Volume 6

Volume 6 Issue 5

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• Living in an Agile World: the Strategic Role of Product Management When Development Goes Agile
  For years, product management seems to be have been defined by what it is not as much as what it is. Developers and engineers often see product managers as technical resources, to be used for project management. Agile development methods seem to have made this orientation even worse, with product managers getting pulled into deeper tactical, technical activities. But spending so much time with internal, tactical teams means less time spent outside the company in the market. What is the role of product managment in an agile world

• Practical Rules for Product Management: Some Rules Just Aren’t Meant to be Broken (Part 3)
  Part III of Maureen Rogers' interpretations and personal experiences of Pragmatic Marketing’s 20 rules for product management success.

• When Creative is the Wrong Tool! The Ideative Process: A Better Tool for Our Constrained World
  If you ask a person if he or she is “creative,” the common response from product and marketing managers, engineers, financial managers, and just about everyone else in a business discipline is “No!” And that negative answer is often quite forceful. Yet when describing ideative—the ability to proactively and regularly produce unique and valuable ideas for new products, services, and solutions— the response is often positive, confident “Yes!”.
  

• The Economics of Software as a Service vs. Software as a Product
  There are numerous ways of selling software these days. Software as a Service (SaaS) has been in the consumer market for a while, and is now making significant inroads into the enterprise software space. If you’re considering purchasing or using software, you should understand what SaaS means and how it differs from software products of the past.

Volume 6 Issue 4

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• You Can't Innovate Like Apple
  When what you teach and develop every day has the title "Innovation" attached to it, you reach a point where you tire of hearing about Apple. Without question, nearly everyone believes the equation Apple = Innovation is a fundamental truth. Discover what makes them different.

• Practical Rules for Product Management: Some Rules Just Aren’t Meant to be Broken (Part 2)
  A continuation from Volume 6 Issue 3 with Maureen Rogers applying her own interpretations and personal experiences to the Practical Product Management seminar rules in this multiple-part series. In this article, she explores rules 6 through 10.

• Change is Pulling Us into the Cloud
  Product Management must communicate with, and understand the development team. In an Agile world, they must maintain a sequentially prioritized requirements list at all times, or be sucked into the Development cloud.

• Maybe Your Opinion IS Relevant
  One of our favorite sayings around Pragmatic Marketing is “Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant.” But wait a minute! Maybe it is!

• Beyond SEO: Driving Customer Attraction, Retention, and Top-Line Growth
  Businesses frequently want an evaluation of their websites — mostly to know how they compare to the competition. Most businesses are disappointed with their website’s ability to convert visitors to loyal customers. In fact, many people say they aren’t really sure what their website does for them.

Volume 6 Issue 3

• Chasing Outcomes: You Can’t Get There From Here
  In Volume 6 Issue 2, we set the stage for learning how to stay “tuned in” to your market. Here, we provide additional advice for becoming tuned in.

• Three Tips at the Tip of the Iceberg: How to Ensure the Success of Your IT Project
  Do you work in an IT environment that operates in firefighting mode? Is your department considered overhead for the organization? Are you confident that your IT project requirements are “good” or merely “good enough”? In this article, we’ll touch just the tip of the iceberg with three key points to help you ensure the success of your IT projects.

• Practical Rules for Product Management: Some Rules Just Aren’t Meant to be Broken (Part 1)
  In addition to teaching the Pragmatic Marketing Framework, the Practical Product Management seminar gives 20 rules for product management success. Maureen Rogers has applied her own interpretations and personal experiences to these rules in this multiple-part series. In this article, she explores rules 1 through 5.

• Maximize Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Turning Users into Fans
  It isn’t just about winning customers anymore. You have to build fans to spread the word about your product, create new introductions— and, if all goes well, gain new fans.

• Ask the Expert
  Should the role of Product Marketing Manager report to the Product Management department or the Marketing department? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either approach?

Volume 6 Issue 2

• Why Didn't We Think of That?
  Products and services that resonate.
  Hit products and services lik the iPod, Starbucks and FedEx were seemingly embraced by the market overnight. But it wasn't luck, creativity or marketing that led to their success.
  

• To Startup or Not to Startup?
  To a big-company product manager, working for a startup can look like a dream. Having a huge impact on the company's success or failure - coupled with the rush that comes from knowing that your ability to listen to the market guided the company to new heights - can make the red tape of a large company look boring and stodgy. Here are some pros and cons to consider before moving to a start-up.
  

• The New Leader Development Dilemma and How to Fix It
  Why not promote our best and brightest to lead? After all, these individuals proved themselves as individual contributors, managing projects or products, or serving customers. Their high level of performance in the past bodes well for their potential as a manager. Or does it?
  
• Utilizing Co-Design to Create Market-Driven Products
  Designers are not typically users of a product, yet they often engineer a product with little or no end user involvement and without understanding in advance how it will be received by the targeted audience. It's a risky proposition. To design a successful product, you must figure out who is going to use it and understand what problem it is solving. But let's take it one step further...for maximum success, products should be co-designed by the intended audience.

Volume 6 Issue 1

• Pragmatic Marketing’s 2007 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey
  Each year Pragmatic Marketing conducts a survey of product managers and marketing professionals. Where do you stand with the national averages?

• Lead on Purpose:
  How Product Managers Lead Teams to Success
  There is pressure on the product manager to inspire others to do great work—even though he or she cannot hold others accountable. As a result, product managers must be persuasive, flexible, persistent, and optimistic; they must lead on purpose.
  

• What are Patents?
  For technology product managers, just about any new product or feature is patentable: hardware, software, business methods, etc. Every new feature and product you create should be examined for patentability. Here is a quick overview about the rules, kinds and restrictions of patents.
• Patents and the Product Manager
  Patents are not just for the engineers or legal department. While engineers are an important source of innovation and legal departments must be involved in the patent process, product managers are uniquely situated both to create new patentable inventions and guide the company to inventions worth patenting.
• Agile Market Requirements
  Successful product teams are agile, combining collaboration with small iterations. The key to any agile team is building products that people want to buy. To do that, an agile team needs a messenger for the market, a product manager who thoroughly understands the problems facing today’s customers.
• Problem Solving:
  It’s All About Smart(er) Questions
  The answer isn’t always in the solution—it’s in the questions. Smart questions define problems well and lead to a clear vision of the issues involved.

Volume 5

Volume 5 Issue 5

• Viral Marketing: Let the world tell your story for free
  For marketers, one of the coolest things about the Web is when an idea takes off, it can propel a brand or company to fame and fortune. For free.
• Avoiding the "Netscape Moment"
  What do you do when your company is facing its “Netscape Moment?” That is, the day Microsoft announces it will enter your market.
• Your Prospects Love White Papers: Are you giving them what they want?
  Is your business struggling to attract prospects? Are you wondering how can you stand out in a sea of marketing noise? Ultra-short attention spans make it exceptionally difficult for businesses and marketing professionals to gain mindshare. So what can you do to reach out to people in a positive way?
• Seven Ways to Acquire and Retain Customer References
  Satisfied customers willing to serve as references for your new prospects often make the difference between winning and losing the sale. Getting and keeping those references, however, is a challenging and time-consuming job.
• Add "Quick Hits" and (Finally) Address Those Priority 3 Enhancements
  Woe to the minor enhancement request that gets tagged as a dreaded Priority 3 or nice-to-have feature during the prioritization phase of a project. All too often, it will get pushed into a future-release black hole—never to be seen again.

Volume 5 Issue 4

• Stop Perfuming the Pig: Why “real” marketing is done before the product is created
  No amount of perfume can overcome the stench of a technology product that people don’t need.

• The Online Media Room:
  A terrific place to market directly to buyers (yes, buyers!)
  When people want to know what’s current about an organization, it’s the first place your buyers go. Learn more about how to create a valuable online media room.
• The Power of the Persona
  A case study of how identification and application of personas improved a company’s efficiency and quality, corporate cohesiveness, focus and decision making at every level.
• Ask the Expert
  Is your company working on several different platforms? Here are some insights if you are tossed between merging platforms or picking the best in breed to eliminate the redundant systems.
• Customer Affinity:
  How to get it, what to do with it
  Affinity! That illusive icon in the distance that every company wants to attain. When you have it, you’re golden. When you don’t, everything’s a struggle. Here are some basic ingredients for creating customer affinity.

Volume 5 Issue 3

• The ROI of Being Market-Driven
  Gain strategic visibility for the ROI of being market-driven. Read the Four Rules of ROI Leaders that speak the language of your buyer - the CEO.
• Five Slices of Segmentation
  Segmentation has always been a key part of marketing. Sorting customers into appropriate segments allows business and marketing types to filter ideas, glean intelligence, set prices, and decide what to offer and what to toss.
• Easy to Use for Whom: Defining the Customer and User Experience for Enterprise Software
  Enterprise software is only easy to use if the customer and user think it is easy to use. Here are some steps to determine the ease of use for your software.
• Product Management Axioms
  Here is a small set of axioms to guide you in your job, bring focus to tasks at hand, and convey fundamental ideas and principles in discussions.
• Navigating Uncharted Territory: How We Developed a Strategic Product Marketing Role
  Part one of this article made the assertion that we, as product marketers, are misunderstood, misguided, and misaligned. As a result, our companies develop great products and services that are either missing their potential or failing altogether. In this article, learn how to create a strategic role for product marketing and get insight for dealing with the inevitable challenges and resistance.

Volume 5 Issue 2

• What's New
  Pragmatic Marketing announces launch of Consulting Services Team and New Online Community.
  
• Software Development's Evolution Toward Product Design
  Occasionally, some poor fellow at a dinner party makes the mistake of asking what I do for a living. My initial response is that I help design software for artists.
  

• The Art of Panels
  More than 20,000 people attended Guy Kawasaki's "Startup 2006" panel discussion! Learn what to do when you are moderating or participating in a panel (of any size).
  

• Online Thought-Leadership: Transform Your Company into a Trusted Resource for Your Buyers
  An effective online content strategy, artfully executed, drives action. Technology companies that use online content well, have a clearly defined goal; to sell products, generate leads, or get people to join a community.
  

• Ask the Expert
  “I know I need to be listening to the market to make my product decisions but my company doesn’t seem interested in market research. How can I justify spending big bucks for information they don’t seem to value?”
• Are you Decent? The Naked Truth About Product Management Performance
  Product management is typically thankless. A product manager (PM) is the first one called when there is a problem. When it is time to recognize team contributions, the PM usually does the recognizing. Sometimes, others snicker, "what does the PM do anyway?" Remind me again, why we do it?

Volume 5 Issue 1

• Pragmatic Marketing's 2006 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey
  Read the results and analysis of our annual survey
  

• Technology Assessment for a Better Strategy
  “Strategy” is such an overused term in our industry. “Where’s your STRATEGY?” or “It’s our STRATEGIC direction!” or “How do these tactics fit into the STRATEGY?” Let’s start over!
  

• Product Managers are Really Super Heroes in Disguise
  There are two really hard jobs inside a company. One is being a CEO, and the other is being a product manager. Both the CEO and product managers are expected to be the most flexible, acrobatic kind of leaders—adjusting to people’s styles, making sure to communicate with clarity the requirements of what is needed, translating vision into specifics and constantly at the beck-and-call of many constituents. It’s a wonder someone would take either job.
• Navigating Uncharted Territory: How We Developed a Strategic Product Marketing Role
  The trouble with the outbound role of product marketing is that we have an identity crisis on our hands—we’re misunderstood, misguided, and misaligned—and as a result, great products are either failing altogether or missing their potential.
• Product Design: Bridging the Gap Between Product Management and Development
  Product Design is the bridge between Product Management and Product Development. Product Management quantifies the problems, writes requirements, and validates the solution; Product Design analyzes the requirements, designs the solution, and writes specifications; and Product Development builds the solution, tests and fixes bugs, and writes documentation.

Volume 4

Volume 4 Issue 5

• Understanding Market Needs Through Customer Visits
  When conducted effectively, the information gleaned from real-world customer environments can be an important part of your product definition and marketing efforts. Learn how to plan, conduct, document, and utilize customer visits to improve and market your products.
• What's the Difference Between Product Management and Product Marketing?
  There's an on-going discussion in virtually every company about titles and responsibilities in product management. What is product management? And how is it different from product marketing?
• How to Fit Your Product Strategy to Small & Medium-Sized Businesses
  Opportunities abound for the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) market to adopt technologies that will advance their operations and expand their sales capabilities. However, one of the key problems is trying to use the "one-size fits all" offerings of many current technology products on the market. This article suggests steps to take to successfully move your product line from the enterprise to SMBs.
• Top Ten Tips for Briefing Industry Analysts
  Briefing technology industry analysts is a learned art rather than a formulaic science. Each analyst and analyst group is different, as is each technology company. However, this article recommends ten major areas to connect with the analysts so they understand the solution and the company enough to describe it accurately to others.
• Usability—the Key to a Product's Success
  The launch of a product that has not considered the "usability factor" poses a significant risk to your business and provides an opportunity for competitors to gain an upper hand.
• How to Use Timeboxes for Scheduling Software Delivery
  Timeboxing is a technique for organizing software delivery, planning or scheduling. In this article, we talk about applying timeboxing as a planning tool, but the techniques also apply to scheduling.
• Case Studies: Top Eight Ways to Get them Done
  Most enterprises realize the value of effective case studies, yet many product managers struggle with the task of actually developing them. This article describes eight proven techniques for successfully developing case studies.

Volume 4 Issue 4

• Extreme Product Management: How to Deliver Products People Want to Buy in an Agile Development Environment
  Extreme Product Management (XPM) is using the minimum process and creating the minimum artifacts to deliver products people want to buy. Read which activities are necessary to have a viable approach to XPM.
  
• Fresh Or From The Can? Why The Better Product Still Struggles In The Marketplace
  Learn how to incorporate the fundamental tenet of human nature into your product planning and marketing to increase adoption and sales.
  
• Book Reviews: Death by Meeting and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  
• A Framework for Creating Effective Product Presentations
  Product and marketing managers must provide a constant and up-to-date flow of information to the sales team, customers, and partners about the products they manage in order to facilitate the sales process. Unfortunately, it is not possible to create one generic presentation to address all situations. This article provides a framework for creating effective product presentations with emphasis on presentations to customers.
  
• Investment in Customer Advisory Programs Helps Build Business
  Read about three customer-focused companies who have been listening and collaborating with their customers to keep up with evolving needs and staying one step ahead of competition.

Volume 4 Issue 3

• The New Rules of PR for Technology & Software Businesses
  Because the rules for relating to the public have changed so slowly over the past ten years, practitioners who learned based on the old rules have been equally slow to change. It’s time to step it up and consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds.
  
• Ask the Expert: Does a formal requirements process stifle creativity and innovation?
  
• Building a Better Beta
  Delivering a successful beta program can be one of the hardest things to do as a product manager. Managing an effective beta program means doing what it takes to minimize the aspects that are out of the product manager’s direct control and, like any other program that is executed, bring as much predictability to it as possible. Learn how planning and execution can be broken up into three phases, with each stage having several tasks and objectives.
  
• Prioritizing Software Requirements with Kano Analysis
  The Kano analysis model was developed to identify and contrast essential customer requirements from incremental requirements, and initiate critical thinking. Explore the four categories into which each feature or requirement can be classified.
  
• Case Study: Thomson Medstat Transforms Product Management Through Intense Focus on Customer Needs.

Volume 4 Issue 2

• A Fact-Based Approach to Outsourcing for Product Managers
  The word outsourcing invokes fears of the unknown, of losing jobs, of losing competitive advantage, and of losing intellectual property. At some point in your product management career you will be asked to outsource part of your solution. Before you become paralyzed with fear, ask some critical questions. Outsourcing can be risky if you do not know the answers to these questions.
  
• Surviving Product Management
  For all the goodness of product management, there are the challenges too. This article offers some lessons learned through a career that includes product management roles at several high-tech companies.
  
• The Content-Free Buzzword-Compliant Vocabulary List
  How many times have you read marketing materials for software that did not contain any real information? Here is a list of meaningless buzzwords and ways to avoid them.
  
• Book Review: Cashing In with Content: How innovative marketers use digital information to turn browsers into buyers
  
• Degrees of Ability: Hiring Into Product Management
  What do you look for when you want to hire an ace product manager to champion your product and move forward relative to the competition? Read on for a discussion of what to look for to find a good product manager, and questions to ask to better judge whether they are product manager material.
  
• Case Study: Quest Software
  Rock-Solid Marketing Captures Mindshare and Market Share for 100+ Software Products.

Volume 4 Issue 1

• Annual Product Management Salary Survey 2005
  Each year we conduct a survey of product managers and marketing professionals to bring you information about compensation as well as the most common responsibilities for product managers. Here are the results for 2005!
  
• Ask the Expert: creating a market-driven culture
  
• Corporate Blogs for Technology Businesses:
  Authentic Marketing at Work
  There are many ways to market your company on the web. Now we have another important alternative: the Corporate Weblog (blog).
  
• Managing Product Requirements:
  Where did all my customer insights go?
  Here are some of the most important questions that product managers face every day. This article illustrates how Requirements Management not only helps your company deliver more customer-driven products but how it helps you personally work more efficiently.
  
• On Demand Enterprise Software Demos
  Nobody can argue the value of delivering a super compelling demo. But how? One common theme is that a top-quality demonstration should not simply list product features and functions but should grab the audience’s attention by speaking directly to business issues.
  
• Case Study: NetContinuum Knows Which Marketing Programs Are Most Effective.

Volume 3

Volume 3 Issue 5

• Where Does Product Management Belong in the Organization?
  Product Management’s placement in an organization is an indicator of the CEO's understanding of its potential. In an ideal world where Product Management has a seat at the table with the executives, it is positioned to play a critical role in a company's overall success in the marketplace.
  
• A Better Reference Process Means Better Launches
  In a company where public relations is often an afterthought, proper planning and sufficient lead time can result in publicity that will wow even the toughest executives—and launch your product into the spotlight.
  
• Effective Sales Presentations: Advancing the Sales Cycle
  Sales presentations should be more than just bulleted lists and fancy tables. They should be templates that can be tailored to suit the myriad audiences that the sales team may encounter on its way to closing a deal.
  
• Pricing for Software Product Managers
  Pricing has far-reaching effects beyond the cost of the product. Here is the ultimate guide to understanding pricing and how critical it is to product managers.

Volume 3 Issue 4

• The Higher They Go, The Stupider They Get
  Working on things that don't make sense is the single biggest source of job dissatisfaction. Directives from top management shouldn't end with employees going back to their desks, heads down, grumbling all the way. So why do intelligent, well-meaning managers make stupid decisions?
• Don't Confuse Sales Support with Marketing: A case for buyer persona profiling
  As technology marketers, do you measure time spent on marketing vs. sales support? Marketers are so focused on sales that marketing is an afterthought. Few marketing tools respond to the buyer's real questions. This article provides valuable information about identifying and staying focused on buyer persona profiles.
• Product Management: For Adults Only
  It takes a certain maturity to professionalize technology product commercialization. Learn from a company's abrupt growing-up experiences including sharp about-faces in the marketplace and misunderstandings within its own workforce.
• Product Strategy Doesn't Just Happen
  Discover the need for developing a process to drive the development of your product strategy in order to achieve sustained growth. Explore both the key aspects and myths of successful product strategy processes.
• You Want to Start a Company. Where Do You Begin?
  Find a problem, solve the problem, tell the world you solved the problem, and sell it--take these four key tips from Intuit^® and learn how to be market-driven.
• The Egoless Company
  Award-winning companies vary on many dimensions but they all share a focus on products and services that solve customer problems instead of what's important for the company.

Volume 3 Issue 3

• End of Life: Retiring a Product
  Outdated software can turn into a monster. How do you discontinue a product that is no longer profitable? And how do you know that it's time?
• A Model for Metrics-Driven Feature Prioritization
  Learn the technique that relies on statistically-valid samples of broad-based customer data to understand customer needs and prioritize product enhancements.
• Building Demos that Drive Sales
  If you want to drive sales revenue, you need to build a product-centric demo for your sales team to present the product in its very best light. Keep everyone on the same page while effectively showcasing your product to prospects.
• Ask The Expert
  Are there best practices for business cases? Is there a standard way to develop a business case for my products?
• Exploiting the Full Potential of After-Sales Market
  Technology product managers often think only in terms of tangible product, missing the incredible opportunity to double or triple revenue with services.

Volume 3 Issue 2

• Faster! Gaining Product Momentum
  One of the top tasks of a product manager is to make the product gain momentum. Read on for tips about how to build momentum to catch up with competitors and eventually pull ahead of the pack.
  

• The Exceptional Product Manager: What is the "Right Stuff"?
  What separates an exceptional product manager from a merely competent product manager. Read and find out.
  

• Pragmatic Marketing Surpasses the 30,000-Student Mark
  
• Who Needs Product Management?
  Product management is a well-understood role in virtually every industry except technology. In the last ten years, the product management role has expanded its influence in technology companies yet we continue to hear the question, "Who needs product management?"
  
• Due Diligence for New Product Ideas
  Any company can use due diligence principles to evaluate new product ideas. This article presents a hypothetical example of how to use due diligence for new product ideas.
  

• Seven Things You Can Do to Improve Your Credibility on the Web
  When it comes to believing what one reads online, credibility matters. Credible sources have the ability to change opinions, attitudes, and behaviors, to motivate and persuade. Read the top tactics and persuasion strategies you can employ to improve your own website's credibility.
  

• Case Study: Metavante Corporation--Capitalizing on the Power of Positive Change

Volume 3 Issue 1

• 2004 Annual Product Management Salary Survey
  Take a look to see where you rank among the 2004 statistics from our survey of product managers, marketing managers, and other marketing professionals.
  

• Clean, Cutting-edge UI Design Cuts McAfee's Support Calls by 90%
  With 20,000 downloads of ProtectionPilot over a 10-week time span, McAfee received only 170 calls to support lines. Here are 23 detailed tips gleaned from McAfee and their external UI design team; if you can muster this list, you've got a great chance at selling more software and spending less to support it.
  

• Product Managers and Marketers: Who Does What?
  Recently a reader asked for a definition of the product manager's role in an organization, and explain how the role relates to marketing. Here is the answer.

• Migrating from a Product Manager to an Entrepreneur
  There are key factors you should consider as you dream of building the next Yahoo! or eBay on your own. If you decide to take the plunge, here's a top-ten checklist to consider first.

• Ask the Expert
  Is there a "gateway" job or path to product management?
  

• Case Study
  TCI Solutions - Best Practices Help Grow a Grocery Store Automation Business
  

Volume 2

Volume 2 Issue 5

• Remote Demos: Choosing the Approach That's Right for Your Business
  Not long ago, face-to-face was the only way to demo a product. Now, the World Wide Web enables remote demos that challenge traditional thinking about the role demos play in the sales process. Read how to communicate the benefits and/or functionality of a software product to your target audience in a measurable, scalable, repeatable way.
  

• Getting Management to Buy-in on Positioning
  Are your product people muttering that management doesn't listen to them? Adapt a positioning process that includes executive management approval of your message strategies.
  

• Tips & Tools: How to Run Customer Focus Groups Successfully
  Despite claims and ad campaigns to the contrary, many companies are doing a poor job of establishing productive dialogue with their customers. A simple but effective way to help remedy this is to run regular customer focus groups.
  
• Two to Tango: The Art of Crafting,
  Building, and Maintaining Business Partnerships
  More and more, companies are placing an emphasis of pursuing growth strategies that involve strategic partnerships. Read on to see how strategic alliances allow organizations to establish relationships that combine their resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
• The Role of Sales Engineer in Technical Sales
  Sales engineers play a critical role in technology companies. Review the functions of the sales engineer's job and the problems they face in high-tech firms.
  
• Case Study: Nielsen Media--Tuned in to Customer Needs

Volume 2 Issue 4

• Rethinking the Way You Do Business
  A letter from Craig Stull
• Navigating Pathways to the Future: Product Roadmaps Lead Their Readers in Multiple Directions
  At a recent Pittsburgh Product Strategy Rountable, a group of product strategists shared their benefits as well as frustrations with the technique of roadmapping.
  
• Software Product Management: If You Can't Define It, You're Doing a Bad Job of It
  Learn about the importance of product managers and how software companies are screwing up by not capitalizing on their value and talents.
• Knowledge Transfer: Start It Out Right
  Knowledge transfer is the one important thing companies forget to build into their plan time and time again. Read on for tips about putting together an effective knowledge transfer effort for each new release of your software.
• Put Your Money Where the Value Is
  Marketing is being asked to participate in the sales process to a degree not seen in the past ten years. Although typically lacking significant sales experience, Vice Presidents of Marketing are being held accountable for revenue targets.
• A Look at Clarity in Positioning
  Positioning is a process that focuses on conveying product value to buyers, resulting in a family of documents which drive all outbound communications. The best positioning clearly states how the product will solve specific customer problems.
• Case Study: Market-Driven Focus a Driving Force Behind Kronos Workforce Management Solutions

Volume 2 Issue 3

• Measuring Marketing
  A letter from Craig Stull
• Multiple Products, Multiple Product Managers
  When a company expands to multiple products and product families, firms must integrate a broad set of skills among multiple product management professionals. Read how to address the challenges of multiple products and product managers.
• Competitive Information and Sales Guides: What Sales Forces Need to Win
  Six field-tested salespeople-approved best practices to help you put competitive intelligence to work for your sales force.
• Ten Things Product Managers Should Know About Sales
  Product managers routinely support the sales process but many times lack enough knowledge to do this. This article discusses ten things that product managers need to know about sales, the sales process, and the role of the sales rep.
• Using Force Field Analysis to Listen to Customers
  Force field analysis is a technique that elevates a painful exercise into powerful feedback. Learn to use this simple tool to quickly brainstorm and prioritize ideas with a group of customers.
• How to Make Selling Complex Solutions Simple
  Explore why product training fails and what can be done to succeed in this area.
• Case Study: Micro Focus Unlocks the Value of Marketing

Volume 2 Issue 2

• Whose Problems Are We Going to Solve?
  A letter from Craig Stull
• A Market Intelligence Primer
  True power comes from the integration of all four cornerstones of Market Intelligence.
• Win/Loss Analysis Checklist for Product Managers
  So, now that you are conducting win/loss analysis, what is the next step? Use this handy checklist and you will be on your way to performing effective win/loss analysis.
• Product Management and RFPs
  Make RFPs less painful and streamline the process so that fewer resources are needed.
• Who's Driving Your Company?
  Corporate business goals and wants are relatively similar across diverse industries, but the methods they use to reach their goals vary greatly. Explore these different approaches to product delivery strategies, known as technology-driven, sales-driven, and market-driven.
• Collateral is No Way to Support the Sales Force
  Quit forcing 5000 words of collateral to say the 100 words of your company's most important message. Create more streamlined messages for Sales and increase your competitive advantage.
• Pragmatic Marketing Hits a Major Milestone
  25,000 students take the product management plunge
• Product Roadmaps
  Just like planning a trip, a roadmap communicates in broad strokes what you plan to do. Explore ways to the most direct route.
• Link Up and Learn
  A conversation with five industry gurus about product management organizations.

Volume 2 Issue 1

• Annual Product Management Roles & Salary Survey 2003
  The results are in and show that salaries are up. Read more about statistics and comments from 2003.
• Monitoring Metrics Puts You In The Drivers Seat
  Learn to focus on key performance indicators to find what is on track and what needs to be changed before it is too late.
• High Impact Product Management: Creating and Measuring Product Management Success
  A discussion about how to measure the impact of product management, the need to be proactive, and key elements and considerations for successful product management programs.
• Debugging the User Code: Part II, Integrating Users into Product Development
  This conclusion of a two-part series explores the impact and process of incorporating users in product design/ development.
• Technical Sales vs. Marketing
  Identify the differentiators between marketing and technical sales to sweeten the message to your customers.

• The Pragmatic Marketing^® Framework
  In this issue, we examine the activities that can make or break a product launch: Launch Plan, Market Messages, and Lead Generation.
• Case Study: Kinderstreet--Startup Software Company Learns to Listen, Listens to Learn.

Volume 1

Volume 1 Issue 4

• Updating the Pragmatic Marketing Framework: Changing the Grid
  Read about the repackaging of boxes, changing terminology, and moving boxes to more appropriate columns in the grid.
  
• Buyer and User Personas
  How to develop clarity about the ideal buyer and user.
  
• Think You Know How to Meet Customer Needs? You May Need to Think Again
  Determine real customer needs that result in a compelling product or service.
  
• Debugging the User Code: The Business Case for User Oriented Product Development
  This two-part series will explore the impact of incorporating users into the product design/development process.
  
• Keeping Close to Customers
  The final part in a three-part series, exploring how we listen to the market to become experts in what they need (part 3 of 3 part series).
  
• No One to Blame: The Perfect Crime
  Satisfy customer needs with a mindset of being customer-driven.
  
• Case Study: CCC Information Services reorganizes based on the Pragmatic Marketing triad and enables maximum results.

Volume 1 Issue 3

• How to Make Less of a Mess in Software Product Management
  Understanding the role of product management in your business can be very confusing. It can also make or break your company.
• Why Are We Winning and Why Are We Losing?
  Exploring how we listen to the market to become experts in what they need (part 2 of 3 part series).
• Change Now, Change Later
  If your naming challenge is simply based on a hit-or-miss process, then you are definitely not going forward.
• The Pragmatic Marketing Framework: Distinctive Competence
• Tools and Tips: How to Conduct a Successful Webinar
• Case Study: F5 Networks takes market insights to new heights

Volume 1 Issue 2

• How to Interview your Customers
  Your personal success depends on talking to your customers. Here are ten points to help you do just that.
• There's a Reason No One is Listening
  You can't reach multiple audiences with a generic message.
• Role of Product Management
  An effective product manager is not just support, they are the critical link to the customer.
• The Product Management Triad
  Defining product management can be a complicated issue for many companies, the "triad" may be an ideal solution.
• I Am Customer, Hear Me Roar
  A product manager's irreverent look at how technology companies listen to their customers--or fail to.
• Building Tomorrow's Products Requires Listening to the Market
  Becoming a market expert can be the most valuable of all activities you can do as a product manager (part 1 of 3 part series).
• Tools and Tips: Dual PowerPoint Displays
  See notes on your laptop display while showing slides on the data projector.
• Case Study: RYMA Technology
  Ryma Technology Solutions Inc. helps IT companies to streamline product management complexities of the higher education marketplace.

Volume 1 Issue 1

• Annual Product Management Roles & Salary Survey Results
  Despite a downturn in the economy, Product Managers continued to enjoy increases in salary and job responsibility in 2002.
• Ten Marketing Challenges that Can Make or Break Your Business
  Identify and assess your company's current marketing efforts. Rate your company with our survey and target problem areas by understanding challenges, issues and strategies.
• Case Study: Datatel
  Datatel Inc. helps colleges wise-up to the increased complexities of the higher education marketplace.