- Visit your customers. Talk to them and explore new ideas. Customers will always feed you with the ideas you need to be successful. When they renew a big contract, you can stand back and see how your efforts have made a difference.
- Sit with your developers. By sitting down and spending time in the office, you will certainly get an understanding of what can and cannot be done within your time constraints. Ask questions and be a part of your product development. Don’t forget to take the team out for beers, coffee, or even a big dinner after a major release!
- Get your schedule from a critic. Your best friend in product management will be your software or hardware architect/dev manager. Your schedules must be realistic and a critical manager will be your best partner to negotiate schedules.
- Present your solution in an internal sales meeting. The sales team will need to understand your solution. By creating a relationship with your sales team and, spending time with them, you will both get a better understanding of what needs to be done.
- Present your solution to a customer. As mentioned earlier in my list, the closer you are to the firing line, the better you will understand the needs of your customers. By presenting and showing off your product offering, you’ll become aware of what is important to the customer.
- Answer the hard questions. If you cannot answer them, it’s time to get to know your product better. Go find the answer because the hard questions will definitely be asked again. You will certainly be put on the spot, so, make sure you know how it works!
- Follow up. If you hand your card to someone and promise them and answer, get it done and call them back (don’t email). It will build your reputation, guaranteed.
- Stop using email for conversations. Email is meant to exchange information. It shouldn’t be used to “talk” about important topics. Pick up the phone and call.
- Participate in an RFP response. This is critical because it will assure your product is on the cutting edge of current customer requirements. If you don’t think your product meets the need of the RFP, ask questions to your team. If it’s something that is critical to win a customer, make a few calls and sit with your team to find a feasible solution. Not all requirements are easy, but they should be on your roadmap. Discuss the options with the sales team to understand if the investment is something the business is ready to invest.
- Track your ideas and give credit. Keep your ideas in a database or even a spreadsheet. I love using Aha.io because it has an excellent way to log ideas provided by internal or external sources. These ideas can be implemented, and you’ll be the hero of you give credit where it’s due.
- Join your QA team in a round or two of testing. An intimate understanding is key to know how your product works. The best way to do this is to be part of the test process. You’ll get to know how it works and can make better decisions about how bugs may affect the end user. Or better yet, how these bugs may never affect them.
- Be the advocate for your product and your team. There’s nothing better than actually believing in your product. It’s the best on the market, and sits close to your heart.
- Simplify. By building a simple plan for your team, you’ll also be able to successfully communicate your ideas up the management chain. Ideas should be large enough to generate revenue for the company and push your competitors. Save all the details for your user stories and team communications.
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