Product managers are responsible for defining a product that solves real customer problems, that can be delivered with the technology and development skills available, and that can sustain a company’s business. It doesn’t matter how talented the rest of the organization may be if they are given the wrong product to build. This is what makes product management such a critical and high-leverage role, and why it pays for companies to develop the capabilities of their product managers.
Ironically, there are few resources available for training and developing product managers. The few that do exist are typically oriented towards the needs of product marketing rather than the product creation process. Moreover, the skills of successful high-tech product management are generally not taught in academic curriculums, including most MBA or Software Engineering programs.
The other approach is to try to hire product managers with relevant work experience. The difficulty here is that experience is so subjective. If someone has worked at an average company for a few years on a few average product releases for an average product manager, just how useful is that actual experience? And what of the habits and skills that this person has learned? Is this person expected to come in and do great things for you where he hasn’t before? Not likely this is the person you would want in one of the most important non-executive roles of a product company.
Of course we’d all prefer to hire someone that was responsible for a flagship product. However, there aren’t that many of these people, and in any case, they typically are quickly moved in to senior management, or they go start their own company.
Other software disciplines are much better at capturing the lessons of experience and passing it on to new hires. For example, in engineering you can find books, articles, and classes, all designed to transfer skills in, for example, designing highly scalable fault-tolerant software systems. But where do you go to learn the lessons on how to evaluate a product opportunity, or create a product spec, or determine the underlying goals and motivations of users, or make the hundreds of detailed decisions every project manager will encounter?
If, early in my career, I had been able to spend time with some of the product leaders behind the best products, to understand what they learned from their successes and their failures, I know I would have been able to accomplish much more. I’m sure I still would have made mistakes, but I know now that many mistakes could have been avoided, and many opportunities wouldn’t have been missed.
Passing on these lessons is the goal of our workshops, training, and consulting.
The Silicon Valley Product Group is staffed by the product professionals that have actually built and run the product teams at several of the worlds most successful product companies, including eBay, PayPal, Netscape, AOL, and Microsoft. We have a passion for creating great products and developing great product managers.
But don’t take our word for it, see what our clients have to say, and learn more about our specific offerings at www.svpg.com
Ironically, there are few resources available for training and developing product managers. The few that do exist are typically oriented towards the needs of product marketing rather than the product creation process. Moreover, the skills of successful high-tech product management are generally not taught in academic curriculums, including most MBA or Software Engineering programs.
The other approach is to try to hire product managers with relevant work experience. The difficulty here is that experience is so subjective. If someone has worked at an average company for a few years on a few average product releases for an average product manager, just how useful is that actual experience? And what of the habits and skills that this person has learned? Is this person expected to come in and do great things for you where he hasn’t before? Not likely this is the person you would want in one of the most important non-executive roles of a product company.
Of course we’d all prefer to hire someone that was responsible for a flagship product. However, there aren’t that many of these people, and in any case, they typically are quickly moved in to senior management, or they go start their own company.
Other software disciplines are much better at capturing the lessons of experience and passing it on to new hires. For example, in engineering you can find books, articles, and classes, all designed to transfer skills in, for example, designing highly scalable fault-tolerant software systems. But where do you go to learn the lessons on how to evaluate a product opportunity, or create a product spec, or determine the underlying goals and motivations of users, or make the hundreds of detailed decisions every project manager will encounter?
If, early in my career, I had been able to spend time with some of the product leaders behind the best products, to understand what they learned from their successes and their failures, I know I would have been able to accomplish much more. I’m sure I still would have made mistakes, but I know now that many mistakes could have been avoided, and many opportunities wouldn’t have been missed.
Passing on these lessons is the goal of our workshops, training, and consulting.
The Silicon Valley Product Group is staffed by the product professionals that have actually built and run the product teams at several of the worlds most successful product companies, including eBay, PayPal, Netscape, AOL, and Microsoft. We have a passion for creating great products and developing great product managers.
But don’t take our word for it, see what our clients have to say, and learn more about our specific offerings at www.svpg.com
Why Train Product Managers?
