Competitive Intelligence Take 1 – Multi-Criteria Decision Making

As a business leader, who doesn’t want to be in the upper right hand portion of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant! Assuming you have been charted there, it means that the analysts believe your product or solution has scored high in both the ‘Completeness of Vision’ as well as ‘Ability to Execute’ categories. And if you are not in the upper right portion, the question on everyone’s mind is “how do I get there”?

Having a firm understanding of the methodology used in tools like the Magic Quadrant would be helpful, and would also serve as a good basis for a more holistic approach to your competitive intelligence process.

Rules of Engagement

I was fairly young in my career the first time I heard this expression. And like me in that situation, even if you don’t know the exact meaning, you probably understand the premise behind the words just from their basic definitions:

• Rule – principle governing conduct, action
• Engage – to occupy the attention or efforts of

Essentially, rules of engagement (ROE) bind behavior under certain circumstances.  Probably the most recognizable form can be seen with our military where (to paraphrase) … “rules or directives … issued by authority … delineate/define circumstances and limitations under which US forces will initiate/engage with other forces encountered.”  So the obvious question is what does this have to do with Product Management?

‘I Hate This Part…’ Follow-up: Part 2 – Storms

One of the life lessons I learned a long time ago was the premise that you are either in the middle of a storm, just coming out of a storm, or about to go into one. It’s not meant to be a doom and gloom view of the world, just reflective of reality. Think about it … whether you call them storms, or use the terminology from the attached article (problems, challenges, and issues) life is full of them. Depending on the approach you take in dealing them, the outcomes can be very different. It is no different in the workplace, and especially in our roles as Product Management Leaders. How often do things go according to plan? Sometimes it feels like the biggest part of our jobs is firefighting, contingency planning, re-baselining, etc.

‘I Hate This Part…’ Follow-up: Part 1 – Wilderness Moments

Tags

lincoln, preparation, storms, wilderness

First off, thank you for the responses to my previous post I Hate This Part of Leadership … from those of you who put the pieces together, to just general well wishers. Needless to say, it has been a challenging couple of days and the support was genuinely appreciated.

In that article, I alluded to a couple of concepts that I wanted to re-post.  Part 1 will take a look at the Wilderness concept, Part 2 at the Storms.  All of us go through them at some point … hopefully these help in a time of need.

I Hate This Part of Leadership

Tags

hard decisions, leadership, storms, wilderness

Work/Life balance is important to me, so it isn’t often you’ll find me writing on the weekend. But today I need to.

If you have been in leadership of any kind for a while, you know that hard decisions just come with the territory. Sometimes it means parting ways with employees for performance-based reasons.  Sometimes it means discontinuing a product because it is either redundant and/or has run its course. Sometimes financially based decisions are made such that investment in a product/portfolio dwindles and eventually ceases all together. And with this latter scenario, sometimes it means laying people off.

So … What Do You Do For A Living?

Sigh! This can be one of the most frustrating questions when it comes to explaining the product management role to a new acquaintance, a well-meaning friend, or just about anyone who isn’t somewhat involved in software or high technology. Inevitably, people try and fit your response into a box they understand, and I get one of the following reactions:

• Hey, I know of some project managers at my company!
• Oh, a production manager …
• So, you’re in marketing?
• What’s that?

No, I’m not a project manager … although I need to understand how to lead such that projects are delivered on time, on scope, and on budget. No, I don’t have anything to do with production in manufacturing sense … although I am responsible for producing results.  No, I’m not “in marketing” the way you are probably thinking about it … although marketing is a critical outbound aspect of my role if I want to be successful. But is the Product Management role really that hard to understand?