3 Ways Product Management Can Improve Its Stock

1.  Leadership

ProductManagement is the one function in the company that should have the most wellrounded perspective of the market dynamics, target customer needs and theircollective relationship to your business.  

Stronger leadership means taking the initiative to constantly socialize themarket and business perspective to marketing, sales, services, engineering,finance, etc. to ensure it's at the foundation of everything you do as acompany.  It also makes life easier for product management if everyone hasthe same view of the world.  If necessary, brush up on your presentationand sales skills.

2.  Objectivity

ProductManagement is the one and only function that can be the conscience of theorganization because everyone else gets paid to focus on a slice of thebusiness such as sales, finance, customer support, technology, investorrelations, etc.  Product Management needs to be the voice of reason sincemany of its constituents are on the highly emotional front lines. 

Oneof the best ways to keep objectivity at the forefront of emotional decisions isto use a single version of market data and business assumptions for every majorinitiative, and don't embark on anything that won't yield a minimum ROI. Continue to reinforce the value of the current plan as it relates to theobjectives of the organization.  It's a great way to keep everyone focusedon the most important things.

Somepeople are great thinkers and others are great doers.   Productmanagers need to be good at both, a key reason the great ones are so hard tofind.

Productlifecycles have both planning and execution phases.  Be more consciousabout when to flip your switch from planning to execution mode.  Greatproduct management can be achieved by spending 20% of your time crafting andselling a well thought out plan and 80% executing it.  As distractionsoccur, refer back to point #2 above.

Ifyour product management team wants to increase its value to the organization, send them to Product Management University - Portfolio Management where they'll learn how simpleit is to be well balanced and lead the organization with great objectivity.

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