Archived Webinars

• Product Management

• Product Marketing (Go-To-Market)

• Leadership/Strategy

Product Management

2008-2009 Product Management and Marketing Survey Results

Every year, Pragmatic Marketing conducts a survey of product managers and marketers in technology companies. This session will review the results of the 2008-2009 survey and discuss current titles and job responsibilities, compensation, and the scope of activities product managers and marketers are performing as part of their role in today's competitive environment.

with Steve Johnson and Barbara Nelson, Pragmatic Marketing Instructors

Your developers have gone agile. They want a backlog and user stories. Executives want a roadmap with a longer view. How do you connect strategy with execution? What happens to the roadmap and requirements when you go agile? Attend this session to find out what product managers need to provide to their agile development teams.

Roadmapping is a critical planning process, and becomes even more strategic as teams move to Agile. Roadmaps bridge the gap between "our next release" and three year corporate vision so that product teams can address the fuzzy twelve-to-twenty month gap.

Scott will present the essential elements of a market-driven roadmap -- including segments, market events and rhythms, technical architectures, and release timing and Jeff will talk about how Borland has applied these techniques to their own internal planning.

with Jim Foxworthy,

Some organizations are ‘customer-driven’ and respond first to their existing clients. Others are ‘sales-driven’ and respond to anyone at the front door with a suitcase full of unmarked bills. Others say they are ‘innovative’ yet have a history of building products because they can, but not because they should. Every product organization should be focused on delivering product value to their target markets and to their own business.

Effective Agile Product Management Through Automation

Sometimes it seems that agile development is an end run around effective product planning and market analysis. It also can undermine product positioning and roadmapping. Yet the benefits of a more responsive and productive product development team are too significant to ignore. Learn how the Splunk product management team is automating the Pragmatic Marketing Framework to feed continuous market-driven priorities into an agile development process, and then leveraging this automation for continuous communication back to its user community, customers and field organization.

Agile is all the rage - developers are using it to deliver products more quickly and more reliably. But many organizations will find that their initial success with Agile is unsustainable unless they address how Agile impacts the rest of the organization, including product management. In this webinar, Sue and Steve will discuss five common challenges faced by newly "agilized" organizations and will propose solutions.

with Roger Allison, CEO at Sales Cycle Analytics

Few organizations fulfill the potential that win/loss analysis delivers. Whether the reason is lack of resources, commitment or process fewer than 20% of organizations conduct a win/loss analysis with any regularity or discipline. This discipline is non-discretionary and must be learned to fulfill the promise of a “tuned in” organization. Learn how to successfully conduct these post-decision interviews while extracting market perception to diagnose sales cycle performance, verify competitive differentiation and to align your sales process with that of your buyer.

Setting your quarterly and annual goals usually means looking at business objectives and development plans, and coming up with a few "related" goals for yourself. This can be tricky, as business goals aren't always clearly defined and development plans are subject to change. How can you set goals that stay focused on the right things? How can you contribute to your company's goals of being market-driven? Learn how to tie your goals to the market, rather than the tactical needs of the department.

with Barbara Nelson

SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing is easy, right? Offer a low priced product, sell a ton, make money, and retire rich. Looks good on paper - as long as you’ve balanced the interaction between price levels, licensing metrics, packaging, and value delivered to your target market. Unfortunately, pricing a SaaS offering can be daunting for product managers, especially when they want their company to thrive and not just survive.

with Luke Hohmann,

Agile product managers (and their Agile development teams) are told to prioritize backlogs based on ROI. In practice, this isn't possible. Prioritizing for Profit is a better approach. By defining a core set of attributes that include stakeholder preferences, corporate strategy, and specific ways to increase profitability, product managers can create backlogs that support the company's longer-term goals as well as short-term development needs.

with Richard Mironov,

Product Managers are responsible for the overall market success of their products, not just delivery of software. In the Agile world, a new title is emerging -- the Product Owner -- which covers just a small subset of the Product Management role.

While this makes sense for internal IT groups that have traditionally gone without Product Management, Agile product companies (that need to deliver customer revenue with their offerings) need full-fledged Product Managers to drive strategic activities and manage organizational/external participation.

What kinds of market failures can we expect when there's (only) a Product Owner assigned to revenue-producing projects?

with Robert Seigel, Practioner

Innovation – It is the most urgent need of most businesses today.

Every person and every business is searching for innovations to products, services, methods, and procedures. Yet with all of this desire for innovation we constrain ourselves with systems limitations, internal bureaucracy, politics, and policies, and that’s before we layer on the multitude of government rules and regulations. People bemoan these constraints on innovation calling them barriers to creativity and new ideas. Too bad. They’re missing great opportunities. You see, constraints are your friends.

So you attended product management training and got all fired up! You came back to the office ready to be market-driven. You anxiously awaited the look of joy and amazement at your newly found skills as a product manager. And then reality hit you... hard! Development couldn't care less! They're not listening!! How could this be? You missed a step; you skipped the part where you earned credibility. Sound familiar? Learn what works and what doesn't when your role changes from tactical to strategic.

Product management is often ill-defined and misunderstood in typical technology companies. Yet the role can be one that propels the company to the next level of performance. Rather than running the business like a hobby, effective product managers focus on the business aspects of defining and delivering products to market.

Steve Johnson explores the strategic role of product management using the Pragmatic Marketing Framework. Also included are action items for reviewing and assessing the product management role at your company.

What is the role of product management in an agile environment? Is the role of product owner something different? Developers often see product managers as technical resources. Agile seems to have made this orientation worse, with product managers getting pulled into deeper, tactical activities. But spending so much time with internal teams means less time spent in the market as a resource for strategy and business thinking at the product level.

How do we develop a market driven product plan? How do we establish corporate strategic alignment? One of the necessary first steps is to assess where your current product portfolio is positioned. Product managers can then use this positioning to establish alignment and agreement with development to drive future product direction and strategies. In this session, John Milburn will introduce Pragmatic Marketing's Technology Assessment Grid™ and explain ways to use this powerful analysis tool.

Have you ever thought about being a Product Manager at a startup? If so (or if you are currently at one), you often hear comments like these from the founder. Do you wonder how you're ever going to get it all done? Between Development building "cool technology," and Sales selling to “anyone with money” for the deal-of-the-day, who has time for strategic thoughts or planning?

In this session, product management experts Paul Young, Director of Product Management at an Austin, TX start-up and John Milburn, Consultant at Pragmatic Marketing will discuss what it takes to make Product Management successful at a startup organization.

with Barbara Nelson,

Do you know why you win some deals and lose others? Is Sales conducting their own analysis of wins and losses? Learn why product management should be conducting win/loss for an organization. Learn several practical techniques for performing win/loss analysis including how to conduct a proper win/loss interview.

Product Marketing (Go-to-Market)

with

With marketing busy generating leads and getting the sales process started, where is the plan to engage the sales people and motivate them to work on all of these new opportunities? The reason that most sales launches fail to inspire action and uptake is that marketing and sales people just don’t speak the same language.

with Jeff Ramminger, KnowledgeStorm

Take an insider's look at content-driven online marketing and maximizing the value of an organization's online assets, from white papers to Wikis and podcasts to product sheets -- any traditional or emerging media content type. You will learn about changes in the buyers' behavior when it comes to search, registration and online media consumption, how to determine the right mix of content types, what buyers value most when it comes to content and more.

with Peter Cohan, Principal of The Second Derivative

“Do The Last Thing First” – the recipe for a Great Demo! Here’s how to put the “Wow!” into your demos and make them effective, crisp, and compelling – engage audiences in the first six minutes of a demonstration. The result is crisp, highly effective demonstrations that satisfy VP’s and senior management, champions, users and all other players – and close the business.

For marketers seeking to generate quality leads, nothing beats a well-written white paper. This webinar will examine the latest research on white paper marketing, discuss key elements of white papers that attract leads and reveal new marketing trends related to white papers. Learn how to create valuable content that will bring continuous opportunity to your business.

with Jeffrey Henning, Chief Strategy Officer at Vovici and Brian Koma, VP of Client Services at Vovici

How do you prioritize your requirements to your user base? Is it the squeaky wheel that gets the grease in your company when it comes to requirements generation and prioritization? Learn the most important things you can do to increase customer satisfaction including how to measure satisfaction from the customer's point of view, how to use customer feedback to improve performance and how to leverage social networking to gather customer feedback.

with

Adele Revella discusses what successful lead generation experts do to overcome their obstacles. How to produce profitable revenue growth that is measurable and productive for everyone involved. We will also talk about how sales people evaluate lead quality and how they will react to your lead programs. And what marketing can do to manage the lead conversion results.

with

Are your launch plans focused on a product? Attend this session to see why companies use buyer personas to guide their launch team’s strategic and tactical efforts. This webinar shows you that personas -- an “example” that represents each of the people who will influence the buying decision.

with Adele Revella,

Four trends are converging to change the way technology companies market their products, driving the need for new skills and processes; products and markets are maturing, buying criteria and personas are changing, the buying process is changing, salespeople are dealing with change too. Learn how product management and marketing roles are evolving to drive more profitable, successful products and services.

with David Meerman Scott, Online Thought-Leadership Strategist

Now that the Internet has made it easier than ever for marketers at software companies to directly communicate with consumers and target audiences, it’s imperative that they dramatically alter their PR and marketing strategy to maximize the effectiveness of the direct consumer-communication channel. On the Web, the old rules don’t apply. Learn how to leverage the potential that Web-based communication offers software companies.

with Catherine Kitcho, Launch Consultant at Launch Doctor

Launching a product is a critical business process. In today's dynamic economy companies must launch products effectively, every time. It takes an understanding of launch practices, the right skills and the commitment to process to be successful. In this webinar, you'll learn the 3 phases of the launch process, the sequence of tasks involved in each phase, the cross-functional resources needed, and how to use marketing and launch plans to keep the whole process on track.

How would you like to ship something every week?

Agile software development methods can produce dramatic productivity improvements but can also create havoc for Sales and Marketing teams. Frequent product releases can often surpass the ability of organizations to absorb the changes in a manageable way. This can result in new product capabilities that should be emphasized being lost in the chaos of getting the product to market. It also has the potential to disrupt the sales cycle.

Better definition of the "Product Launch" as the beginning of the sales process and not the end of the development cycle changes the perspective significantly. Instead of repeatedly forcing new versions of the product out the building, the focus shifts to how to sell the product, regardless of the incremental features added in any given iteration.

with David Daniels, Instructor at Pragmatic Marketing

Lack of organizational readiness is the #1 killer of successful product launches. You’ve identified a market problem that is pervasive, urgent and the market is willing to buy. You’ve developed a great product that satisfies the need. You are ready to go to market, but are you confident that the rest of your organization ready to sell and support your new offering? You could easily lose an entire quarter or more while the rest of the organization catches up. Learn some of key secrets to a successful product launch that can set the stage for sales velocity.

with Joan Schnieder, Founder and President of Schneider Associates

Schneider Associates collaborated with the Center for Business Innovation at Babson College on a new survey studying an important, but rarely discussed business activity: B2B launches. The survey polled sales and marketing executives involved in B2B launches to determine best practices and success factors for launching new products and services. In this webinar, Joan will explain how to categorize new products to determine launch campaign strategy. In addition, you’ll learn the top 10 tactics companies can use to improve launch success in the highly competitive B2B market.

with David Meerman Scott, Online Thought-Leadership Strategist

Before the Web came along, there were only two ways to get noticed: buy expensive advertising or beg the mainstream media to tell your story for you. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the Web that your buyers want to consume and interact with. The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg your way in are the skills of interruption and coercion. Success online comes from getting Tuned In to your buyers and creating great information that enlightens, informs, and starts online conversations.

Leadership/Strategy

with Anne Pauker Kreitzberg, President of Cognetics Corporaration

If you’ve ever been in this situation, you’re certainly not alone! Product managers often feel the squeeze between the developers, marketing, sales – and, of course, their boss. Sometimes it’s tough to get the players on the same page – and keep them there. Everyone looks to you for the answers – but working with people who don’t report to you is an art.

Measure What Matters: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Product Management

with Mike Smart, Pragmatic Marketing Consultant

Measuring the performance of a good product management process can appear to be measuring the un-measurable. But most executive management teams live by performance metrics and are often frustrated because good measures to predict financial performance of a process are not easy to find. However, there are some simple leading indicators that can be correlated to key performance metrics. The real trick is how to link process to financial outcomes. In other words, how do we demonstrate the return?

with Kristin Zhivago, founder of Zhivago Marketing Partners, Inc.

Buyers have a buying experience in mind before they start buying. Tuned in organizations know what buyers have in mind, long before the buyer shows up. When the buyer shows up, the seller has the perfect solution for them - one they want to buy, without being coerced, one that is easy to buy.

If you're tuned in, the minute your buyers arrive at your website, store, or office, they will immediately understand the value of your product or service - to them. This immediate understanding is critical to your sales, and critical to your long-term success in the click-through world we live in. They will easily make a purchase. They will be delighted when the product shows up, and even more delighted as they use the product. They will tell their friends. More buyers will come to you, expecting to be delighted. This is resonator revenue-flow nirvana, and any company can obtain it, using the Tuned In methods.

with Anne Pauker Kreitzberg, President of Cognetics Corporation

We all know how hard it is to make changes in our lives. Whether it’s a New Year’s Resolution or figuring out a new way to get to work when our usual route is shut down, it takes some getting used to. If change is tough in our personal lives, it’s even more difficult at work – especially if we’re the ones behind the change.

You know what it’s like when changes are announced. Some people chuckle about the “new flavor of the month”. Others wonder if management has nothing better to do than introduce new programs of unclear value. Still others take a “wait and see” approach. And we all know folks who look change square in the eye and say, “bring it on.”

If you don’t have a Tuned In Culture that is so compelling it resonates with everyone in your organization, learn how to create one – so that the Six Steps becomes a natural way to work.

with Art Petty, Leadership strategist, Founder and Principal of Strategy & Management Innovations

Value creation is at the core of any leader's reason-for-being and leveraging the principles and ideas espoused in Tuned In will help the leader navigate the challenges and pitfalls that so often distract entire organizations from fulfilling this value creation mission.

The Tuned In Leader focuses on creating a culture where the Six Steps become embedded in the organization's DNA as the only way of conducting business. From strategy creation and execution to talent identification and development, this powerful framework provides guidance for leaders at all levels to develop the style and approaches that resonate internally and that inspire individuals and teams to remarkable success.