Product Management in Product- vs Client-services Companies
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Slides Sarah Varki recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People. Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community. http://TheProductMentor.com
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Product Management in Product- vs Client-services Companies
- 1. PM in Product vs Client Services Companies Which is the best fit for you?
- 2. Agenda Context Day in the life Measures of Success Pros & Cons Best practices * If not viewing video, see speaker notes for more of intended voiceover! Icons created by @mattkofman 1 2 3
- 3. Context My background Corporate spectrum Digital Early stage Consumer
- 4. Context What does a PM do? … It depends. Own strategy Commit code Wireframe Lead marketing launch Manage P&L QA Herd cats Product Manager you are… janitor, essentially http://bit.ly/PmYouAre
- 5. Context Client Services? AKA Agency work Multiple projects You are the product
- 6. Day in the life... CLIENT-SERVICES standup internal client meeting prep client meeting / workshop / presentation internal regroup project plan & resourcing adjustment / budget builds/follow ups / status sent PRODUCT-BASED daily/weekly meetings (standup, planning, retrospectives) customer interviews / testing status reports roadmapping dog-fooding bug prioritization launch support / Demo’s
- 7. Measures of Success CLIENT-SERVICES client satisfaction educating deliverables budget upsell / new contracts WOM / referrals PRODUCT-BASED timeline/progress internal communication roadmap product KPI’s go to market support
- 9. Services - Pros VARIETY industries user types business models company structures technologies personalities relationship building and... confidence onboarding vendor experience non-team peers non PM-specific skills downtime discovery
- 10. Services - Cons Limitations “expert” juggling time & money “customer” future iterations 3rd parties / old tech and…overhead scope revisits blurred ownership waterfall approvals resource allocation client management politics
- 12. Product - Pros FOCUS domain expert ownership agile flexibility long term roadmap ...internal larger team support priorities stakeholders resources budget
- 13. Product - Cons Comfortable boredom? “know” customers that’s how it’s done ...and of course bloated market saturation product/team axed
- 14. So… now what?
- 15. Best practices CLIENT-SERVICES build confidence every client is important trust summarize avoid “no” client facing vs internal PRODUCT-BASED humble balancing too many cooks vs ivory towers/silos clear obstacles always be prioritizing ship, ship, ship! relationships accessibility availability educate updates translate empathy fill gaps
- 16. The best fit for you Variety? Ownership & control? Downtime? Domain expertise? ..............................what’s important to you?
Editor's Notes
- When thinking of a topic, in the spirit of mentorship, took the POV of advice — what I wish I had known when I first started out in PM (didn’t know agency life was an option) Like many, I didn’t know about PM in college...I discovered and love it, but have taken a while to figure out what’s right for me Sometimes you have learn yourself…hopefully this overview can give you some guidance if this is a potential decision you’d be making At the end of the day you need to ask your self what’s important to you for what you want to experience to further your career Personally I think it’s good to have a variety of experiences to be more well rounded
- Understand what lens I’m using. Everyone's experiences are different Worked across the corporate spectrum — from 8k+ employees to <50 employees, both sides of having all the resources/structure possible to working lean and doing a lot outside of a PM role Have digital experience — desktop software, native mobiles apps, responsive web … no hardware or non physical services Majority of past has been working with early stage product / mvp or v1’s, not older or established products Heavy on consumer — B2B is its own experience and has similar goals as B2C, but has different methodologies, ways to do training, user research, etc. B2C at times could be more of a hybrid, since clients are involved.
- PM is the most ill defined role that depends on company…everyone’s advice comes with a grain of salt since it depends and will be different than your unique situation The rest of the discussions assume you may be touching all of these given the breadth of pm potential responsibilities (BTW - if someone ever asks you what you do, this article is a good answer =)
- AKA agency —have specific focused project / timeline / deliverable … Not on something indefinitely, short term hire to fill a need Dedicated to multiple products Product owner is the client - they have final say … not you or your boss Client is your customer vs end user when its your product
- Services Depends how client facing you are; I was very client facing In addition to the usual PM roles, there is an extra layer of client-related activities If you have a meeting, there is prep and regrouping internally afterwards There is much more related to dealing with finances , budgets, SOWs, etc Client integration/involvement may vary — if not touching base daily, at least weekly to make sure they are part of the process Product What’s more familiar/well known as a consumer0facing product role more of the details day to day more integrated into other arms e.g marketing (vs a client having their own marketing team) day to day analytics of something that is already launched (vs if the client even paid for those services)
- client are they satisfied with the need you are filling? For smaller startups, you’re technical co founder, filling gap of technology not on their team Deliverables could be important if used for angel funding / an investor deck OR even to sell status/progress internally of a bigger firm Business Development was in charge of the initial sale, but if they had a good experience, that will show by having another contract (support the next version, or be introduced elsewhere in a bigger company as a trusted vendor), or in general having positive WOM and other referrals product day to day progress and KPIs are much more important communication and inclusion of internal teams and stakeholders filling the needed roles (e.g. go to market support) successfully / going the extra mile internally
- remember: you’re the product. clients have hired you fill a need
- TLDR: no shortage of exposure … e.g. personally worked on30 different projects/product in 3 years. Variety of all types imaginable — how do different industries work, what are the varied user needs, the different ways to make money, run process, various technology solutions... confidence = learn how to defend your decisions when someone is paying money for it expert onboard, no time to get board you could be one of various vendors on a project to work towards one goal peer reviews come from those in your role but currently working on something completely different other skills — account management, business deveopemt client management, project management, resourcing, budgeting, estimates DOWNTIME! - aka on the beach/bench (consulting), known light at the end of the tunnel to breathe, catch up Time to discover what you like and don’t like…industry, consumer vs enterprise, processes etc
- passable expert — no time to really dig in, feel comfortable Juggling depends on the firm -- some allow dedicated resources, others don’t (bottleneck if on 4 different projects) time & money = stricter deadlines — may encourage MVP, but also challenging if you just have to put in the extra hours to meet a deadline The customer is your client, not the end user Future iteration — all the interesting things come in revisions after you see behavior, but clients rarely want to pay for it or are good to continue on their own, so you don’t get to support or grow the product Tech — one thing that always bothers me with enterprise clients...they are about 10 years behind with technologies..mainly due to heavy security regulations...so we're often requested to build the best, fastest applications within an environment that won't allow that sort of development so it becomes harder to please the client...often I see a lot of push back if we technically CAN'T give them what they want. less of a hand in selecting vendors, may be stuck with sub par vs your preferred vendors Blurred line of ownership (including strategy, marketing/launch) waterfall — not end all be all, but need comfort in approvals and where their money is being spent politics — you in the org...when/how do they get builds & code vs payment
- of course what is great or not great about one side’s experience goes hand in hand with the other
- Have the time to be the domain expert, work on vision BE there next year — own it now and for the indefinite future. grow, support, pivot, tweak Ideally you are in a culture where agile is understood, no need to convince anyone that iterations are important larger team has one vision, the same end user, same priorities stakeholders/politics don’t involve the same risk as losing a client resources and budget are usually more flexible when compared across all internal priorities, not separate paying clients
- boredom is subjective may get too comfortable — set in your ways, used to rhythm don’t challenge the status quo because it works feature fallacy…cash cow….harder to innovate…bloated, add for the sake of having something new if axed, could move elsewhere in the company (vs knowing there is downtime until another project)
- Client — paying of you, build their confidence and trust compromise / let them realize what to descope forest vs trees — they want your recommendations and the high level. details on hand but not as important clear about what is a draft/internal vs external facing comfortable knowing even if the destination changes, you’re keeping the train on track and what’s the next station Product confident but not a dictator, you’re not always right, involve others be the janitor, make your team most efficient shipping externally for the company (vs new builds updating the client before an actual launch) both available & accessible!! educating a client = tech support, process….team: roadmap, vision, why pivoting updating = client next steps vs stakeholder or team for pivots empathy = client user experience vs their SME, internally the voice of the customer and you’re the SME filling gaps = client may need account manager or project manager, internally may need QA descaling always happens, but the process is different if for a client vs internally
- there is no right answer depth vs breadth you decide what is best for your own career path & learning personally glad I was able to experience both sides and decide what worked best for me longer term