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The Product Management IQ (PMIQ) of your organization
refers to the cross-organizational discipline required to be a market driven
product company, not just on a product by product basis, but across all
products and all factions including marketing, sales, finance and product
development, to name a few.
Why is an organization's PMIQ important?
It can reveal operational imbalances and misalignments that
may otherwise go unnoticed and negatively impact revenue and profitability. The
higher an organization's PMIQ, the greater the operational balance and
alignment across all disciplines to a common set of market-driven objectives.
Measure the PMIQ of your organization by answering 10 simple
questions.
- Ideas
for New Products/New Markets
- a.
If it sounds good and people get excited about it, we chase it ("shiny
new thing" syndrome).
- b.
We have a process for evaluating new initiatives and they must meet
certain quantitative and qualitative criteria before resources are
committed.
- Assessing
/Analyzing Markets
- a.
Each product line evaluates markets for its own products even though
multiple product lines serve the same markets. Sales and marketing may
differ further.
- b.
We evaluate markets at a corporate level to determine which segments are
most conducive to meeting our revenue, profitability and market share
goals before making product and marketing investment decisions.
- Strategy
- a.
Every department/product line has its own strategy that rolls up to form
the corporate strategy.
- b.
Corporate strategy and goals are largely based on market opportunities and
all departments/product lines collectively align and prioritize
initiatives to support the strategy.
- Product
Plans & Roadmaps
- a.
Each product line has its own plans and roadmaps.
- b.
We have a strategic product roadmap that's rationalized with all product
lines and key market segments to dictate R&D priorities.
- Defining
Market, Customer & User Needs
- a.
Market, customer and user needs are written in a way that makes sense
only if you understand our products.
- b.
Market, customer and user needs are written in a way that almost anyone
can understand internalize, and repeat them. Product knowledge not
required.
- Product
Usability
- a.
There is little/no focus or dedicated resources for product usability
- b.
We have dedicated user interaction designers and usability experts and
see it as a way to differentiate from the competition
- Product
Development
- a.
Most of our product development initiatives and resources are allocated
to customer specific needs or contractual obligations made in prior
sales.
- b.
Most of our product development initiatives and resources are allocated
to strategic growth goals and objectives.
- Product
Rollouts (Major Upgrade or New Product)
- a.
When development of a product is complete, it's deemed ready to roll out.
- b.
Our rollout process emphasizes knowledge transfer, training and cross
functional readiness to ensure we can successfully market, sell and
support customers on day one.
- Positioning
& Messaging
- a.
The bold headings, graphics and other things that stand out in our marketing
literature are mostly about product features or benefits.
- b.
The bold headings, graphics and other things that stand out in our
marketing literature are about issues or situations experienced by our
target customers.
- Product
Management & Product Marketing
- a.
Both roles are combined.
- b.
We have separate roles for each.
PMIQ Score
Total the number of questions where "answer b" more
accurately describes your organization, then use the following guide to
determine your PMIQ.
- PMIQ
of 9 -10
You're in the product management genius category and probably have the
revenue and profitability numbers to back it! Tell us who you are and
we'll publish your company name here. The product world could use more
like you.
- PMIQ
of 7-8
Superior product management intelligence. Market leadership is a chip shot
away.
- PMIQ
of 5-6
Average product management intelligence. Greater market focus and stronger execution will improve your PMIQ quickly.
- PMIQ
of 1-4
Your senior executives may not understand the purpose of product
management and product marketing and their criticality to the overall
success of the company. Alternatively, you may have corporate
attention deficit disorder.
If you need to elevate your PMIQ,
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for a program to address your specific needs.
Our framework goes beyond merely creating market-driven products
and managing them. It's a model for creating market driven product companies
and growing them by determining the market segments most conducive to growing
the company as a whole, creating a strategy to penetrate those markets then
delivering the best mix of products, marketing messages and sales tools to
execute the strategy. This approach ensures a consistent focus across all
disciplines and eliminates competing silos that unnecessarily consume
resources. It's simple and practical.
Market leadership begins in product management and product
marketing.
I've heard an interesting comment multiple times from Sales, Engineering as well as PM folks -- Small and Medium companies don't see the need to pay for PMs since Sales and Engineering put their heads together and roll out products. What's been your experience and I wonder if it will be valuable to show importance of PMs -- more so because companies actually "don't save, but lose revenue" if they don't hire PMs. Vaishali Angal, Comments, 01.27.2010
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