Product ManagementOrganizational Structure to Maximize Impact

Where should the role of Product

Manager be placed?

Marketing

R&DProfessional

Services

Marketing

Pros:

Market analysis/driven

Can speak the jargon and

monitors industry trends

Can usually create great,

visually-oriented

documentation/collateral

Cons:

Usually too externally focused

Easy to get disconnected from

operations and delivery

Often seen as too much flash

and too little substance

Placing the Project Management function

within the Marketing Organization is the most

common location. This spot is great for sales

driven organizations, but often causes

enormous contention internally, and requires

some balancing to be managed well.

Research & Development

Pros:

Strong roots in existing product strengths and weaknesses -- often easier to find/pick-off low hanging fruit and enhance existing or related features already present in product

Drive towards a strong internal strategic vision of the product and future plans for positioning

Build strong relationships with technical teams, and help cultivate their ideas into new and unique features

Cons:

Easy to become too internally focused and not paying enough attention to competition/market trends

Can be seen as too tech and not enough marketing -- down to the development of good marketing collateral

Just because something is a logical technical choice doesn't mean there is a market for it, driving from inside the product can stunt growth and miss market-driven opportunities

Placing the Product Management function in

the R&D team is most often done in heavily

technical environments that devote

considerable resources to coming up with

new ideas and technologies. This is a good

place to put the role if a company is looking

to build something completely original that

the market has never seen before,

when/where market disruption is the key.

Professional Services

Pros:

The more a PM understands how customers are using the product, what they like, what they don't like, the easier/better it is to drive improvements

Close alignment with PS can help with better implementations, scoping and fueling the product roadmap

Since projects usually run off the rails during implementation, having product improvement opportunities driven from an implementation perspective can help drive time-to-market efficiencies with implementations

Cons:

Too easy to get pulled into daily project fires instead of staying out of the mix and focusing on the future

Easy to get focused on what current clients are doing instead of monitoring the market and competitors

Role gets too tactical and not strategic enough

Placing the Product Management function in

Professional Services is rare, but not unheard

of. It is a logical place to put the role in

client-driven organizations that lack

sufficient management oversight in other

areas. The tactical nature of this

organization is rarely seen as the optimal

location for a strategic function like product

vision, however, because they often (should)

have different viewpoints.

Placing the Product Manager Function

My recommendation would be to put PM under Marketing in the early stages, for the following reasons:

External focus is key for organization to address perception issues in the market about solution offering

Unique nature of the product requires evaluating competitive space differently to slice across relevant market spheres

“Pretty” counts and some polished style on top of the already-existing substance will help speak to the issues product has struggled with to date in competitive situations.

Mitigating the Challenges of this structure would require considering/addressing the following:

Cultivating yet not antagonizing the natural tug-of-war that exists (and which should exist) between Product and Professional Services.

Driving the collection of product feedback from both PS teams (on implementations) and clients (on features and functions), and folding them into the roadmap.

Getting deep enough into R&D to understand the technical strengths and weaknesses, but staying removed enough to balance that against the outside world’s expectations and competitive landscape.

Ways to Balance the Influence

Marketing

R&DProfessional

Services

Recommended Product

Management influences:

• 50% Marketing

• 30% R&D

• 20% Professional Services

Influence Mix on Product Management

Differentiating the product from the rest of the market is key – but not enough. The Product Manager also needs to know why it’s different and then help develop the language that makes those differences clear to prospects and the market at large.

R&D and PS should have HUGE inputs into the direction of the product, but they should NOT be the tails that wag the dog. R&D and PS are reflective of what has been done to date above all else – not about the vision for the future. Underlying technical capabilities (R&D) and client wants/needs (PS) should be seriously considered, but not at the expense of the rest of the outside world.

The individual strengths, weaknesses, affinities and sympathies of a particular candidate will heavily influence how this truly plays out. The above recommendation is made without candidate-specifics in consideration.