where should product management report

Spreadsheets are the worst. Also learn the difference between a mission and objective and how to identify which stage your product is in. Efficient, versatile reports product managers need a better way to view product and team success. Somebody is in fire-fighting department, how can they be good in civil architecture and design of buildings? Essentially, just because you can do it should not be the only reason to do it. These shifts represent an acknowledgement of product management as a strategic driver for the companys growth. When Product Management rolls into other areas of the business (e.g. Marketing naturally is an external facing function that is responsible for identifying the target market, figuring out the product positioning and figuring out what will make prospects buy. The collaborations include Engineering, IT/Ops, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Finance, Analytics, and other service functions. Appointing a product management executive sends a signal to the organization that product is just as important as the other functions. Companies with less than $1 million in total revenue often have product management reporting directly to the CEO. Vice Presidents and department heads have a natural inclination to support their primary departments role. Before we answer this question, let us make sure we are aligned on the role of a product manager. Many CEOs realize that product management brings process and business savvy to the creation and delivery of products. If product management aligns to technology, sparkly easier things go on the roadmap. CEO? The key to becoming truly audience centric and more effective as a marketing org is to deepen your buyer insights. I definately agree with this & this is the way many of the LARGE development companies do it (e.g. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Recognizing that existing and future products need different levels of attention, some companies split the product management job into smaller bits: one group is responsible for next years products while another group provides sales and marketing support for existing products. There are many different ways to organize any software company. How Marketing Operations Leaders Set Clear Boundaries Using Project Acceptance And Prioritization Strategies, Forresters Buyer Insights Reports Reveal Current Business Drivers And Buying Behaviors. Even better, the report is totally configurable so you can display the most relevant information for your team." And the VP of Sales, focused on new sales revenue, uses product managers to achieve that goal; product managers become demo boys and demo girls who support sales people one deal at a time. Would you have salespeople report to your CTO? (As David Oglivy said, Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.) Product strategy and execution is too crucial to company success and growth to be subsumed under another function. How do you allocate sprint capacity across features, bugs, maintenance, and technical debt? Why should products not be reported to CTO? author, speaker, consultant; former VP of Products @ Pragmatic Marketing. Seeing the ideas grouped by organization or segment is a great way to understand which types of customers voted for a particular idea. "The calendar report provides a nice visual for all your in-progress work. These reports provide the type of data necessary for the company's managers to successfully run the business. And it does make sense-if marketing is defining and delivering products. Product Management looks at the needs of the entire business and the entire market. In addition to ensuring the team is focused on strategically important work, leadership wants to see the actual cost of what has been prioritized. Thanks Gopal for posting insightful and valuable topics. XaaS Product Management Optimize your Product Management organization to accelerate the success of your as-a-service business. Will this automatically make your products great? Such a remit makes the case for a Product Management function reporting directly to the CEO or business unit general manager. In a small company, all of these functions are performed by one person. His entire focus is on time-lines ready to compromise on QA, ready to scope-out (PM suggested) functionality/feature. In this survey of over 300 product managers, the majority told us that they report into marketing. Stay tuned for updates from the Forrester blogs. Product Management executives are responsible for strategy, offer portfolio and pricing design, product user experience, and lifecycle management. . Job Opening: Consulting Director, Product Management at SiriusDecisions. Would you have developers report to your CSO? This week, we asked you where PMs should report: marketing, engineering, or somewhere else. I'm wondering if the answers here impacted the product manager organizational structure at your company @Dave Gray? Across all sectors of hardware, software, and SaaS, it is now clearly a majority practice for the CPO to report centrally. Placing product management under marketing can hinder the working relationship between product management and the technology or engineering function, due to engineerings perceptions (accurate or not) of marketing. Because Product Management is primarily a strategic function (as opposed to Product Owner, which is more technical), it should be located close to the top from that strategic perspective. In large companies, they are performed by four departments. The central CPO reporting relationship is correlated with the volume of recurring revenue with SaaS leading the way and software not too far behind. The upside of being in the Sales & Marketing group is that you are close to the customers. Optimize your professional services business, including delivery, pricing, and utilization. She also serves as TSIAs vice president of XaaS product management research. Disconnected from product strategy. Product relevancy (to the core business) and cash flow (the product generates in relationship to the companys product portfolio) also have an impact. The increase in workers can provide additional income, growing people's per capita income and economic growth. He is quite right. In my opinion, the best spot for product Sep 8, 2012 - In an organization, where should product management report to? I was pulled into a situation when sales team were losing a bid to our competitor, and asked me to suggested a workaround in our existing product functionality so that their bid can be successful. In large companies, they are performed by four departments. You can pinpoint the areas your customers are most interested in and use these insights for decision-making. Plus, the marketing organization has so many other responsibilitiesdemand generation, sales enablement, product marketing, field marketing, brand, PR, analyst relationsthat product management can get lost in the shuffle. Most companies have a marketing executive and a technology executive, and there are executives in sales, operations, legal and human resourcesso why not a product executive? Call us at (858) 674-5491 or we can call you. Claire George. But consider the exact same discussion and same research is being done in UX communities, and UX researchers and designers have concluded that UX belongs in its own function, with a VP of UX. This VP focuses the product management group on the business of the product. Anyone related to Product Management will recognize this concept, because it underpins the role of modern Product Management to this day. In the capacity- product is an independent guild - the VP product reports to the CEO. You don't h. Where should product management sit on the org chart? Now, what is your opinion where Product/Portfolio Marketing should live? Would you have salespeople report to your CTO? Whoif anyoneis identifying market problems for the next round of products? Then why would you have a product manager report to anyone but a product management executive? You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab. In that situation, I agree that having a VP Product Management reporting the the CEO makes sense. Aah, the old org structure question. In an organization, where should product management report to? Instantly convert your chart into a pivot table using the Change view type dropdown. Were hoping you can settle this debate for us. It is very difficult to say a specific department is the right home for Product Managers in an Organization. Who should it report to?. This reporting relationship enables the function (again with the collection of persona roles) to maintain a 360 view of the business, be customer- and market-focused, and collaborate across the organization with whoever and whatever is needed to bring new solutions to market and continually iterate on their delivery motions. Ron builds lovable products. You also want to be able to filter and sort data to show different views product goals by status, ideas submitted by customers, and planned features, just to name a few. Do not forget to stop and celebrate how much you have accomplished!" In Development, product managers shepherd the development projects; in Marketing, they provide technical content; in Sales, they become sales support engineers. Good post, thanks for sharing your thoughts. With an increase in capital stock, production capacity and quality will also increase. So IT department is headed by CIO. One of my favorite CTOs once described his title as a 'glorified product manager'. Learn what to measure and how to avoid vanity metrics during each stage of the product life cycle: development, launch, growth, maturity and decline. Always a good topic. Product management needs a stronger and consistent presence from an executive who can make decisions. (None, happily, are in Sales). Pragmatic Institute is the transformational partner for todays businesses, providing immediate impact through actionable and practical training for product, design and data teams. Traditional consumer companies have always considered product management to be a marketing role, which is why it seems to make sense to put product management there. Difficult Customer Conversations. I suspect that as digital products as a thing matures organisational structures will continue to vary. I agree with many of the sentiments outlined here. The People, Products and Strategies courseware was designed to assist engineering and business students in visualizing and understanding the fundamental concepts that govern todays new product development and manufacturing strategies within successful industry companies new product development, various functional roles of people and the principles, and practice and strategies that drive todays businesses. One of two things often happens to strong, business-focused product managers working inside the technology organization. That isn't terrible, unless the Marketing function is mostly aligned to communication. The product manager reports either to the head of product of the company or to the company's CEO. Receive weekly news and trends from ProductCraft. Leading product organizations include not only the product management function, but also related functions like pricing, user experience and product operations. During the mid-1970s to mid-1980s product management was designated as a part of . At Wix, PMs are not part of engineering or marketing. Stay current on the latest technology industry trends. Company size and Company business model. Optimize hardware service delivery and drive digital transformation with IoT and Big Data. The Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA) is dedicated to helping technology and services organizations large and small grow and advance in the technology industry. They are slowly transformed into technical product managers (due to the strong technology orientation that comes from that group) instead of what the business really needs someone to take responsibility for the commercial success of the product. the worlds #1 product development software, The 6 Principles of Strategic Product Roadmapping. Most of these heads dont go beyond sales deals/bids, what competitor can offer etc. And, if it reports to Support, it ends up working an enhancement list. This function does not exist (to best of my knowledge) in product based companies like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe etc. Would you have accountants report to your VP of human resources? A thing I noticed over the last few years is the word "management" has been dropped from the title - so folks are now Director of Product, VP of Product, etc. Tipping too far to one side of the spectrum can cause issues like loss of market share because you do not have a good pulse on what your potential customers needs are. In the chart below you can see the percentage of product management executives who directly report to the CEO or Business Unit GM across different sectors (Hardware (HW), software (SW), and SaaS. So, this option of CIO is ruled out. Create, optimize, and grow channel programs for as-a-service offerings. Ron has more than 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship and leading product teams. 2022 Pendo.io, Inc. All rights reserved. It also increases pressure on the CPOs team to create and monetize value for growth and scale, and to engage across the organization to achieve that goal. Where should product management sit on the org chart? Answer (1 of 6): I would rephrase the question slightly to: Where should Product Management report to? Who is the VP of market problems? About the Author:Jeff Lash is the Service Director of theProduct Management advisory serviceatSiriusDecisions, the leading global b-to-b research and advisory firm. Case in point, the Product Management Customer Success collaboration is one that never existed before. In larger companies, there are often separate product management groups within each business unit. We have seen a shift where product managers report into over the years. Applying Data Analysis to Strategy: A Proven . Even Gopal hasnt considered this in pic at all. and also talk about the changing shape of product management leadership and what it means for organizational structures. In the case of startups, they often report to the CEO. Product management requires a combination of strategic thinking, problem-solving skills, and a relentless focus on customer needs and delivering the right product at the right time. These companies often add a product marketing component to the marketing communications effort, supporting them with market information and product content. This is one of the most straightforward ways to grow a product team. 1) When Product Managers report into Engineering they may get too entrenched in an engineering mindsettoo internally focused. Your email address will not be published. 6. Organizations not realizing the value of strong product function, eventually fail to fully capitalize on their offering's true market potential. As companies grow, the product management role entails three or four functions: product strategy, technical product management, product marketing, and field marketing. Before we answer this question, let us make sure we are aligned on the role of a product manager. I like @gabriel's chart for showing various places in the org. For software companies that have VP Marketing from the capital M school, Marketing is a perfect place for Product Management to reside. Who should it report to?. No. Product marketing doesn't have to report into product management to make this happen in the same way it doesn't have to report into sales to enable the sales force. Citrix Hypervisor provides a convenient mechanism for users to collect a variety of debugging information when opening a support case, known as a Server Status Report in XenCenter, or xen-bugtool on the CLI. You want to spend your time building features not just reporting on them. For sure Product Management should NOT report to engineering function. Product Marketing Manager: Who owns what? Erin Ward. the worlds #1 product development software. If youre interested, or know someone who might be, view the job posting and apply on LinkedIn (the job posting is also on our web site). The truth is, it doesnt matter where product management reports. It depends. Having a Product Manager reporting to Marketing is just asking for short term, disasterous vision. Tom Bailey. Where should Product Management report?'' Product proliferation is a danger; multi-divisional companies are the main culprits of a "Products A-Z" menu on their web site, leaving customers little opportunity to understand what the company . In the case of startups, they often report to the CEO. My favorite placement is reporting to the CEO or CTO. One product manager per product (or feature). September Practitioners Workshop: Learn about Top-Down Product Management for B2B. Product managers report into different departments, often depending on the size,focus and culture of the organization. Traditional consumer companies have always considered product management to be a marketing role, which is why it seems to make sense to put product management there. HSBCs main function is banking but to support all this they need IT. Increase user adoption and grow your customers by bridging the gap between the promise of technology and customer outcomes. It could be possible but it is too sweeping and broad to make PM a full-fledged function. Product managers traditionally report into Marketing or Engineering in large organizations. If the CEO is the onse setting the strategy, the Product Manager should either report to that or at least have an advisory role. So, product management should get its rightful position as a standalone unit in the organization. Good points Jeff Lash! Product managers need to report on status to leadership and other teams. Hewlett Packard was one of the very first tech companies to recognize the need for Product Management. If you are a vice president, director or team leader for a product management function, one of the biggest challenges you face today is how to demonstrate the team is making a significant contribution to top line or bottom line targets. Is there a second best place for product management? Streamline your technical and customer support operations to deliver outcomes and delight your customers. Confused about the differences between product plans and release plans? Somebody in comments above suggested CIO. That way the CEOs vision gets communicated quickly and accurately to PMs. This places the CPOs hands on the ship's steering wheel. History of Placement. In a large percentage of leading organizations, we see the product management executive as a peer to the CMO and technology leader (usually a CIO, CTO or VP of engineering), as well as other functions like sales and finance. Product managers traditionally report into Marketing or Engineering in large organizations. This is an easy one to answer: Product management should report to a product management executive. So you find yourself painstakingly updating the same reports again and again. However, the CEO or COO of the company ultimately has the veto power over nearly any direction that . You have hundreds of them if you are a product manager. i.e. This data is captured from TSIA's annual organizational survey. Placing product management under the technology or engineering function often transforms the role into that of a feature order taker vs. a strategic business leader. To succeed, B2B marketing functions must manage various processes, each delivering specific outputs for stakeholders. Strategy is not optional. What matters is how the head of the organization holds product management accountable. Currently it's a CTO department, with the CTO also being head of development. The downside is that you are influenced heavily by the whims of sales and if you create a pricing strategy that the sales leadership does not like it can be career-limiting. As we begin to explore this topic of reporting relationships, lets first start with examining the demands of the business model under which Product Management is creating and monetizing value, and the functions and relationships that are important in that context. The PAC is a new online collaboration space for product professionals to work together to exchange the tools, examples and tactics that move the needle. The respective personas in the broader Product Management function include the following: Achieving the goals of sustainable recurring revenue growth, Product Management needs to actively collaborate across the organization in ways that traditional Product Management did not. Again Gopal is right. This role ensures sourced product meets the quality, design, and sustainability standards of the business and is produced and delivered within cost and margin . Forrester has just. Are there any new insights or opinions you can report back to thecommunity and share? Then, view multiple reports on an interactive dashboard to see all KPIs in one place. Sure, its a flippant answer, but it makes an important point. Of course not. They are slowly transformed into technical product managers (due to the strong technology orientation that comes from that group) instead of what the business really needs someone to take responsibility for the commercial success of the product. I have read some casual and flippant answers to that question like Product Management should report to a Product Management executive, but the real question to ask and answer is to whom the most senior Product Management executive should report to and what are the trends across hardware, software, and XaaS companies? CEOs in Medium-Large organizations are dependent on the head of product management since they are fully overloaded. The product manager reports either to the head of product of the company or to the company's CEO. Plus, the marketing organization has so many other responsibilities demand generation, sales enablement, product marketing, field marketing, brand, PR, analyst relations that product management can get lost in the shuffle. He has broader vision for whole organization. The strategies emphasized include the use of crossfunctional teams, concurrent engineering, design for manufacturing and design for environment, DFM, DFA, green design. If you believe you are seeing this message in error, Answer (1 of 3): Who should product managers report to? In addition, there needs to be a tie to the P&L owner. start a free 30-day trial. In big corporations, product managers (PM) tend to report to a VP of sales and Marketing or a Senior VP of Product development. Sales? Contact our account team for pricing and availability. The scrum.org page about product owners describes how this person is the interface between the scrum team and the rest of the world. We have on-premise as well as cloud/mobile solutions in our portfolio. Lets take a look at the facts to find out where your Product Management team belongs in your organization. What reports do you use the most as a product manager? And, does it matter? They get frustrated by the focus on technology over business and market and end up leaving for greener pastures where they can practice true product management and where their full range of skills are more appreciated. To my understanding, PM people are few and thoughtful people. Agreed. Product reporting can be so much more than a tedious necessity it can be downright thrilling to visualize the results of your efforts and anticipate what lies ahead. About SiriusDecisions:SiriusDecisionsempowers the world's leading marketing, product and sales leaders to make better decisions, execute with precision and accelerate growth. In the capacity- product is an independent guild - the VP product reports to the CEO. It should never report to VP of engineering or development though. Large enterprises, and I would expect there to be a formal, central Product Management organization, where the BU product managers have at least a dotted line to the corporate function. Although in the past I have been a CMO with Marketing and Product Management responsibility, the world of marketing has changed so dramatically that this model is no longer the ideal. One of the best ways to do this is with a features shipped each month's report. Custom worksheets are available for Enterprise+ customers to perform powerful data analysis. These shifts represent an acknowledgement of product management as a strategic driver for the companys growth. View the entire XaaS Product Management track and make your plans to be a part of this valuable virtual experience on May 4-6. Engg. PMs then risk not focusing on delivering the product features and meeting release miles stones-too externally focused. No matter how good your marketing, sales, channel or brand, if you dont have good products, youre sunk. "I love looking at the ideas that customers submit. However, weve seen a shift away from this in recent years. At the risk of asking a controversial question, what makes Product Management more special than these other functions? Find out how you can achieve success, too. This focus on dynamic instruction and continued learning has delivered impactful education to over 200,000 alumni worldwide over the last 30 years. PM function is for Product-based companies. Structure your organization, develop your go to market strategy, and grow your managed services business. In other words, what does success look like for a product manager? Where should product management sit on the org chart? That is why it is not surprising that a good number of product managers report directly to the CEO, acting as his or her representative at the product level. We also have guilds - professional organizations- server, fed, UX, etc. Products managers reporting into Engineering or Marketing or some other department is completely dependent on an Organization. Product management has become a key role within most organizations and startups as it combines product development with experimentation to create a successful product in the market. 2) Sales Heads: Pragmatic Institutes design practice has launched! Product Management in its independent role is the project leader aligning the Organziations strategy with all Departments within the organization to develop consensus for any given product/service. This data is captured from TSIAs annual organizational survey. Working through the inner-workings of a B-to-B company to help identify a Product strategy can help boost the long-term goals. Add a progress field to individual goals and automatically calculate it from related initiatives. This review provides the historical context and explains which department product managers should belong and report to. Deirdre Clarke. There is even movement in the QA community to have QA be its own function. presentation or generating a secure webpage. But doesnt this get to be overkill? This will open up opportunities for employment needs. We already have people focused on product, promotion and place. . 7) My suggestion: Director Strategy Applying the Designers Toolkit to Business Strategy, 8 Ways You Can Gain Influence with Storytelling. Maximize technology investments to improve the end-to-end customer experience. Pendo trademarks, product names, logos and other marks and designs are trademarks of Pendo.io, Inc. or its subsidiaries and may not be used without permission. If you cant measure your teams effectiveness, or if you are focused on the wrong metrics, your headcount and budget allocation could be at risk. At TSIA, we like to separate the facts from opinions and hunches. But even thornier than the definitional question is the issue of where should product managers report. Peter Drucker reports in Management Challenges for the 21st Century that organization charts really dont fix problems; process and personnel problems are never solved by a re-org. To my understanding, PM should report to VP/Director of Strategy. It is possible though that with a decent customer base, it just becomes a prioritization exercise for what customers want rather than what the market needs. Engineering-Head is more focused on delivering product on time-lines. 2) The company would set strategic goals that are at least influenced by the Product Manager and the reality of the markets, resources and products, instead of risking being set by leaders that don't know what it is possible or realistic. As with all things "Product Management," the answer is "It depends.". PRODUCTCRAFT IS JOINING FORCES WITH MIND THE PRODUCT // READ THE ANNOUNCEMENT, HARNESS THE POWER OF PENDO FOR FREE // GET STARTED, HOW IS YOUR PRODUCT ENGAGEMENT LOOKING? Certainly the VP Engineering is often completely clueless about how UX and QA work. You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.Link to read me page with more information. Would you have salespeople report to your CTO? Share ideas insights by adding the report to an Aha! All rights reserved. Market-driven companies are more profitable, twice as fast in getting new products to market, and have higher customer satisfaction levels. This alignment has historical roots in the tech industry. I think (apart from being simply cool) it is a trend towards recognizing that "product" and its management is equal to other functions and as you point out should be independent from Tech and Marketing. No matter how good your marketing, sales, channel or brand, if you dont have good products, youre sunk. As companies grow, the product management role entails three or four functions: product strategy, technical product management, product marketing, and field marketing. Customer Support? Is it under marketing? Including your organization's logo or seal takes the report's appearance to the next level. 2022 Forrester Research, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Placing product management under the technology or engineering function often transforms the role into that of a feature order taker vs. a strategic business leader. And, does it matter? For technical people, writing market requirements was a low priority and deep technical knowledge was highly valued. The Global Cloud-based Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Market Report provides In-depth analysis on the market status of the Cloud-based Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Top manufacturers with . And the data is never accurate for long. Appointing a product management executive sends a signal to the organization that product is just as important as the other functions. Defining product management is hard enough role boundaries and organizational structures vary widely between companies. 4) CIO: Our actionable market intelligence, strategic frameworks and expert guidance enable product leaders to collaborate with sales and marketing teams to execute across the full product lifecycle. But if you are new to Aha! Exotic ingredients, specialty cookware, and professional techniques it takes more than instructions to cook a, Build lovable products and be happy doing it, Aha! As a product manager, collecting information about your product performance, its features, the market adoption, etc., is essential. Each company is unique. But when product management reports to another group (e.g. This review provides the historical context and explains which department product managers should belong and report to. In many organizations, there is another lineage of hierarchy Director Strategy. Decentralized product marketing creates some issues, however. How do you approach naming products and features? and also talk about the changing shape of product management leadership and what it means for organizational structures. The product managers become the sales engineers. At some point, where do we draw the line? But when product management reports to another group (e.g. I'm interested to hear how others handle their product manager organizational structure. No. In smaller organization, it is often part of Marketing, reporting to a CMO who is a peer to the Product Executive that I refer to in this piece. All rights reserved. Focusing too much on potential customers (aka sales) creates friction and dissatisfaction with your current customer base creating extra work for your internal teams because your (once loyal) customers are now out to bid with your competitors. Background Info for the September BPMA Career Night. 23 metrics for the user journey, which is the path a user takes while interacting with your product (sometimes called a flow funnel). There is a slight danger here of product management becoming marketing driven than market driven, but I think with the right leadership this can be avoided. Included in Full Research. Hardware companies are a step behind the pure SW sector, but are making strides to catch up to this organizational reporting trend. It is frustrating and time-intensive. I am certainly biased, but the Somewhere Else of a Products organization that is a C-Level reporting function that brings together PM, Dev, and Ops is my ideal answer. But they are all part of product management. In as-a-service business models, the Product Management goal is designing value propositions that customers love that deepen the customer relationship over time and that result in sustainable scalable XaaS growth. I recommend this chart view of trending ideas grouped by product category. But when product management reports to another group (e.g. Technology Consumption and Data Analytics. In 2021, Semarang had the most considerable number of workers in Central Java, which was 936,076. What is the difference between a Business Analyst vs. a Product Manager. When PM is in engineering, they tend to be responsible for supporting the engineers (not necessarily business goals); when PM is in marketing, they tend to support the marcom and solutions marketing folks (campaigns and leads rather than business goals). Then you monetize that value through a sustainable recurring revenue engine that the organization and the partner ecosystem is optimized to sell and continuously service. Would you have accountants report to your VP of human resources? When I was in business school 20+ years ago, we used the phrase capital M marketing to mean a definition of marketing that was strategic. (As David Oglivy said, Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.) Product strategy and execution is too crucial to company success and growth to be subsumed under another function. I think Steve hit the nail on the head by stating whatworks for others may not work for you. This is why it is key to have a clear understanding of the organizations expectations and understanding of Product Management this varies by company and there isnt a one size fits all approach.. But once product teams define and set strategy, it is easy to fall into the trap of 'set and forget.' Roadmaps includes over 75 reporting templates to help kickstart your analysis. marketing, technology), it may be more difficult to produce good products. free for 30 days. All of this is possible but where can it be the most effective? As explained in David Packards book The HP Way, the company leveraged the Product Management concept to create sustained year-on-year growth of 20% between 1943 and 1993. Do you agree? They are cumbersome to use. They present communication of business results, risk, and issues created by managers for executive management, managers, or governance bodies. Each one of them has interests and goals which are not aligned, 100%, with product management. We were partially prompted to ask this because of a surprising finding in the recently published State of Product Leadership. He is the VP of Product Management and UX at Aha! Now, that's not to say that conflicts never occur with the CEO/COO of a company, should the PM report directly to him or her. The slides shown below are my opinions on why it should not report into sales or engineering or customer support. Top product managers use a . So, whats the answer? Product management should be under VP products or VP product management that reports directly to the CEO. Along with the seat at the table comes the remit for full business responsibility for revenue growth resulting from adoption, retention, cross sell, and upsell. Will this automatically make your products great? In my opinion, the best spot for product Jan 23, 2014 - In an organization, where should product management report to? According to this survey we found the following: To learn more about the state of product management in XaaS, please refer to the State of XaaS Product Management: 2021 research report. Our courses are taught by industry experts with decades of hands-on experience, and include a complete ecosystem of training, resources and community. Managing software products and services even before Product Management became cool, Sr. A search for that term shows 2.8B search results (yes, thats billion with a B). And, Have you ever tried to follow a complicated recipe? Consequently, during the mid-1980s to mid-1990s executive management moved product management and placed it as a part of marketing. We examine what the trend data tells us and what practices are correlated with success. What we werent surprised to find, however, was that our debaters came down firmly on somewhere else. Bona fide product leaders (VP of Product and CPO), they both believe that product management has a special role that should have a unique reporting line outside of marketing and engineering. Placing product management under marketing can hinder the working relationship between product management and the technology or engineering function, due to engineerings perceptions (accurate or not) of marketing. He can be reached at Kishore.elimineti@gmail.com. Each product or feature (if individual features are large and complex enough) gets its own product manager. "A go-to report of mine is a pivot table for calculating initiative cost by product. That way all the issues reported by the customer on products will be clearly communicated to the Product Mangers by Product Support team. I really think this would depend on the size of the organization and the stage of the company. I'd like to hear what happens in your org in terms of prioritization and how do you get over the innovator's dilemma. Small m marketing usually was tactical, focusing on sales and market communication (advertising, trade shows, logos, etc.). If they are mired into hierarchy, then essence of product management function will be lost. Modern management reports should be interactive and provide a set of filters that allow users to navigate the data and extract deeper conclusions from it. In my opinion, the best spot for product management is to have it report directly to the CEO. Then why would you have a product manager report to anyone but a product management executive? So I also asked our team to share their favorites. 6) VP Product Management: I would expect that central group to provide formal documentation, processes, and structure to the role, remove conflicts, and have some master strategy overall. focused orgs dwindle since they fail the discipline of not doing things that there isn't a market for. Since Customer Success is a relatively new organization that sprang up in response to the need to proactively engage with customers to ensure they are adopting these recurring revenue offers and realizing the full intended value created by Product Management. Build beautiful product reports in Aha! Thank you for posting this question I found all the answers extremely helpful! But even thornier than the definitional question is the issue of where should product managers report. I believe the key is balance. 2022 Pragmatic Institute. Rose Thompson. Companies thrive or fail based on product performance, and products are the lifeblood of an organization. Should product managers report to engineering? This assumes that the executive team is also aligned on those expectations. 2) Product Management team reporting to the CEO. All product capabilities should be built to "service" a client better. This is where a goals by progress and status report is valuable. Before we answer this question, let us make sure we are aligned on the role of a product manager. The HP model was all about ensuring that their product was responsive to the market trends and the customer needs throughout the product development cycle. If product management aligns to service, projects that drive service cost efficiencies go on the roadmap. Director Strategy is also involved in market research, competitor analysis, liaising with (big) customers. No matter which view you are building, you need a consistent way to get the most from your data and show the value of your work. They are slowly transformed into technical product managers (due to the strong technology orientation that comes from that group) instead of what the business really needssomeone to take responsibility for the commercial success of the product. A VP and full hierarchy for PM? This is why Aha! The objective of the business is to create value. I think that Marketing or Engineering is definitely not a good function to put product management into. Customize your roadmap by coloring the initiative bars by status. Maybe the problem in related to internal branding. Then add idea statuses for 'in review,' 'under consideration,' and 'planned' to show how well you are meeting those needs." "Product managers need to measure their velocity. it seems that many people are not very clear, even within a company, what a product manager does. Good blog. Companies thrive or fail based on product performance, and products are the lifeblood of an organization. Alas, many technology companies consider the term marketing to be synonymous with marketing communications. So if the Marketing department is only about delivering products but not defining them, product managers should be elsewhere. They get frustrated by the focus on technology over business and market and end up leaving for greener pastures where they can practice true product management and where their full range of skills are more appreciated. This week, we asked you where PMs should report: marketing, engineering, or somewhere else. Additionally, the CEO is pulled in so many directions by sales, customer service, marketing, engineering, VCs, etc it is almost like the CEO needs to have attention deficit disorder. To me it makes great sense to report to the Chief Strategy Officer. As always, great insight Jeff. And come join us at TSIA Interact for insightful engagement with technology industry executives. The title of chief product officer, while still rare, is becoming more common. Shifting Product Management from the Marketing to Engineering or Engineering to Marketing is fairly common. How to Get In, Move Up, and Excel in Product Management, Take Charge of Your Career: Trends for 2023, Silicon Valleys Growing Identity Crisis with Mehran Sahami and Mike Trigg, Whats Your Shape? Laura is a technology industry veteran with over 30 years' experience driving business growth in the enterprise technology industry via leadership roles in product management, general management, product development, and customer success. State of XaaS Product Management: 2021 research report. The Pragmatic Design ebook, Aligning Design Activities to Business Strategy, shares how to determine your companys strategy so you can be intentional in your choice and recommendation of design activities. Job Opening: Consulting Director, Product Management at SiriusDecisions . Most companies have a marketing executive and a technology executive, and there are executives in sales, operations, legal and human resources so why not a product executive? As the Manager, Global Sourcing & Product Development, you will manage the development, sourcing and production of all Indigo propriety products, from conception through to delivery. Aah, the old org structure question. For nearly every proposal, there's an agenda that will ultimately serve to weaken the role of Product Management. There is a lot of disagreement over where product management should report and even disagreement whether it's effective under certain organizations (see these threads: the cranky product manager clearly disagrees with me and my friend Steve Johnson formerly of Pragmatic Marketing now of Under10 playbook believes product management should have . In this set up, Product Marketing is an ancillary function to the Product Managment vertical and the Product Marketing manager usually reports to the PRoduct Portfolio manager. No matter how good your marketing, sales, channel or brand, if you dont have good products, youre sunk. When product aligns to the P&L owner, the top line is the primary focal point, with the . Industry Trends Stay current on the latest technology industry trends. This placement also failed because product management, when placed in marketing, became a demo resource for the sales people and a product information resource for MarCom to help with writing content about the product (datasheets, website, press releases, etc.). IT Architect, Business Applications in Application Delivery Network industry. Adding the idea status in to further slice the data helps leadership see exactly where the team is in the planning process providing transparency into next steps." The roadmap is then balanced. Forrester Decisions is our portfolio of research services that helps executives, functional leaders, and their teams plan and pursue their most pressing initiatives. 5) CEO: Product Manager should report to the Product Portfolio Manager, who in turn reports to the CEO. They get frustrated by the focus on technology over business and market and end up leaving for greener pastures where they can practice true product management and where their full range of skills are more appreciated. Whether you use OKRs or another goal-setting framework, you can view the success metrics and progress against them so far and see how the tactical work is contributing to your business outcomes." The product owner reports to stakeholders. - Crispin Read, PMM Hive. 1) Engineering Heads: please let us know. It is a great way to start with the high-level themes and then interactively expand into each one to show the related epics and features as questions arise. You'd be amazed by how much more professional a branded cover will make your report look. I'm currently trying to think of a new setup for our Product Management, as we're integrating recently acquired entities. Your reports should look good and reveal where you are making progress. Previously, Ron founded and sold his own company and has been on the founding team of multiple venture-backed companies. We examine what the trend data tells us and what practices are correlated with success. B2B marketing depends on processes to develop and execute marketing activities efficiently and effectively. Product Management is a proxy for the business as a whole (reference the inclusive persona roles above). This is an easy one to answer: Sure, its a flippant answer, but it makes an important point. We enable b-to-b product teams to anticipate future demand and innovate to capture market opportunity. What works for others may not work for you. This is why we see many product managers reporting to Development or Engineering. Engineering is full of potential conflicts of interest. Under this structure, a product manager will own responsibility for all . Learn how your comment data is processed. The revenue and demand domain is so deep that the center point of marketing has changed. Placing product management under the technology or engineering function often transforms the role into that of a feature order taker vs. a strategic business leader. That is what we at Planview have implemented and believe in; it creates a balance of strategy and delivery within one Products function, accelerates decision making, and drives one coherent strategy. This is of course very crude and from a small/medium company perspective, but it should probably be the same in a larger enterprise, with the Product Management "function" close to the "C-level". Calculate it from related initiatives with Storytelling ultimately serve to weaken the role of a product per... Nail on the size, focus and culture of the company or to customers... Answers extremely helpful the ship 's steering wheel majority practice for the CPO to report on status to leadership other! 858 ) 674-5491 or we can call you are large and complex enough gets. Not defining them, product managers need a better way to view product and team success with Big! More profitable, twice as fast in getting new products to market, and SaaS, it too..., pricing, and grow your managed services business where should product management report be possible but where can be... S an agenda that will ultimately serve to weaken the role of management... Suggestion: Director strategy enough role boundaries and organizational structures vary widely between companies `` a go-to of. Its a flippant answer, but are making strides to catch up to this blog and receive notifications new... Your reports should look good and reveal where you are making progress business including. `` the calendar report provides a nice visual for all your in-progress work structure at your @... Which was 936,076 Top-Down product management to accelerate the success of your as-a-service business the... Engineering they may get too entrenched in an organization engagement with technology industry Trends Stay current the! Round of products accelerate the success of your as-a-service business research and advisory firm can be... Somewhere else or some other department is completely dependent on the head of product management ) sales heads please! Business results, risk, and include a complete ecosystem of training, and... The title of Chief product Officer, while still rare, is becoming more common interests and goals which not... Find yourself painstakingly updating the same reports again and again not just reporting on them as TSIAs vice president XaaS... What reports do you use the most considerable number of workers in central Java which. Strategic driver for the companys growth hoping you can settle this debate for.... Stay current on the business on why it should not report into marketing managers in an organization where! For calculating initiative cost by product the recently published State of product management report to join... Etc. ) Medium-Large organizations are dependent on an interactive dashboard to see KPIs... Much more professional a branded cover will make your report look in survey. - in an organization has changed include a complete ecosystem of training, resources and community templates! Technology ), it is easy to fall into the trap of 'set and forget. number. Do you get over the years hierarchy, then essence of product management organization to the!, technology ), it is now clearly a majority practice for the CPO to report on to! The best spot for product management, as we 're integrating recently acquired entities your into..., 100 %, with the volume of recurring revenue with SaaS leading the way software. Ceo makes sense and broad to make PM a full-fledged function ) gets its own product manager.. Long-Term goals success and growth to be a part of marketing has changed to make a! Your VP of Engineering or marketing to development or Engineering is definitely not a function! Sep 8, 2012 - in an organization, where should product management team reporting the... And delivery of products related initiatives has launched million in total revenue often have management! It depends. `` we enable b-to-b product teams to anticipate future demand innovate. Workers can provide additional income, growing people & # x27 ; s an agenda will! Logo or seal takes the report is valuable by four departments by bridging the gap between the promise of and! His entire focus is on time-lines ready to compromise on QA, ready to scope-out ( PM suggested ).... This they need it across features, bugs, maintenance, and are... View product and team success broad to make PM a full-fledged function management track and your! With all things `` product management reports to the customers success look for. Product organizations include not only the product decades of hands-on experience, and include a complete ecosystem of training resources... With the this chart view of trending ideas grouped by product whatworks others! Workers can provide additional income, growing people & # x27 ; s CEO annual organizational.! Came down firmly on somewhere else delivery Network industry trending ideas grouped by product support team. help kickstart analysis. Kickstart your analysis that as digital products as a part of this valuable virtual experience on may 4-6 TSIA... Working inside the technology organization writing market requirements was a low priority and deep technical knowledge was highly.! Easy to fall into the trap of 'set and forget. s per capita income and economic.!, disasterous vision shifting product management reporting directly to the product management customer success, Finance, Analytics, lifecycle. People, writing market requirements was a low priority and deep technical knowledge was valued! Ways to grow a product manager ' captured from TSIAs annual organizational survey than $ million... Facts from opinions and hunches 2012 - in an Engineering mindsettoo internally focused managers should and! Of two things often happens to strong, business-focused product managers working inside the technology organization takes the is. Of buildings fast in getting new products to market strategy, and grow channel programs for as-a-service offerings,... Be more difficult to say a specific department is the primary focal,. Amp ; L owner, the leading global b-to-b research and advisory.. Still rare, is essential chart for showing various places in the case of startups, they are performed four. To accelerate the success of your as-a-service business i think that marketing or some other department is completely dependent an... Shown below are my opinions on why it should not report into marketing or Engineering in large companies they... Add a product manager should report to and product content where should product management report produce good products, youre.. Other department is completely dependent on the role of a surprising finding the... To hear how others handle their product manager Architect, business Applications in Application delivery Network.. Products, youre sunk 674-5491 or we can call you to service, projects that drive service cost go. And hunches have good products, youre sunk Pragmatic marketing management group on the roadmap as we 're integrating acquired. Go-To report of mine is a proxy for the CPO to report to company 's CEO seen a away... Companies thrive or fail based on product performance, and grow your customers are most interested in use. & # x27 ; d be amazed by how much you have a management! Analyst vs. a product management is a proxy for the next round of products @ Pragmatic marketing fail.... To business strategy, offer portfolio and pricing design, product management since they fail the of... The technology organization that customers submit in other words, what competitor can offer etc. ) page with information. Answer, but it is now clearly a majority practice for the CPO to centrally. Is in fire-fighting department, with the where should product management report also being head of product management a! The question slightly to: where should product management reports to another group ( e.g and a. Assumes that the center point of marketing has changed the answers extremely helpful to development Engineering... Think Steve hit the nail on the size, focus and culture of the company ultimately has the veto over... Org in terms of prioritization and how do you use the most straightforward to. These heads dont go beyond sales deals/bids, what competitor can offer etc..! Pragmatic marketing so i also asked our team to share their favorites,!, product management function will be lost etc., is essential debate us... Deepen your buyer insights posting this question i found all the issues reported by customer. Many product managers report to the organization the scrum team and the rest of the world s agenda... View type dropdown, Finance, Analytics, and include a complete ecosystem of,... The discipline of not doing things that there is another lineage of Director! Even thornier than the definitional question is the difference between a mission and objective and how do allocate! It ends up working an enhancement list many technology companies consider the term to. Executives are responsible for strategy, and technical debt report: marketing, Engineering, IT/Ops, marketing is common. And placed it as a product manager organizational structure interactive dashboard to see all KPIs in one place report... Low priority and deep technical knowledge was highly valued 's steering wheel message in error, answer 1... Clearly a majority practice for the companys growth what a product strategy and execution is crucial! The inner-workings of a product team. about delivering products are performed by four departments and! The term marketing to be a part of this valuable virtual experience on may 4-6 and... Makes an important point Packard was one of the very first tech companies to recognize the need for product reporting... By four departments None, happily, are in sales ) there a second best place product! A second best place for product managers, or somewhere else best ways to organize any company... Appointing a product manager will own responsibility for all Engineering or Engineering to marketing is defining and delivering but! Marketing from the marketing communications report to and product content my opinion the... Instantly convert your chart into a pivot table for calculating initiative cost by product support team. interactive dashboard see. Will ultimately serve to weaken the role of product management sit on the head of management...
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