About Timo Wagenblatt

On May 20th, I visited Sofia, Bulgaria for a Product Management Festival PM Night hosted by SoftServe. I talked about my view of the Coronavirus situation and its impact in product management and product organizations. Unfortunately my PM Night visit has been virtual only - however, it has been a wonderful event with lots of questions and engagement at the end. Thanks to the great preparation by SoftServe , PMC Center , and Product Management Festival . Presentation Outline Part 1 - Context (Matters) The Perfect Storm, what's the product management and the role of the product manager, and who is this guy? Part 2 - Analysis (of Everything) Why a holistic analysis of your product's situation is essential Did the market problem change? Did the Willingness (Ability) to Pay change? What is your starting position? Part 3 - Light, Camera, Action! Leverage your product skills and benefit from your bag of tricks Product contexts are changing as the world is changing, new situations will arise – you cannot prepare for everything that might be ahead of you. Therefore, keep an open mind and work continuously on your bag of tricks to weather the storms ahead. Lead the product players Communication matters PYPR – The holistic and focused view on product success of software products You can directly navigate to the full recording of the PM Night (talk and Q&A) following this link or you scroll down and checkout the edited video below. Spoiler Alert: The Key Takeaways listed below!

This blog provides you the link to the recording of my talk at the Product Lessons Learned Online conference. I talked about the fact that corporate product mindset is required for sustainable product success and how to strengthen this essential ingredient with a holistic approach to product management. Part 1 Build the product, release the product <> success What is missing? How to manage all product players? Part 2 What is holistic product management? Challenges of product managers and the importance of focus Defining the North Star Part 3 Applying the Product Yield Potential Radar (PYPR) Software Product Management approach Align on Product Success Factors Clarify Drivers, Approvers, and Contributors Assess, Rate, and Visualize Status of all Product Success Factors Liebig’s Law of the Minimum applied to Holistic Software Product Management

When Ben Horowitz compared product managers to CEOs many years ago 1) , a heated discussion started whether this is a correct or incorrect analogy. I will introduce another related analogy according to the saying: Everything has been said, just not from everyone :-) I’m introducing YourProduct Inc. as a company with a clear mission and vision, with various functions and departments that are working together for the sustainable success of the company measured by market share, profit, and customer satisfaction. The company "YourProduct Inc." represents your product. As with most companies, YourProduct Inc. is led by a General Manager. But this General Manager is different. The General Manager of YourProduct Inc. doesn’t fire or hire people as he or she leads without hierarchical authority doesn’t manage people officially reporting to her or him, but manages product teams and many stakeholders practices the servant leadership style supported by being very clear on vision and strategy and with that setting the direction for the product and the product teams In my view the discussions whether product managers can be compared with CEOs or mini-CEOs are not productive. Some confusion might come from the outdated view of CEOs solely practicing an efficiency-focused style of management. However, that’s not true for many successful CEOs that I know and that is definitely not true for the General Manager of YourProduct Inc. As a product manager, you provide the service of leadership to the team, a style of leadership without positional authority.

I'm writing this blog to explain what Holistic Software Product Management means to me and how PYPRing your product will lead you to higher product management maturity. Holistic, end-to-end, and the likes became expressions that need some explanation and context. People use these terms pretty fast and what holistic or end-to-end means to one person might be a completely different interpretation by the next one. In my view, Holistic Software Product Management focuses on balancing all factors that matter for continuous and sustainable product success. In brief, I strongly believe (and collected many proof points in the last 20 years) that long-lasting product success is determined by mastering all the following dimensions in parallel: Product Viability, Product Development, Go-to-Market / Product Marketing, Software Demonstrations and Training, The Market / Your Customers, and Organizational Maturity . Let's define Product Viability as the ability of a software product to sustain and maintain itself. Viable products need to be profitable, implementable, and scalable. Profitable products are probably the primary objective for most organizations. Products need to be implementable as the ease of implementation determines the speed of adoption. Products need to be scalable as the ability to scale determines the product growth potential. Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Product Viability by understanding and rating these success factors: Customer Business Case or Customer Value, Sales Pipeline Development, Product Profitability, Product Growth, Maintenance / Run Profitability, and Professional Services Profitability. Without products, product organizations and also software product managers would not exist. Products are the reason for the organization’s and the product team’s existence. In that sense, this Product Development is truly essential. In fact, many product managers spend most time of their day working in this dimension as they are passionate about their product. But is this time efficiently invested? I will get back to this topic later in this blog. Developing software or digital products is a challenging and complex task. Your role as a product manager is essential in orchestrating the noisy product development process. Yes, every software product development process is noisy. Things will go wrong – always. As product managers, we must maintain flexibility to react and adjust to the noise, a good attitude in leading the product team and keeping the shining and guiding light of the vision and the required contribution in everyone’s mind. Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Product Development by understanding and rating these success factors: Product Vision & Strategy, Product Development Planning, Execution & Review, Product Roadmap, Product Quality, and Product Team Health. Go-to-Market / Product Marketing focuses on awareness creation, translating the value of your product into leads, incremental sales opportunities, and product success in the current installed base and net new customers and users. Go-to-Market activities and product marketing focus on the market, your existing customers, and all other stakeholders to help them better understand your product’s value and benefits. To safeguard product success, your attention and focus is required on the following topics: Sales and marketing teams are provided with useful content and assets to do their job Professional services and the partner ecosystem are fully equipped for success Competitive landscape is monitored; insights are derived, leveraged and shared The market and your customers are informed about your latest capabilities and understand the positioning and value of your product Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Go-to-Market / Product Marketing by understanding and rating these success factors above. Software product demonstrations and product training are frequently your product’s first impression to anyone outside the product team. There are endless options to showcase your product, for example via software product demonstrations, product videos, company videos, or product training to name a few. Product demos and free trials are two of the top three most helpful and trustworthy information sources for buyers. Due to its importance and according to my experience, that there are still many issues with software demonstrations, I consider Software Demonstrations and Training as being its own dimension and not part of the Go-to-Market dimension. Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Software Demonstrations and Training by understanding and rating these success factors: Software Demonstrations, Product Usage-focused Assets, Pre-Sales Enablement, and Product Training. This dimension focuses on the external view of your product, including the target market and customer perception of your product, customer engagements and communities, your customer's support and references, thought leadership, influencer and analyst relations. In short, The Market / Your Customers are an important dimension of product success. Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Software Demonstrations and Training by understanding and rating these success factors: Functional Completeness, Product Quality, Customer Community, Key Customer Support / Official References, Thought Leadership, and Analyst / Influencer Relations. I consider Organizational Maturity as another significant dimension that determines product success. No two organizations are alike and organizational systems are complex. Therefore, maturity models are used to explain organizational systems. Product Organization Maturity models are, like any model, simplifications that highlight the importance and existence of maturity enablers across: Organization and Product Management Leadership, Vision and Strategy Organizational Set-up, Processes and Governance People Mindset supported by Key Principles Templates and Tools Product teams can assess the product's status in terms of Organizational Maturity by un derstanding and rating the success factors listed above. Issues in any of these maturity components can limit and severely harm your product success. In my view, these managing these dimensions and product success factors outlines Holistic Software Product Management . In total, I described 6 dimensions and 31 success factors that determine continuous and sustainable product success. The diagram below illustrates the dimensions and success factors that product managers, product teams, and product organizations need to have on their radar.

I'm super happy to announce that the eBook version of my book is available and can be ordered now! As many of you already know, I worked on a Product Management book over the last 18 months. This is not just another generic PM book that introduces individual tools, or focuses on one dedicated product management aspect. I introduce PYPR, a novel methodology and successful PM approach for holistic product management, that is compatible with your context and everything you know about PM. Different products and different companies need different types of Software Product Management organizations, processes, and governance models. However, any software product company regardless of size, location, or maturity needs to master focus, alignment, and finding the right balance for everything that matters for a successful product no matter the context. Some people would call this: product mindset. My book and the PYPR approach are at its core about instilling a product mindset to any product organization. PYPR might be the missing link for more success - for you, your product, your customers, and your organization. For your convenience you can find a list to the right shop below: EN/ EUR: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-9150423-12898971?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.springer.com%2Fgp%2Fbook%2F9783030198701 DE/ EUR: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-9150423-12898971?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.springer.com%2Fde%2Fbook%2F9783030198701 EN/ USD: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-9150423-12898971?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.springer.com%2Fus%2Fbook%2F9783030198701 EN/ GBP: https://www.dpbolvw.net/click-9150423-12898971?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.springer.com%2Fgb%2Fbook%2F9783030198701 For the ones who prefer physical books like me - the hardcover version will be available in the next 2 weeks, but can be pre-ordered already now. My book is for product managers, product owners, product marketing managers, VPs and Heads of Product, CEOs, and start-up founders. In short, it serves anyone interested personally or professionally in software product management. You’ll learn a new and comprehensive way to plan, coordinate, and execute all activities required for software product success. It enables you to find the right balance for delivering customer value and long-term product success. I invented the Product Yield Potential Radar methodology early on in my career and improved it continuously over the last 20 years. Since the first days, I think about and experiment how to improve the approach to master the job and strengthen the essential focus, alignment, and engagement for product teams and entire organizations. Learn more about PYPR, workshops and training offerings here: https://www.pypr.works/ #productleadership #productmindset #pypr #holisticpm #productmanagement