worlds come

together.

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AGENCY

COMPANY

We also worked within the intersection of being an agency, working for

brands and developing their services, and working as a company

building our own products.

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As an agency we have build brand utilities for Albert Heijn, KLM, ABN

AMRO, Philips etc.

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We then said goodbye to most of our clients. We merged with

BrandLoyalty and started to focus 100% on food retail. We developed

our own products: Bright Stamps and Bright Shopper.

http://icemobile.com/products

Bright Stamps is a mobile solution for collecting loyalty stamps. Bright

Shopper is a service that helps retailers communicate 1 to 1 with their

daily shoppers.

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From an agency perspective we now work for Jumbo. Bright Stamps

has been implemented in Russia, Denmark, and China. In the coming

months/years many countries will follow.

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“De Jumbo app voert de lijst aan, op de voet gevolgd door Appie. Omdat de app van de Jumbo net iets overzichtelijker en gebruiksvriendelijker is dan die van de Albert Heijn, verdient de Jumbo app een halve ster meer.”

In December 2014 we launched the Jumbo app. A few weeks later we

already reached a very nice achievement. Kassa, an important

consumer television program in NL, said that the Jumbo app is the best

supermarket app.

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5 similarities

Working as a PO or product manager in an agency in essence is the

same. It’s making the ultimate combination between UX, Tech and

Business. For a lot of projects we work with our own PO, who serves as

a sort of proxy-PO for the client. We work in teams (around 7 people)

with combined forces of UX, VD, test and development. We

continuously develop for the client, so once an app is in the market, we

will still continue to develop and maintain the product.

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CRAP

interview room team room

awesomelike-to-have

PULSE

full story on slideshare.net/icemobile

Also similar with working in agencies versus companies, is that the user

is in the centre of the design process. To get user feedback, we

developed our own UX testing method called ‘Pulse’. Every 2 weeks we

do intensive user testing (during our running sprint), using our current

build (so we don’t loose time with building prototypes). The team sees

the test live, and does the reporting themselves. Insights are

incorporated in the next sprint, so optimisations for the product is

done quickly, and tested during the next Pulse sessions.

More info on http://www.slideshare.net/icemobile/mae-pulse-

testingwittemanvandenoever

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Working closely with your team is really important, within an agency

and a company. Developers are always part of the creative process

and we do brainstorm session with each other regularly. The

advantage of doing the PO role ourselves, is that we can really protect

the team. The alternative is a PO from the client, that might not have

enough time and becomes an ‘absent parent’.

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What is also the same within companies or agencies, is that you need

to align with different stakeholders. As a PO/PM you will never make

decisions on your own. From an agency perspective there is quite a

challenge to make decisions, as you will be less empowered to do so,

because you’re not working for that company. But same as the absent

parent issue, you can also end up working with someone from the client

that is less experienced or with no mandate. Sometimes it’s better to be

the proxy PO and do the stakeholder management, than to end up with

the mini-me from the client.

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Do epic shit is our main mantra. It’s about making stuff that matters. Set

goals you can’t meet to get further than you expected. Create a better

world and have fun along the way. Company, agency or start-up, you

can and will create epic shit.

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5 differences

You will never be the end boss. Your team will listen to you, but will

always try to be in contact with the client, and want to know what the

client thinks. They will trust your decisions… But with tough decisions,

it’s sometimes smart to let the client share this with the team.

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If it’s your own product, you can talk about it on social media as much

as you want. And you can do your own webcare, making sure issues

from users are being solved. If you work within an agency you will not

be the spokesperson. You can’t reply on a user that has issues, but need

to ask your client to do so. However it’s really important to also do your

own webcare to understand the wishes from your users. Don’t expect

your client to do it for you.

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There is a difference in working at an agency, and that’s the financial

dependency. It can lead to window dressing (trying really hard to show

your client you are worth the money). Make sure your process is open

for clients, and also share if things go wrong. A financial benefit is the

option to easily change resources between projects.

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There are far more channels passed before you get your information. If

you are working in the company, feedback will come directly to you.

Working for an agency, you always have one (or more) extra channels,

and most of the times you won’t hear the feedback from the source.

Try to get in contact with the source, and if that’s not possible, make

sure you make decisions official. Document feedback, share what you

will do with it, and create official sign-offs with the most important

stakeholders to reach a point of no return.

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Your client is the specialist in their field of work, and is truly living the

brand you are working for. It’s good to have the mind set of thinking

you don’t know enough. Make sure you do your own research, dive

into data and check social media and app store reviews on feedback.

However, you can also be more critical and pure. Working in an

organisation can also lead to making decisions based on career or

politics. You can’t simply ignore the CEO. As an external it’s easier to

ignore feedback of the CEO or to challenge his or her wishes. It’s easier

to have full focus on the user, and not being distracted by internal

issues.

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5 tips

Train your client to say what they ‘wish for’, and not to come up with

the solution. Be really annoying and keep asking for their business

wishes/goals. For instance, by training them to formulate it in a user

story. You will then have qualitative business conversations about

goals and wishes, and not about the impact of a certain solution, which

brings you into operational issues to quickly.

You should make these wishes presentable and tangible (use your

design forces to make quick concepts) so your stakeholder can double

check these with their managers.

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Make sure you have a shared brain and memory, to be able to quickly

write down feedback from a stakeholder (even if you won’t do

anything with it, they feel you are listening to them) and to be able to

discuss priorities and track what you’ve decided together.

We use ProdPad to track these things and to create interactive sessions

with clients to prioritise the roadmap. This is translated to Jira, which is

mostly the team tool. As long as you are aligned on roadmap level

(what’s in the next release), you don’t have to go into detail what will be

delivered in which sprint. But our clients always have access to detailed

planning, so there are no secrets on progress.

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Teach your client the process. Learn them to work agile. Don’t bother

them with too much detail (they don’t want to know, otherwise they

would be doing your work) but make sure they understand how it

works, and maybe eventually will take over your role.

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Because eventually you need to make sure you will be replaced. It’s fine

to work on a proxy PO base for a while (to prevent absent parent

syndrome or to end up with an unexperienced mini-me), but the best

way to build great products is to have someone from the organisation

working closely with your team. Teach them and try to get someone in

your spot, and coach them along the way.

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Last tip: let it go. Sometimes it’s hard to be the proxy because you’re

feeling highly responsible for the product of your client. You can give

100% but being awake at night about a bad review is only useful if your

client feels the same. If they don’t take full ownership, you can’t really

replace that.

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we are hiring.icemobile.com/jobs

IceMobileAmsterdam @icemobile@icemobile

“I like to chat about PM!”

Karlijn van den Bergkarlijn@icemobile.com

linkedin.com/in/karlijnvdberg