It opened our minds to a market-driven approach! March 23, 2010
Posted by Hari Prakash in Careers.Tags: product management skills, Product Management Training
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How does one move from a product-focused approach to being market-centric? How do we make the customer and business environment integral to our work? Managers who move to Product Management from purely functional roles do find that a little assistance in this area goes a long way. We launched our first Blackblot Strategic Product Management™ training program on this premise, and indeed, the participants proved us right.
Professionals from diverse backgrounds (architects, software developers, business analysts, planners and marketing managers) attended the recently concluded 4-day program – and their feedback was near unanimous. As one participant summed it up, “Thought-provoking training sessions that will be of much use at work…to construct products that will be acceptable to customers…opened our minds towards a ‘Market Driven’ approach to identify problems & customer expectations…”
A look at some of the “hot issues” raised by participants is interesting, for it reveals some of the key challenges being faced on the ground, when it comes to product development and marketing in India.
Should the product planner be the architect as well? Currently, many companies in the Indian market do adopt this practice; in our view, it is a somewhat dangerous one; the job of understanding market requirements and identifying customer segments and personas tends to get overwhelmed under the pressure to envision and build solutions as quickly as possible.
Market Requirements Vs. Product Requirements – what comes first? Participants mentioned cases in which product requirements had been the starting point. This threw up some lively discussion on what market-centric product planning is.
Another issue very much on people’s minds was whether the product planner and marketing manager should be the same person. While product management includes both the product planning and marketing processes, in reality, both skill-sets don’t seem to be easily available with the same resource in the current Indian scenario.
Yet another challenge discussed was on the purely engineering view of product management that is still somewhat common, and on the need to make planning and marketing an integral part of the product management space in companies.
The quality of discussion on these and other issues was really the icing on the cake for us (besides the fact that so many companies and employees evinced interest in the program).
Product Management Training Launched January 19, 2010
Posted by Hari Prakash in Careers.Tags: Blackblot, PMTK Action Model, product management skills, Product Management Training
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Is Product Management an art or science? Can one actively learn how to become a better product manager or does one simply pick up on the skills on the job? While it is true that product management is often a nodal role and involves plenty of soft skills that cannot be easily “learnt”, product management essentially consists of two disciplines : product marketing and product planning. Most managers, especially those who move to product management from purely technical or functional roles will therefore benefit from a grounding in these disciplines.
While product development often involves an extremely focused approach, product management due to the sheer variety of tasks it involves can be bewildering to the newcomer. A framework such as Blackblot’s PMTK Action Model can be of invaluable aid in understanding the various components of product management and in integrating planning and marketing effectively.
In the Indian context, product management as an organized discipline is still a novelty. At Confianzys, we therefore saw the value of offering a highly focused Product Management Training program in association with Blackblot, whose high-tech product management focused training program is renowned internationally. To be held in Bangalore, from the 15th to 18th March 2010, the program includes a 2-day seminar on Strategic Product Management, followed by 1-day seminars each on Procedural Requirements Management and Business and Market Planning.
Participants will find added value in that the seminars are being led by Jim Reekes, senior trainer and consultant who brings with him practical and innovative lessons from his years at Apple and MeetingMaker. (More information on the course details can be downloaded here).
