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Practical Product Management

Build market-driven products by listening to your market

Does your product management function need more structure and process? The Practical Product Management^® (PPM) course fully explores the role of technology product management, providing tools and processes to help get products to market more efficiently. This comprehensive, two or three-day (with Requirements That Work) seminar offers real-world product management techniques using case studies from desktop to enterprise-level products and services.

A challenging program that emphasizes strategic product marketing and market-driven management, the seminar focuses on analyzing product marketing activities in detail, offering tips for how to be effective at the strategic elements and how to manage multiple tactical activities.

Begin with a blueprint for product marketing activities. Drill down into the often-difficult process of articulating product requirements, and learn how to create a successful product plan. Every concept is designed to be actionable as soon as you return to the office.

This seminar is the pre-requisite for Pragmatic Marketing Certification.

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Who should attend?

Product managers or marketing managers and directors; marketing communications specialists and product developers. You should attend if you manage or contribute to aspects of product marketing and management.

Seminar fees

$1,595 US per person for the 2-day Practical Product Management seminar. $2,195 US per person for the 3-day Practical Product Management with Requirements seminar. Tuition is due prior to the seminar and includes a complete set of training materials, continental breakfast and lunch.

Seminar agenda

Day 1-2

I. Strategic Role of Product Management

This segment establishes a framework for product management, articulating all the disciplines necessary for marketing high-tech products. Product managers learn about the breadth of their job and how to balance strategic with tactical activities.

You will learn how to listen to the market, evaluate what you learn, design more successful products, create more effective communications, and plan more focused selling activities.

The remainder of the seminar is dedicated to methodically covering each of the responsibilities associated with product management and product marketing, learning how to perform each activity with “best practices” from the technology industry.

Each section is loaded with real-life experiences, case studies, examples, and tested processes for completing the task.

Topics Covered:
• What is marketing?
• Definition of the role of product management
• Contrasting product management and product marketing
• Assigning ownership of responsibilities
• Identifying the “first steps” with gap analysis

II. Market Analysis
A tour of the product management framework begins with Distinctive Competence.

An understanding of why customers buy your products and services determines how and when to extend (or contract) the product line. And you’ll learn how these insights help you determine which products to “build” versus “buy.”

Next, you will examine market and competitive research, with tips for effective research “on the cheap.”

An extended discussion is dedicated to understanding market needs. How do we uncover prospect problems? What is the product manager's role in this process?

Since product management has such a strong technology orientation, we offer a tool to help assess technology in the competitive landscape, providing pros and cons for four types of technology products.

Topics Covered:
• Distinctive competence
• Market research
• Market problems
• Technology assessment
• Competitive review

III. Quantitative Analysis
This section covers how to quantify what you have learned in the market and look for profitable opportunities to serve the market. Starting with defining and sizing market segments, you will learn techniques to calculate product adoption.

For products already in the market, learn what metrics to track to analyze product performance, including revenue, profit, customer satisfaction, and market share. Also covered are the metrics to track to learn what impact the product has on company operations.

Finally, win/loss analysis helps identify product flaws and systemic problems in the sales process—without relying on anecdotal information from the sales channel.

Topics Covered:
• Market sizing
• Product performance
• Operational Metrics
• Win/loss analysis

IV. Strategic Planning
Million dollar decisions are made every day by middle management –without fully understanding the downstream financial effect. This section examines the need for a concise business case and explains a two-phase process for fast, well-informed approvals with “no surprises.”

Business case discussions include when to buy, build, or partner with specific tips for creating and managing partnerships. Other critical issues include pricing; care and feeding of industry thought leaders; and two case studies of outstanding product innovations.

Topics Covered:
• Business case
• Buy, build, or partner?
• Pricing
• Thought leaders
• Innovation

V. Product Planning
Once product managers have collected and analyzed most of the available market data, information can be articulated in three key forms: positioning, sales process, and market requirements.

The positioning document is the basis for communicating the product message internally and externally. A repeatable process for positioning any product or service is simplified down to a one-page worksheet format.

The course covers how to document the sales process by defining key steps and associated collateral. A detailed sample is examined and a worksheet is provided to help begin the process.

The third day of the course delves into details of the Market Requirements Document (MRD) and presents a product planning process that uses the market information gathered in the first three columns of the Pragmatic Marketing® Framework.

Topics Covered:
• Positioning
• Sales process

VI. Case Study
Attendees break into work groups to dissect a technology case study. Putting together concepts from the class so far, groups create a problem-oriented positioning document. The result: primary message, description, and product name that resonates with the different buyers.

VII. Delineating Responsibilities
As companies grow, it is difficult to delineate where product management responsibilities end and the other departments begin. This section covers how to use market facts to provide the bridge between departments and how to delineate the responsibilities so each department does what it is supposed to do.

Topics Covered:
• Communicating market facts to Development, Marketing Communications, and Sales
• Drawing the line between product management and the other departments

Day 3

VIII. Building the Market Requirements Document (MRD)
Product managers need to communicate market problems to Development in a meaningful way. Data that appears to be detailed to Marketing does not seem detailed enough for Development.

When developers ask for more specifics, how should product managers communicate market requirements so the final product requirement matches market needs? What is a requirement and how is it written? How can we help developers to understand the intent of market requirements?

Topics Covered:
• Writing requirements
• Implementing use-case scenarios
• Programming for the “persona”
• Determining product feature sets
• Creating the MRD

IX. Analyzing Business and Technology Drivers
Once market problems are identified and articulated, product teams must analyze the business issues and technical feasibility. Which features are necessary for a successful product introduction? Is this feature technically possible? Are the resources and skills available to build it? How do we incorporate the market into the process?

Topics Covered:
• Reviewing specifications
• Prioritizing the product feature set

X. Getting (and Keeping) Commitments
Many projects fail when the original project plan is altered. How do product managers get senior executives to support the release? What about “special” features needed to close a deal? Commitment means making a plan— and getting the project team “on the same page.”

Further, time lost in implementation phases of development can never be recouped. How do we monitor the project and detect problems before they are out of control? The product contract summarizes release plans in a simple format that can be communicated—and understood—throughout the company.

Topics Covered:
• Product contract
• Getting the product team in sync
• Getting executive support
• Communicating the plan in the company and in the market