|
There's a good reason athletes in contact sports wear protective pads. History of the game has proven where injuries are most likely to occur, hence the placement of the pads.
Managing products is a contact sport in many ways. History of the business reveals where injuries are most likely to occur, yet we often disregard the recommended pads.
Think of the product delivery process as the athlete. Think of the roles responsible for each phase as the protective pads. Here's a rundown of typical injuries you'll most likely sustain if you don't wear the recommended pads.
The Body Part: Product Strategy & Planning
The Protective Pad: Product Management
Many organizations use this as a "one size fits all pad" when its primary purpose is to proactively steer products in parallel with the market. The injury you're most likely to sustain is an overabundance of disjointed one-off development projects to satisfy the next big sales opportunity or unhappy customer. The end result is products with lots of features for everyone and few solutions for the market at large.
The Body Part: Functional (User) Design
The Protective Pad: Business Analyst/User Interaction Designer
Many organizations have never considered this pad. Its purpose is to act as a surrogate user so products are designed from the user's perspective first. Without it, your product will pass a physical exam by having the right "checklist" features, but come game time, it will fall flat on its face from poor usability. Future development projects will be disproportionately spent redesigning features from prior releases instead of building new ones, causing serious injury to your competitive position.
The Body Part: Product Development
The Protective Pad: Engineering
No technology organization is without this pad. If there is any issue at all, it's too much padding (relative to other parts of the organization). The likely injury: either great solutions looking for problems, or the greatest products no one has ever heard of.
The Body Part: Product Rollout
The Protective Pad: Product Marketing
Our experience shows this pad missing more than 50% of the time. When missing, expect your sales force to have a noticeable limp since the primary purpose of product marketing is sales readiness and demand generation. Sales credibility is the #1 reason you're customers buy. Don't injure your team before they take the field.
The Body Part: Product Demos
The Protective Pad: Solution Engineer
In many companies, product demos are a second string job for everyone with product expertise. The injury: poor problem discovery and poor preparation make for "show up and throw up" feature demos that bore prospects to tears and delay buying decisions. If your sales pipeline doesn't warrant a dedicated solution engineer, product marketing may need more time in the treatment room.
The Body Part: Customer Implementation
The Protective Pad: Product Consultant
Most organizations have this pad. The risk of injury comes from a lack of necessary training and product knowledge. Good consultants are experts at workarounds that often mitigate the need for yet another "one off" development project. They're also your ticket to strong customer references. Without good ones, expect more development emergencies and poor customer references.
The Body Part: Technical Support
The Protective Pad: Support Technician
See customer implementation.
While protective body pads aren't 100% foolproof in any contact sport, imagine the games if players didn't wear pads. The sheer number of injuries would be incredibly disruptive to the flow of the game not to mention the loss of star athletes. It wouldn't take long to bury the sport under these conditions.
|
