The Cranky Product Manager

The Reality of Maternity and Paternity in the Software Industry

Dysfunctosoft, you are indeed extremely dysfunctional, but the Cranky Product Manager truly appreciates the flexibility you have afforded her as she attempts to figure out the motherhood-working mom-consummate-professional balance thingy. 

You've been understanding about the CPM's requirement for a reduced travel schedule, her need to leave at 5pm on the dot when she once regularly stayed past 9pm, and her need to work at home when her nanny gets sick, doesn't show up, or quits out of the blue and leaves the CPM without viable alternative childcare for 3 weeks at a time. You've put up with canceled and postponed meetings due to illnesses and doctors visits. You've gracefully dealt with conference calls with a wailing baby in the background. Kudos to you, DysfunctoSoft.  The Cranky Product Manager thanks you.

So yes, DysfunctoSoft, you are enlightened. Somewhat. But she can't help but notice you don't give the DADS the same flexibility as you afford moms.  You expect the dads to travel incessantly, work endlessly late hours, and be available on a moment's notice.  And DysfunctoSoft is hardly atypical.  For example, the Darling Husband of the Cranky Product Manager works at nearby software company  -- let's call it AHoleSoft -- in a similar role.  AHoleSoft gives Darling Husband no slack to contribute to the childcare situation.  (AHoles. What do you expect?)  As a result, it all falls 100% on the Cranky Product Manager's shoulders.  And that is crap, my friends.  Unexpected crap, at that.  Especially for someone ambitious who had dreams of taking over the world with her wealth of product management knowledge and derivative evil genius.  Though she never thought it would happen to her, the Cranky Product Manager finds her career derailing, unable to accept a promotion because she can barely keep up as is.

Prior to this whole kid thing, the Cranky Product Manager had full (naive) expectations of a 50-50 marital split in terms of child-raisin'.  After all, she brought down slightly more coin than DH, has a megawatt education, and had a pretty freakin' important job and excellent career prospects. Furthermore, Darling Husband fully supported this 50-50 split idea. He was all in favor of it.  He's a natural with kids and wanted to spend lots of time with his offspring. 

But alas, you Software Industry Mo-Fos make it pretty freakin' impossible.  Oh yes, you try to be nice to moms, and your efforts are appreciated.  But just remember, you can't really help working moms unless you help their husbands/partners too.

FAD: The Methodology to End All Methodologies

The Cranky PM pronounces this send-up of Agile to be a work of comedic genius.

Enjoy your Monday.

Stage 4 Product Proliferation

Once upon a time, long, long ago, DysfunctoSoft had a simple little price list. It could be described in a paragraph. Buy our server and pay $XX,XXX per machine. Buy our companion client-side tool and pay $YYY per instance. Simple.

And then came the inevitable. Customer A started whining: DysfunctoSoft, we like your product. But it is too full-featured for us. We don't want to pay for functionality we won't use.  We want to pay less.

Instead of recognizing the whining as a simple price negotiation tactic, what do you think the big cheeses of DysfunctoSoft decided to do? Did they tell the sales person to do a better job of selling the product that actually existed? Did they attempt "value pricing" or offer Customer A a discount so the price would fit the project's budget?

No. Of course not. Because those options are just too freakin' simple. And too cheap. You see, DysfunctoSoft always likes to do things the arcane way.  The expensive way. The way that is most likely to confuse the fuck out of customers and the sales people and pretty much everyone.  The way that is most likely to increase the cost of BOTH sales AND product development by tenfold.

So what did they do?  The big cheeses of DysfunctoSoft ordained that a NEW product be created, a variation on the original.  This NEW product shall have less functionality than the original, and shall be offered at a lower price. 

And it worked. The deal closed.

And then the very next customer, Customer B, said: You know what, we like your stuff, DysfunctoSoft. But the original product is too much for us, and product variation A doesn't do enough.  We need something in between and we don't want to pay for functionality we don't use.

And so the big cheeses met on Mount Olympus yet again. In between sips of ambrosia, they commanded that Yet Another Product be created, against the strenuous objections of the predecessor to the Cranky Product Manager. Product B would have less functionality than the original and more than Product Variant A, and offered at a price in between the two. Customer B liked. And Customer B bought.

And you can see where this is going, right? 

N years later, DysfunctoSoft now has product variations A through ZZZ.  All slight variations of each other.  Each has a moniker meant to distinguish it from the rest, but instead it serves to confuse the frig out of everyone: "Lite", "Starter", "Ultimate", "Standard", "Enterprise", "Developer", "Advanced", "Professional", "Professional Plus", "Basic", "Premier", "Express", "Personal", "On-Demand", "Workgroup", "Home", "Business", "Desktop", "Premium",  "Basic N", "Unlimited", "Datacenter", "Foundation", "Framework",  "Mobile", "Community"...  The list goes on and on.  Naturally, there is no consistency in the naming.  That would make too much sense. What the frig do all these terms  mean anyway?  Especially when the "Unlimited" and "Ultimate" variants aren't as powerful as the "Enterprise" or "Pro Plus" or whatever. And how the hell are the Lite and Basic and Express and Starter editions different? 

Not only that, each of these products can be licensed in a myriad of ways: per instance, per customer site, per server, per processor, per concurrent user, per named user...  It is difficult to think of a licensing method that DysfunctoSoft does not support. 

Results?

The price list is now enormous, pushing 200 pages or so. No one can understand it. Especially not Sales Droids.  They join DysfunctoSoft and then quit/get fired within a year. And then it's time to train a new Droid. It takes them MONTHS to finally internalize this nutso product line architecture.  Without their guidance, customers can't understand what to buy or how much it costs. Forget a consumer sale, a self-service sale, or one driven by website research.

Product Development is getting crushed underneath the weight of all these product variations. Although they all largely use the same code base, there are significant differences that have impact throughout the behavior of the products.

And because the names are hard coded into the products, manuals and marketing collateral, despite a concerted effort NOT to hard code them, it is now impossible to change the names to more sensible alternatives.

The QA effort required to test all these products on all the support platforms has gone through the roof.  It seems that for any new release 60% of the effort goes into making the licensing more intricate and trying to automate this crazy product variation structure via license keys or elaborate build systems.

What else?  Support costs have skyrocketed.  As have documentation and training costs. Marketing costs too. The Cranky Product Manager is sure the effects do not stop there. Oh what joy it must be to handle the accounting for such a needlessly massive product line. Or the financial forecasting. The auditors probably have a grand old time billing DysfunctoSoft after sifting through its cornucopia of transactions attributable to each product and licensing option combination.

The Cranky Product Manager truly, honestly believes that DysfunctoSoft's latest troubles are primarily due to the explosion of products that are not truly differentiated.  It's treading water, trying to keep its head above the continually crushing waves of a massive code base.  There is no time to actually create value for your customers when you can barely maintain what you already have. 

The Cranky Product Manager knows that DysfunctoSoft is hardly alone. Even companies like Proctor & Gamble are lured to madness by the siren of product proliferation and endless line extensions, paying dearly in the end for their lack of discipline.  Every software company the CPM has ever worked with has suffered the same illness. But those companies were still in their early years, suffering from Stage 1 or Stage 2 Product Proliferation.  Alas, DysfunctoSoft has an older product line, and is now suffering Stage 4 Product Proliferation: malignant, inoperable and infecting all organs in the body.

Perhaps it is time for the Cranky Product Manager to start working on her resume.

Persona Non Grata

OK, contrary to popular theory, the Cranky Product Manager is not dead.  She blames her lack of blog posts on the holiday madness, especially her miserable attempt to play Santa for her infant. And then, just as the holidays wrapped up and the last thank you note was written, the Cranky Product Manager was held against her will in a smoke-filled hotel for a entire week, forced to give product training to a bunch of hungover sales droids. And then attend their booze-drenched, endless awards ceremony.

Anyway, back to blogular business. 

These days, seems like most in the product management blogouniverse think user personas are the shizz, the best thing going since the invention of the triple shot grande skim latte.

Never able to resist development fads, everyone at DysfunctoSoft is getting on this persona bandwagon.  Example:

VINEETA
Vineeta is 33 years old and an entry-level IT manager at a mid-sized insurance company located on the Philadelphia Main Line. She manages a claims payment application for the auto insurance division. The application was developed before she was born. After a messy breakup with her fiancee one year ago, Vineeta moved back in with her parents. Her bedroom is now the same one she grew up in, and there's still a poster of Green Day on the wall.  Vineeta is an Aries and enjoys long romantic walks on the beach. She has a 7-year old cat named Whiskers, whom the ex-fiancee detested.

Well, gee. How nice.  What a nice, although potentially fragile, person that Vineeta seems to be. The Cranky PM sure hopes that DysfunctoSoft builds her some nice software.....

hmm.  yep.

OK, the Cranky Product Manager HAS to say it.  SO WHAT?  WHO FREAKIN' CARES about Vineeta's hobbies or pets or love life? Seriously, what do these colorful details have to do with how Vineeta uses DysfunctoCrank 7.5?   

Why are all the personas the Cranky PM sees littered with this type of crap detail instead of the facts that REALLY matter? Such as: How much time does Vineeta spend working with the application? What level of technical expertise does she have? What types of tasks does she usually do in the app?  What circumstances would make her depart from the usual routine, etc...?

ARGH.  Cranky Alert! Cranky Alert!  Shelter in place, please!

Product Management Haiku

Inspired by the fine, upstanding folks at Pivotal Product Management, here are some enthralling and inspirational haiku the Cranky PM whipped together.

Join in the fun!  Submit your own haiku in the comments.

Gartner, Forrester,
How the CPM hates you.
Damn Magic Quadrant.

Product Marketing:
They tell product lies all day
But they don't know it.

Only Bad PMs
Don't install or even use
The products they own.

Their bogus excuse:
"Technically impossible,"
Code Boyz and Girlz claim.

Darling Customer.
We shipped you crap. I'm sorry.
Please abuse me now.

Top-down, bottom-up...
How to do product planning?
We always debate.

Supported products.
An integration nightmare.
Zillions of versions.

Upgrade now or else
We'll de-support the release
Your business uses.

Sales Droid always blames
Lost deals on missing features.
Wins are due to him.

Short beta programs:
For publicity only,
Not for finding bugs.

Trade shows are useless
Tools for generating leads.
They just want free pens.

Plugs Ahoy

No bitchiness here today.  The Cranky Product Manager finally got a good night's sleep.  At last, after many months, CrankyKid 1.0 slept through the night. And there was much rejoicing.

Anyway, in lieu of a tirade against some marketing nimrod or self-important code boy, today the Cranky Product Manager is going to plug the following sites:

First,  the new PM Jobs email list. This email alias for Product Management and Product Marketing job postings only launched two weeks ago.  But wow! They have a ton of listings already. Over 115 job postings and 800 list members.  Membership and posting are free. Since perusing the listings of several sexy-sounding jobs, the Cranky PM's perpetually wandering eye has mutated into fervent new job lust. Check it out at http://finance. groups.yahoo. com/group/ pm_jobs/.

Second, It's that time of year.  Take Pragmatic Marketing's Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey before November 21. The CPM cannot WAIT until the results are published.  She'll use them to demand her boss give her a monster raise.

Marketing Geniuses & Marketing Fads

Of course.  Of COURSE DysfunctoSoft pursued this bonehead ground-breaking marketing "strategy".  Hey, without this type of inspired marketing , why there might not be a "Dysfuncto" in DysfunctoSoft.

What, you ask, is the Cranky Product Manager bitching about this time?

Well, about a year ago DysfunctoSoft's Marketing VP, who thinks of himself as a visionary, read an article about the Next Big Thing: the fantabulous SECOND LIFE virtual world.  By some weird circumstance of the universe, this nimrod "visionary" always envisions the same future as the American Airlines in-flight magazine.  Funny that.

Anyway, Veep Nimrod got on the case.  His mission in life became securing DysfunctoSoft a corporate presence in Second Life.  The future of DysfunctoSoft depended on it.  It was a critical new avenue to potential customers. Because, as you know, C-level executives with multi-million dollar software budgets are usually hanging out there. Poor, lonely CIOs. Always wandering around virtual worlds aimlessly, thinking, "If only more enterprise software vendors had islands in Second Life, well then my Second Life could be just as tedious and soul-sucking as my first!" and "Man, I wish I'd run into a virtual software salesperson so I could hear a dreary sales pitch without having to deal with the real-world free dinners, drinks, and lap dances." 

Anyway, not wanting to be hasty, Veep Nimrod did some market research on his ground-breaking concept.  He asked his 12-year old son what he thought of the idea.  "WICKED AWESOME" the kid said, in between rounds of Halo.

Emboldened by such powerful market validation, Veep Nimrod put his plan in motion. There was so much work to do and not a minute to waste. And now, finally, after _14 months!_ of weekly status meetings, managing vigorous debate among multiple cross-functional teams, and intensive work on his avatar, Veep Nimrod launched DysfunctoSoft corporate presence in Second Life. 

Yippee.

Too bad Second Life is now a ghost town.  Not even lonely CIOs hang out there anymore.  Number of leads generated by this revolutionary marketing effort after 2 months? ZERO.

But at least this all-consuming epic marketing campaign distracted the Dysfuncto Marketing Geniuses for over a year.  It kept them from inflicting any more damage to the Cranky Product Manager's beloved product.  If they hadn't been otherwise occupied, the Geniuses probably would have added something like "Web 2.0" or "Social Networking Edition" to the CPM's product's name.  You know, some kind of faddish phrase that has no relation to what the product is or does. Because the Geniuses want to make absolutely SURE that customers (and sales people) have no clue what the product actually does.  Because confusing the fuck out of them is the sure way to customers' wallets, right?. Hey, if a tactic works for date rapists, it must be a good idea for enterprise software, agreed?

Watch out Marketing Geniuses.  The Cranky Product Manager is disgusted with you. And her avatar can kick your avatars' virtual asses.

How to Get the Respect of Development

When starting at a new company, even the best product manager finds herself in an awkward position -- the position where most of the developers don't listen to her and disrespect her. While this is a temporary condition for the successful product managers, some are never able to dig out from this living grave. 

So, let the Cranky Product Manager help.  Gather 'round and sit at the feet of the CPM whilst she bestows her big-league wisdom upon your sweet little ears. Wait with baited breath as she whispers in your ear the Secret of Gaining the Respect of Development.

Step 1: Stop being an Asshole. 

For some of you, this might require a personality transplant. The CPM recommends you request a personality that is neither overly extroverted nor excessively introverted, easy to get along with yet somewhat stubborn, detail-oriented yet able to see the big picture, market-minded yet technical, diplomatic yet daring, a risk-taker but ultimately sensible, a visionary yet pragmatic. 

In other words, get yerself a personality that excels in its middle-of-the-road-ness.  A  personality that has reached the pinnacle of mediocrity in all respects and revels in it.  A personality that, lacking any strong characteristics, resembles tepid water in its complete nondescript-ishness and ability to go with any meal.

Don't feel bad if you need a personality transplant. It won't shock you to learn that the Cranky Product Manager needs one too. In her cranky old age she's become too likely to say exactly what she thinks, much to her development team's (and her boss's) chagrin.

Step 2: Become an expert in the current customer base.

First, before the Pragmatic Marketing folks jump down the Cranky Product Manager's throat and start screaming "be a MARKET EXPERT not a CUSTOMER EXPERT, you effing IDIOT," let the CPM explain: You gotta walk before you run. 

Before the Code Boyz  (and Grrlz) will accept the Neophyte PM's market expertise as gospel, they first need to believe that the NPM actually knows the names of some customers.  Because, for some reason, the Code Boyz/Grrlz assume that Product Managers have no clue about customers. This is because the average developer or development manager thinks it's OBVIOUS what the customers want. After all, they actually MET two or three customers once, and maybe they even fixed a few bugs at a customer's request.  And if you, the Neophyte Product Manager, disagree with the "obvious" course of action... well, then, it must be that you don't know anything and are pulling requirements out of yer ass.

This is called "projection" in psychiatric circles.  The Code Boy/Grrl who pulls requirements out of his/her posterior quarters or "gut" or whatever accuses the Neophyte Product Manager of doing the same.

The way out of this quagmire?

Learn WAY more about the current customers than the development team.  Then, prove it to those hateahs beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Club them over the head with your wellspring of customer knowledge.  Until no one can deny you know yer shite.

Fortunately, becoming a customer expert does not take that long if you really concentrate on it. But the CPM is tired. Worn out from dealing with a screaming infant all day. And she's not talking about her beloved spawn. Nay, she's referring to her (usually) favorite sales engineer who has a major case of whiney-itis.  (a story for another day)

So, tune in next time for the CPM's "100-day plan for Becoming a Customer Expert and Proving it Again and Again and Again to Development". Coming out sometime in the next 6 weeks. Promise.

Happy Halloween and Peace out.

Administrivia

The Cranky PM believes she has finished fixing this here blog.  Please inform her of any broken links or missing images.  Muchas gracias.

Oh yeah. Two caveats:

1) Some comments and TrackBacks got lost.  Where they went is anyone's guess.  Seems they didn't export correctly.  Sorry 'bout that.

2) Any link that YOU made to a specific Cranky Product Manager post is probably busted.  The CPM would much appreciate it if you could relink. Her apologies for the inconvenience.

(If only SixApart would let Typepad users manually specify the base filename of each post. Alas, they do not.... Guess they didn't account for a use case where the actor tries to recreate the blog she deliberately nuked weeks earlier.)

A Bit on Anonymity

The Cranky Product Manager wants to respond to the comments on her last post.

Maybe y'all are right.  Maybe the CPM's real-life alter ego could not be fired for keeping this here blog.  She thinks you're wrong, since her state is an "at-will employment state", which she understand means she can be canned at any time for any reason that doesn't have to do with discrimination.

But anyway, assume you're right and she can't be fired for keeping a blog.  That doesn't mean she's willing to risk being found out by her colleagues.

Even though the CPM's stories are fictional, well, think about it.  How would you feel if you found out one of your co-workers was the Cranky Product Manager?  Would you wonder if your latest gaffe was the inspiration for her most recent post?  Would you wonder if you were the inspiration behind the Asshole Product Manager? Or the Product Marketing Director who is a self-styled visionary?  Or what about Sally, the Spineless Release Manager?

Do you think the Cranky Product Manager's credibility and influence with developers, marketers, salespeople, and executives might be impacted?  That maybe her entire ability to get her job done would be gravely compromised?  And that her diminished job performance might lead to her eventual firing?

The Cranky PM thinks so. And thus she continues to remain anonymous and do her utmost to protect her identity, regardless of whether or not her company can officially fire her for having a blog.

She's back again

Cripes, it is a pain in the ass being an anonymous blogger.  One becomes constantly paranoid that her identity will be revealed, and that a pink slip and unemployment claims will be the end result.

Picture, if you will, the Cranky Product Manager doing a horrendously stupid thing at her real life job that -- if anyone was even paying the slightest bit of attention -- would surely have exposed her as the author of this here site.  Within 5 minutes of realizing this grave mis-step, the Cranky Product Manager blew this site away. No time to backup the site, except for a quick export of all posts. In desperation, she pressed *DELETE WEBLOG* and *poof* it was all gone.

Fortunately, it seems that no one was paying attention.  Perhaps it has blown over. Perhaps it is safe to come out of her cave again and breathe the fresh air of civilized society.  Perhaps the Cranky Product Manager can rebuild and venture in the blogosphere once more, but a little bit wiser this time.  OK, a lot wiser as she was an unbelievable idiot for letting this happen.

So the site is republished. Mostly.

Alas, all the photos on this blog -- including her marvelous logo image -- are gone.

And a bunch of links are effed up.  If you ever linked to a specific CPM post, you might want to redo your link. So sorry about that. 

And the site looks like crapola now, with all the missing images and the yucky plain green design.  It physically hurts the Cranky Product Manager to think of her site looking so freakin' disgusting.  Cripes again.

The CPM apologizes for her disappearance, especially to those who gave a s*&$. She gives a shout out to the folks at On Product Management for filing the equivalent of a missing persons report. And to the fine, upstanding individuals who emailed her, inquiring about the CPM's health and whereabouts.  Love to you all.  Kisses. Every one of you.

Stay tuned for the next post, being slaved over this second.  It's called How to Gain the Respect of Development in 10 Easy Steps. You'll love it.  Swear to Cheesus. Unlike her usual bitch-and-moan posts, the Cranky Product Manager promises that this post will actually be useful.

See you soon. Promise. And again, apologies.

test

Getting Demonstrative at Trade Shows

The fine, upstanding, big-brained individuals at Pragmatic Marketing posed the question as part of their ginormous BlogFest:

Why demo at trade shows?

So the Cranky Product Manager answers, in her usual, long-winded fashion...

The main reason B2B software companies demo at trade shows is simple: TRADITION. The practice has been around for eons. In fact, the following image depicts the world's first trade show booth, with a smartly dressed product manager showing off the latest product features to a huge crowd of -- wow!-- three passersby (pretty typical for a trade show).

Notice that the audience appears to be quite "excited" by the demo of the latest version of the HMS 4.2 (Hieroglyphic Management System). But, alas, only one of the three viewers (meaning the dude with the big hat) has even the slightest ability to influence software purchases. Also, it is not clear why the audience is so very attentive and excited. Perhaps it is the product's awesome features. Perhaps. But more than likely it is either the demonstrator's chiseled abs or the lusciousness of the nearby Booth Babes handing out swag engraved with AncientSoft's logo.

Enough of the history lesson. Back to the question: Why demo at trade shows?

The Cranky Product Manager proclaims: The time has come to rethink the ancient, decrepit tradition of demo-ing at trade shows, or even hosting a booth. It is rarely worth the expense in time or dollars.

The CPM knows what she's talking about. At two former employers, the Cranky Product Manager did analyses of return-on-trade-show investment. And guess what? Trade shows came out as huge drains on company resources with scant benefit.

Want more detail?

First, the leads generated were always crap. Hardly any of these folks ended up spending a dime on software. They were people without budget or influence. People without real problems to solve, who were just trying to "keep up with the industry." People more interested in the crappy swag than the product. People looking for a job. People who worked for competitors. People who wanted to hit on the super-hot Cranky Product Manager or the not-quite-as-hot-and-definitely-not-as-smart Booth Babes. People who were so overwhelmed by the trade show's hyped-up atmosphere, or so hung over from the previous night's drunkfest, that they could not even attempt to understand what the company did: Please just drop your literature into my tote bag so I can sort through it back at my office.

Second, the cost of running a booth is ridiculous. The opportunity costs of drawing people away from other tasks for two to four days is huge. Then add the costs of paying $500 to rent each power cord, $800 for a table, $1000 for a carpet, $2000 for a carpet pad, etc... Unreal. But that's not all! You have to hire union laborers to carry your laptops into the building, at a rate of $100 per laptop. And then hire union electricians to plug them into your $500 power cords at the rate of $200 per power adapter fondled- - because everyone knows the act of even touching an electric cord is fraught with so much risk that a licensed professional must assist.

So again, back to the original question: Why demo at trade shows?

And at last, the Cranky Product Manager's answer:

Don't, if you can help it.

In fact, don't display at the trade show at all. Just attend and do some competitive research. Attend the sessions, which are often worthwhile. But don't waste your money running a booth in attempt to generate leads.

But the Cranky Product Manager is a realist. She knows that the Trade Show Tradition is tough to mess with. Your company is going to display at BigFatSoftwareConference-X no matter what you say.

So in that case, you, the Product Manager, might as well make the case that 1) a demo is essential, 2) no mere sales engineer has the necessary brainpower to demo your product effectively, and 3) you must personally attend to demo the product yourself.

And why would you argue this?

1) So that you, as a Product Manager, can secure passage to exotic trade show locations like Paris, London, Vegas, or Hawaii.

2) So that you, as a Product Manager, can have an excuse to hang out with the Booth Babes. Who knows, maybe one of those washed-up-at-age-28 former models will actually speak to you. Maybe your demo of your product's awesomitude will wow her to pieces. Maybe she'll say "Wow, Mr. Product Manager. I am so BLOWN away by your software's advanced monitoring and alerting features. And you say it's I18N compliant to boot? *SWOON* Do you want to buy me a drink later?"

And for the CPM's fellow PM sistahs, we can only wait for the day (far off, no doubt) where either there will be male booth babes or where this annoying and kinda offensive industry custom ends. (But that's a post for another day.)

3) So that you, as a Product Manager, can network with the hiring managers at your competitors and maybe snag yourself a better job. But keep in mind that VPs and Directors of PM are usually speakers or panelists and not slated for demo-duty in the booth. You better secure an All Conference pass to identify and discretely approach them.

Have fun demo-ing at your trade show. Know that even though you are wasting company resources and your own time, at least you are upholding and respecting the centuries-old traditions of the venerable Product Management People. Not only that, you are helping ensure the gainful employ of Booth Babes the world over. So sleep well, young Demo Dolly / Demo Dude, sleep well.

Steve Johnson for President

If you've never seen Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing speak, then you are truly missing out. Seriously, the Cranky Product Manager kids you not. He is one freakin' hilarious dude. Very, very funny while oh-so-in-touch with the inane nature of real-world product management. The Cranky Product Manager once saw him speak, and afterward - no lie - she had to switch out her jeans for a less damp pair.

So, the call to arms. Go vote for Steve. Make him one of the speakers for the awesomely magnificent Business of Software conference.

After Steve wins this select-a-speaker contest, which he undoubtedly will thanks to all of you, beg the powers-that-be for some budget, and go hear his talk.

You will not be disappointed, the Cranky PM assures you.

Just remember to bring an extra change of clothes.

How to Get Hired By The Cranky Product Manager

After her last post, the Cranky Product Manager received a bevy of emails asking "given the recruiting process is a bore that yields lackluster results, how does a candidate rise above the process and snag the job?"

A fine question, Grasshopper.  Sit at the feet of the Cranky Product Manager and receive the wisdom she is about to bestow upon you. 

But first, understand that the Cranky Product Manager can only tell you what impresses her.  Others hiring PMs might be impressed by your deep baritone voice and your MBA (or lack thereof). They might "relate" while you wax poetically on the profound challenges of having responsibility without formal authority.  Whatever.

That said, there are lots of things a candidate could do to impress the Cranky Product Manager.  However, there is one tactic that is very rarely done, but really rocks her world.  When a candidate pulls this maneuver out and executes it flawlessly, well, it makes the Cranky Product Manager swoon. Her heart fills with new-hire lust. During tedious bug scrub meetings, her thoughts drift to fantasies of this rock star joining her team. Oh, how much easier life would be, if only Bobby Bubble would join DysfunctoSoft! Oh my god, I must hire him NOW.

The maneuver is called The PM Skillz Showcase.  Execute it as follows:

During the phone screen and the initial in-person meeting, YOU (the candidate) take the lead.  Interview the Cranky Product Manager about her requirements for the PM position. Just as you would interview a customer about his requirements for a product.  Uncover the "hidden" requirement. Unearth the "use cases" and the business results expected. Learn how the CPM convinced her boss to expand her team, etc. It means asking really good, probing questions, actually LISTENING very carefully to the responses, and verifying that you correctly understand throughout the conversation.

Toward the end of your time slot, summarize your understanding of The Cranky Product Manager's wants and needs and reasons for the position. Write the main points on the white board. (The ability to do a good chalk talk always impresses the CPM).  Make sure the CPM agrees to your summary of her situation and your analysis, and if not, refine it until she does.

Then, and only then, go through the list of requirements you have on the board and discuss your ability to meet each, with some examples from your past.  Point out the areas in which you are particularly strong. Show that you are a straight shooter by also discussing requirements that are not your strengths, where you are merely slightly better than average and not a true demigod, but why it will not be an issue.

Oh yeah, if you have a sales background, the Cranky Product Manager will be expecting you to try to "close" her at this point, but in a low-key way.  Even if you don't hail from Sales, the CPM is looking for some subtle "selling" as evidence of how helpful you'd be on sales calls.

Consider the interview a success if the CPM leaves your list of position requirements up on her board and judges all other candidates against it. Congratulations, you've helped her clarify in her own mind - in a HELPFUL way - what she is trying to accomplish by hiring someone new.  You've wowed her with your ability to build customer rapport, and your prowess in teasing out requirements, underlying business problems, and drivers.  You showed her your ability to synthesize detailed information and fit it into the bigger picture. You've shown you will be helpful on sales calls and not detrimental. And, by helping to define the requirements for the position, you've tilted the playing field in your favor.

Expect an offer* from the Cranky Product Manager within 4-5 months (see previous post about the ponderous "speed" of DysfunctoSoft's recruiting process). Unfortunately, the salary offer will be far too puny for someone of your caliber. Ah well.

*Provided, of course, that you have adequate technical, writing, presentation, marketing,and strategic analysis education and experience. And that you are well-mannered, not an egotistical ass, don't have a history of personality conflicts with developers, etc, etc....

Seeking Gems in a Sea of Manure

The Cranky Product Manager dislikes hiring people. DysfunctoSoft's entire recruiting process is a bore. And frustrating. And seemingly designed to ensure the hiring of the mediocre.* 

Each step, each phase, is pure tedium:

1) The crafting of dreary "this is a totally wicked awesome job and DysfunctoSoft is such a crazy FUN company that (get this!) we have a PING PONG table. And we feed you Costco pizza FOR FREE on Fridays! Wow! What perks! Pretty please apply!" job listings.

2) The tiresome meetings with headhunters who just can't seem to "get" that the Cranky Product Manager needs a local candidate and is not willing to interview wannabes in Singapore or Hyderabad.

3) The sifting through hundreds of cryptic resumes from incompetents, who all proudly list "Excellent Word, Excel, and Powerpoint skills" on their resume. Sweet Cheesus, the Cranky Product Manager certainly HOPES that applicants for an ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT position have some basic computer skills.  Why not also list that you know how to use a pencil and paper?  Or that you know that a chair is a cushion for your ass, not a pillow for your head?  That you know how to share, the names of all the animals, and how to wash your hands, like any good preschooler?

4) The phone screens.  These are usually very difficult for the Cranky PM since she is (i) a piss poor listener and would rather talk about herself constantly, and (ii) she sucks at understanding accents of all sorts, especially over the phone.

5) The breakfast interviews. This is when the CPM traditionally eliminates half the candidates because their basic table manners are so lacking that they would revolt and sicken any customer the candidate might meet.  Tips for candidates: Don't launch into a Web 2.0 diatribe with your mouth full of a semi-digested substance. Keep food - especially the creamy kinds - out of your skanky, smelly, overgrown beard or mustache. If you're a woman (or gay, or a metrosexual), don't try to bond with the CPM by yapping about SHOES (Seriously, what is that? Is the Cranky Product Manager the only woman in the world who gives not a s&*# about shoes?).  Wear some deoderant. Make some eye contact here and there. And don't CRUSH the Cranky Product Manager's wimpy little excuse for a hand with your iron-deathgrip-handshake.

6) And then the marathon multi-day interviews with every PM, PMM, and Dev Manager, Director and VP at DysfunctoSoft. After the CPM wrestles to set up a perfect interview agenda that accomodates all interviewers' completely inflexible schedules, without fail at least two VPs will bow out of the interviews at the very, very last minute. And of course, neither VP will have any availability for at least 2 weeks. But the CPM will not be allowed to hire anyone without the go-ahead of these individuals.  So, the process drags on and on over weeks. Meanwhile, good candidates are snapped up by other companies.

7) Then the offer letters and the salary negotiations. Why does HR take 10 days to generate a letter they no doubt have on file? Why does it not take 2 minutes?

8) And then, at long last, the only decent candidate rejects the offer. All because DysfunctoSoft's retarded payscales prohibit the Cranky Product Manager from making a competitive offer.  Apparently, HR thinks that having ping-pong table and free Friday pizza mean that it is okay to cap salaries at 10% lower than market.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat. And Repeat and Repeat and Repeat.

End result: the Cranky Product Manager ends up with a lack-luster hire who is not business savvy enough to realize he/she is majorly underpaid. Someone who has not researched the product manager market nor his/her own value within it. Fan-effing-tastic.

*Yes, the Cranky Product Manager realizes that she was originally recruited through the same process and is therefore probably mediocre herself.  Probably so. No denials here. Not only that, she's got a fat ass and piss-poor attitude.

The Value of an MBA in Product Management

Several months ago a marvelous question about the value of an MBA in Product Management was posted to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association email list. If you subscribe to this email list, you will no doubt lovingly recall the Cranky Product Manager's response, rehashed word for word, below. No doubt, it was the highlight of your inbox that week, and you forwarded it along to you mother in the form of a chain letter (i.e. "forward this to 10 people or your will most certainly overdraw your credit card balance").

Note: You are well within your rights to be disgusted by the CPM's shameless, lazy attempt to pass off an old email as a spankin' new blog post.  Feel free to rate her negatively on Yelp or eBay or something...

=======

Q: Is an MBA necessary to advance in Product Management to the Senior level, Director level, or beyond? Or can one compensate for the lack of a Masters with strong analytics and high-level strategy and presentation skills?

A: The Cranky Product Manager specializes in cynicism. Thus, her answer: it depends. It depends on whether your boss and boss's boss have MBAs.

If yes, then advancing your career will likely require this illustrious degree. If the big cheeses thought an underling could do an adequate job without forking over $100,000+ for the MBA designation, then you might force them to regret their own education investment. And we can't have that!  No sireee.

If your higher-ups don't have the degree, then they probably pride themselves on their own awesomitude: their innate, genetic business prowess - the kind of natural aptitude and raw talent that would only be hampered by book learning. This kind of uneducated boss regards the MBA as a huge waste of money and time, and MBA holders as ungifted, inexperienced, intuition-challenged, unimaginative  drones.

So, the Cranky Product Manager's advice to you: if you think the LEARNING will be worthwhile for you and will help you become a better product manager, then go for it. Because the piece of paper itself, etched with that marvelous "M.B.A." designation, does not yield any automatic benefits in software product management.  In management consulting and investment banking it does, but not in software.

Yours as a fountain of useful career guidance,

The Cranky Product Manager

So You Think "Agile" Methodologies Exempt You From Product Management

Yo, yo, yo!  Listen up, Enterprise Software Developers.  Yeah, you!

The news: The Cranky Product Manager knows that there is a certain percentage of you that doesn't really care for her or her PM brethren.

And why?  Because the Cranky Product Manager is a pain in your ass. Because, YES, she totally cramps your style. 

For one thing, the Cranky PM always prioritizes the boring projects higher than creating super-cool new products, or rewriting existing products from scratch. In other words, she wants you to FIX (not completely rewrite) Joe Idiot's effed-up code so it can handle multiple users.  Instead of doing that WICKED COOL feature -- the one you pet-named "Extreme E" -- that 64-bit, Web 2.0-ish, open source, DRM-defeating wet dream (based on an SOA architecture and Ruby on Rails, of course). You know, the idea that occurred to you in between that mega-bong hit at Softwarehaus's annual Geekapalooza party and 4am, when you started drunk dialing all your ex-girlfriends.

The other thing the Cranky PM does that is TOTALLY annoying is always say things like "we're not seeing market demand for Extreme E."  And whenever you try to shoot down her proposed projects as being stupid or irrelevant, she always starts reciting a list of customers who want it or need it, explains the new markets her beloved project would help DysfunctoSoft attack, and then she starts explaining use cases. Ugh.  If that wasn't bad enough, if you persist, she'll bore you to death with a freakin' slideshow containing revenue projections for her stupid, dumb-ass project. 

Doesn't she realize that her projects are freakin' BORING?  No technical challenge. And who wants to sully his hands fixing some other engineer's code?  Disgusting -- like sloppy seconds.  None for you, thank you. You need excitement in your life. You need to create something cool, something from scratch, something you can brag about or at least put on your resume.  Her project does not qualify.

But the thing that REALLY pisses you off about the Cranky Product Manager is when you try to shoot down a project with the "it's technically impossible" bullet. This jujitsu move is supposed to be a winner, that's-it, end-of-discussion type of pronouncement.  It works all the time, especially with the Marketing weenies. They all run and hide under their desks, shivering with fear. But it doesn't work with her. The Cranky Product Manager always says something like "Can you explain why not in more detail?  Because I'm not sure I understand how <Competitor X>, <Competitor Y> and <Related Software Product Z> can do something that is VERY similar.  How were THEY able to do it?" And then when you spew some crap about multi-threading, messaging protocol design patterns as a confuse-the-enemy tactic, she starts talking about possible approaches to prove you wrong.  Bitch.  Doesn't she understand that it is technically impossible because her project is so BORING it is not technically possible for you to stay awake to work on it?

If only you could get rid of product management, life would be so much easier.  What do you need them for, anyway?  You talk to 2 or 3 customers (out of 2500) a year, and you know at least two of them would totally LOVE Extreme E.  And you pretty much know what the customers and market need, anyway, at least if they are SANE. Because it's not that complicated. It's OBVIOUS what the product needs to a SANE person.  Fortunately, you are sane.

And THEN, you read about this thing called "Agile Product Development."  And you learn about Scrum and Extreme Programming, etc... And you think, "AHA!  At last! This is the solution! Who needs the Cranky Product Manager and her ilk when I have this awesome methodology?!?  Instead of having that old school, waterfall-worshiping PM prioritize me to death, I'm going to code blissfully for two weeks and then get feedback directly from the customers!"

Well, nice fantasy, Code Boy.  But the Cranky Product Manager says, Not. So. Fast.

Realize why the purest form of Scrum and other agile methods do not provide for a Product Manager: because they were designed for CUSTOM SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.  As in, there is just ONE customer.  This is typical of IT projects in big companies, or even consulting engagements.  And guess what, if there is, in fact, just ONE customer, then Hell Yeah, the Cranky Product Manager agrees with you.  Product Management is not needed.  Get a PROJECT manager (aka ScrumMaster) and a customer project owners (aka Product Owner) and go to town.

But what if you are at a commercial software vendor, where your software has to meet the needs of MANY customers, maybe thousands?  And where your software has to not just meet the needs of those many CURRENT customers, but also attract new customers in the future?  New customers whom you haven't met yet. New customers in different industries who are solving problems you never even knew about.

Are you, Code Boy, going to show ALL the customers the result of your latest sprint cycle, every 2-4 weeks?  And are you going to gather up a good representative panel of all future customers and get their direct feedback every 2 weeks as well??  And how are you going to decide which customer has the final word?  Oh wait, that sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it?  Maybe it isn't even "technically possible."  If you had to get the feedback from all those customers and prospective customers every 2 weeks, well you wouldn't have any time to code. And neither would any of the other developers.

In fact, getting all this customer feedback sounds like a full-time job, as does identifying who the  prospective customers are and what they are likely to require.  And sifting through the contradictory wants and needs of such a wide customer population, well, it will be time consuming. You can't do everything that every customer wants or thinks is vitally important.  You need to prioritize. You need to come up with the feature set that would make the company the most money.  But that kind of analysis needs extensive research and familiarity with the current (and future) customer base. It will take time. A lot of time.  Time you don't have.

Then a solution occurs to you.  Maybe you should hire someone to be the "Voice of the Customer" for your Scrum team.

And when you do, the Cranky Product Manager or one of her colleagues would be glad to help you out. Call the role "Voice of the Customer", "Product Manager,"  "Product Owner", "My Enemy" or whatever... Whatever title floats your boat. They all mean same thing.

And then, the Cranky Product Manager (or someone just like her) will be back to cramping your style once again.

Thanks for Sharing Your Secret Moves

Ooooh, our readers have all shared some pretty excellent Secret PM Ninja Moves for dealing with feature demands from customers and from sales.  Check out the comments. Great stuff in there.

The one Secret Move that the Cranky PM does not see listed is the Jedi Mind Trick ("This isn't the feature you're looking for...")  It is one of her favorites.

Share Your Secret Moves

Just in case you haven't figured it out, the Cranky Product Manager is extraordinarily lazy for someone who works 65 hours per week. She will do whatever she can to get other people to do work for her. It's one her mad Product Management skillz -- foisting work upon others despite having little formal authority to do so.

So, in keeping with her (lack of) "character", the Cranky PM is about to do that crappiest, saddest, most pathetic of blogging moves -- she's going to ask you, the reader, to contribute and make this sad little post worth reading.

So... Audience Participation Time. 

Questions for the Cranky Product Manager's crew (and by "crew" she means all you fellow PMs):

1) What's your favorite PM breakdancing move for telling (or avoiding telling) an important customer that his favorite feature is not planned for any of the next 3 releases? 

2) What about for telling the same thing to a sales droid who claims a multi-gazillion dollar deal is going down the toilet because you don't have Feature X? (You know... Feature X.  That's the missing feature the sales droid will blame if he loses the deal.  Of course, if the droid wins the deal because it turned out the product has a superior way of accomplishing the same thing, the win will be credited to the droid's sparkling personality and superior "closing" abilibites, not the product's wicked awesome feature set.)

Someone Has Been Spying on The Cranky Product Manager

The Cranky PM has become obsessed with the TV show 30 Rock.

She is convinced that Tina Fey is spying on her and translating her dysfunctional software life into the sexier setting of televised sketch comedy -- especially the parts where Fey's alter-ego, Liz Lemon, coordinates and cajoles a bunch of crazy nerds, egocentric stars, and micromanaging executives into producing a worthy product each week.

The similarities don't end there. Both the CPM and LL are known for always having food stuck in their hair, for being unskilled in the way of high heeled shoes, and for having a sporadic-at-best relationship with makeup. Even their jean-centric workday wardrobes* and "I'm so smart" glasses are essentially the same.

Granted, the resemblance between the CPM and Tiny Fey would be even stronger if the Cranky Product Manager were funny, beautiful, famous, funny, rich, funny, and had access to a Star Trek-style pushup bra.   

...OK, maybe there's not much of a resemblance after all.

* But unlike LL, you won't catch the Cranky Product Manager wearing low-cut tops in the office. What did you think? That she was one of those Marketing Bimbos who are always trying to bed the CEO?

A Day in the Life of the Cranky Product Manager

As an Internet icon and a member of the Technorati 100,000,000, the Cranky Product Manager receives hoards of email -- one or two messages a week, in fact. Whenever she can, the Cranky Product Manager tries to help out her readers, the fans that make her celebrity lifestyle possible.  For example, she recently received this message:

Dear Cranky Product Manager:
I just found your blog and really like it. I am a senior at Georgia Tech in computer science, and am hoping to work at a software company after graduation. Product management sounds like an interesting position. What is a typical day like for you?
-- Jack from Georgia Tech

Well, Jack, the Cranky Product Manager is glad to oblige. First, though, be aware that there is no truly "typical" day for the Cranky PM here at DysfunctoSoft. That is one of the "joys" of product management at such a fine company.  Every day is completely different, and at any one time you can expect there to be 50+ things on your to-do list.

That said, this is what her day was like yesterday:

5:45 am - Wake up.  Still in pajamas, stagger into home office and boot up laptop.  Drink coffee. Lots of coffee.

6:00 am - 7:30 am - Conference call with the marketing team in the Germany. Very difficult to stay awake on call. Endless discussion of campaigns and technical white papers they want the Cranky PM to write exclusively for the German market, because the German market is "very different" and has extremely "unique requirements."

7:30 am - 8:30 am - Conference call with Very Important Customer from the UK.  WebEx demo of the new features in the upcoming product release and get some feedback on the new features.  Try to act cheerful, not cranky.  This is very difficult.

8:30 am - 9:30 am - Shower, get dressed, drive to office. Get Peet's Coffee.

9:30 am - Arrive at office.  Before all the engineers.  They don't arrive until 10:30 or so. Slackers.

10:00 am - 11:30 am - Handle the 40 emails and 5 voice mails that arrived since 11 pm previous night. Lots of questions from PS consultants, sales engineers, customers, and customer support. All are about products, strategic direction, release schedules, and how to accomplish arcane technical tasks with the product.

11:30 - More coffee. But this time it's the swill from the break room.

11:30 am - 11:45 am - Start working on Powerpoint that the Cranky Product Manager will deliver at Sales Training next week, introducing the benefits and features of the upcoming product release.

11:45 am - 11:50 am -  The Training presentation needs to a quickie demo of the new product features, a demo that does not yet exist. The Cranky PM decides to create this demo. To do so, she attempts to install today's development build.

11:50 am - 12:00 pm -  Discover that this week's build is not available yet.  So, install last week's build. Thankfully, the QA Team's website claims that this build is good, and has passed all automated tests.

12:00 pm - 12:15 pm - Discover that while it installs, last week's build does not in fact work.  At all. What the #&$*?  Did the QA guys even TRY to boot it up? What did they do all week?  Track down Krishna, the  empire-building QA Manager. Why, Krishna, does your website claim last week's build passed when it doesn't even boot? Lame answer received: Oh, that's a bug with the website. The build hasn't worked in a while.

12:15 pm - 12:30 pm -  Track down Development Manager.  What is the latest build that actually works?  What do you mean, it's last Thursday's?  The Cranky PM tried that build and it sucked. Decide to wait a few hours to see if today's build finally shows up.

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm - Lunch with Director of Product Marketing.  Why does this guy always want to claim the DysfunctoSoft's products do shit they do not do nor were designed to do?  (It washes windows! It lowers your property taxes! It melts away the pounds!)  Try to focus him on the target market segment, the use cases and customer benefits we can offer in the near future.  He blathers some about how he can't focus on details like that because he's a "visionary."  Suppress urge to wring his neck right then and there.  Self-proclaimed Visionaries = loser (at least in the Cranky Product Manager's book).  Diffuse own temper by promising self to bitch about him on blog later.

1:30 pm - Back in office. Today's build is STILL not available. Grrr.  Try to develop an outline for the presentation anyway.

2:00 pm - Conference call with a Friendly Happy Customer. Interview her about a particular area of difficulty she's having, an area that the Cranky PM is considering for improvements in the next major release.  All is lovely until TWO DysfunctoSoft account reps join the call. Why TWO Droids joined, the Cranky Product Manager has no idea. She only notified Droid #1, whom the VP of Sales said owned the account.  Anyway, both droids are LATE for the call. PLUS each believes Friendly Happy Customer is HIS account. The droids start arguing in front of the customer.  All very unseemly. The customer is so disgusted she hangs up and then calls the Cranky PM at her desk to continue their little chat.  She says "Cranky Product Manager, we LOVE you, but we HATE your sales team. Tell your management we never want those sales people to call us again. From now on I want to deal with you only." The CPM is flattered, but fears for her schedule and stress level. Nevertheless, for five seconds she fantasizes about collecting the sales commission.

2:50 - Finish call with Friendly Happy Customer and leave voice mail for VP of Sales regarding the account manager escapades and the customer's ultimatum. Another problem the CPM must help solve, but is outside her real responsibilities.

2:58 - Today's build is finally available.  Except now the Cranky PM has no time to install it, as she'll be in meetings the next 3 hours.

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm - Meeting with product management team, to "officially" start planning for the next major release even though the current one isn't even limping yet.  Team argues the merits of top-down versus bottom-up planning for approximately the 100th time.

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm - Bug Scrub meeting. What joy. Similar to hammering nails into the palms of one's hands.  Try to Blackberry under the table while the QA Manager and Development Managers argue for the umpteenth time about the quality criteria for the release.

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm - Meet one-on-one with Development Manager for DysfunctoCrank, which is clearly way behind schedule for the next release.  Try to identify which pieces of functionality can be tossed out of the release (possibly never to return). Get indigestion at thought of telling Very Important Customers A and B, or at least their account teams, that their most desired features have been cut. Alas, it must be done.

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm - At last, install today's build.  Try to develop a good demo for Sales Training next week. Egad, the product is buggy. Lots of basic things don't work.  Start filing bugs.

7:00 pm - 7:10 pm - Notice that of the eight or so bugs the Cranky PM filed in the last hour, the Development Manager has already reclassified four of them as enhancements and has outright canceled two.

7:10 pm - 7:45 pm - Call the Development Manager at his home.  Argue about the bugs.  You can't just cancel everything that is not immediately reproducible. Some bugs only manifest sporadically. Get two of the "enhancements" reclassified back as bugs, and get the two cancelled bugs reinstated.

7:45 pm - 8:30 pm - At last, identify a scenario that might work as a demo - highlighting the new product features, works with a hypothetical but close-to-real-world business scenario, and avoids most of the products warts and broken bits of functionality.

8:30 pm - 10:30 pm - Drive home before Delightful Husband files for divorce.  Eat dinner, do bills, wash dishes, etc.  Run for 30 minutes on the treadmill -- a good stress relief technique.

10:30 pm - 12:00 am - Handle another 60 emails that came in during the day.  Most can be deleted, but some require responses.

12:00 am - Do a blog post. Try to sleep. But too much coffee throughout the day keep her up. Fantasize about that commission check again, even though she knows she'll never see a dollar of it. Remember that she forgot to bitch about "visionary" Product Marketing weenie on her blog.  Damn.

5 Things

2. Last time the Cranky Product Manager worked out: August 2006, for an organized 30 mile bike ride.  Unless you count a heart attack-inducing, 20-minute-long, all-out sprint in the Philadelphia airport.

3. Number of hours the Cranky Product Manager worked this week: 81, if you count the mandatory partying at kickoff.

4. Frequent Flyer status of the Cranky Product Manager: United Premier Executive. 42 segments flown last year.  Still have not successfully used a single upgrade coupon.

5. Origins of the Cranky Product Manager: American. More specifically, the East Coast.  Can't you tell?  You don't get this cranky if you grow up in the sunshine. 

Oy. The Cranky Product Manager apologizes. What a catatonic, stupefying list. So boring.  But that is the life of the Cranky Product Manager. Boring, but with some worrying about her effed-in-the-head cyberstalker.

The Joy of Sales Meetings

The air is brisk. The holiday chocolate is all gone. And, at last, the gluttonous end-of-year feast of discounted software licenses is complete.

It must be that time of year. Time for the Annual Worldwide Sales Meeting.

And what would a monstrous sales meeting be without...

Over-the-top parties, complete with ice sculptures, minor celebrities-for-hire, free-flowing booze, cigars, cigars, and more cigars.  Where else can you get the free show of the Sales Gods and Goddesses groping each other?  Or see that gaggle of 20-something Marketing Blondes throwing themselves at the married, yet playboy-esque, CEO?  Where else can the Cranky Product Manager be  essentially forced to dance with two to five male Sales Engineers and Product Managers at once, all because -- as geeks -- they are too intimidated to ask the Marketing Blondes or Sales Goddesses?

The Endless Awards Ceremony. It seems that everyone in Sales and Professional Services - even the spreadsheet jockeying Sales Ops guys -- gets some kind award: "Rookie of the Year for the Western Chicagoland region", "MVP for the Southern Florida region", "The Billability King/Queen", "Best Proposal Award," "The Cold Caller Award", "The Leading Lead Qualifier," "Best Forecasting Spreadsheet," and on and on and on.... and on and on...

And then, the real awards. Real awards with real prizes for all the Sales Droids that managed to actually do their jobs and achieve their quota. Congratulations -- you did what DysfunctoSoft hired you to do! Here's your all-expenses-paid trip to Aspen! Bring your spouse and go skiing for an entire week!  And no need to deduct it from your vacation time!

Ugh. Boring. 

But more importantly, where's the award for the Cranky Product Manager, beeyotches? Why are the only people ever formally recognized at DysfunctoSoft, in any fashion, all in Sales and Professional Services?  Why no awards for Engineering, Marketing, or Customer Support -- or, more importantly, for Product Management?  The Cranky Product Manager wants HER tiny freakin' statuette to display in her cubicle, goddammit.  She wants HER one-week trip, with her SPOUSE, during the WORKING WEEK, to the most luxurious resort in the Bahamas.  Why is she perpetually denied?

The Networking - A unique opportunity to meet all those brand spankin' new sales reps, the ones that replaced all the fired sales reps with whom you loving cultivated relationships at last year's annual sales meeting. Make it fun! Randomly populate a 5x5 matrix with the names of the new reps. In addition to helping you remember their names, when the Sales Rep firing-fest begins you can play "Bye Bye Bingo" with your fellow PMs!

The Training - Ah, yes. Training. Your raison d'être. The only reason why you, as a Product Manager, are even present at Sales's celebration of itself: to train the account reps, sales engineers and consultants on your products.  Too bad they are all too drunk or hung over to remember a single thing you say.  And for the more technical sessions, too bad that no matter how many times you and your boss and their bosses remind them ahead of time, 70% of them will not even have your product installed on their laptops.  And if you correctly predict and allow for this reality by designing a lecture-style class, then 80% of them will complain that the class was not hands-on. Fan-effing-tastic.

The Roommates - OK, the Cranky Product Manager needs to know. Is her cheap-ass company the only one that will not spring for single-occupancy hotel rooms at sales meetings? Every year, the CPM ends up rooming with Hilda the Professional Services Barbarian.  Why? Because although Hilda's snoring can shake paint off the walls, at least she does not watch TV, make loud phone calls, or hog the bathroom for hours at a time. But most importantly, she does not try to engage the CPM in conversation of any kind.

87 Cents on the Dollar

The Cranky Product Manager is not simply cranky today.  She is kinda pissed off, actually.  And feeling grossly underpaid. 

Witness the results of Pragmatic Marketing's 2006 Annual Product Management Salary Survey. On the brink of the year 2007, female product managers in the US and Canada only make 87 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make.  For the SAME JOB.

In the UK and Europe the situation is even more pathetic. Female product managers are only paid 82% of what their male counterparts are paid.

Even more disturbing, the situation seems to be getting worse over time. Over the 7 years that Pragmatic Marketing has conducted this survey, the percentage of female product managers has decreased and the pay gap is increased.

Don't believe the Cranky Product Manager? Check out the charts below.

So why is this happening?  The Cranky Product Manager wants to find out....  Her top-of-the-head hypotheses include the following:

• The women respondents skewed younger or less experienced than the male respondents?
• The women respondents tended to be less technical than the male respondents?
• The women respondents are in worse-paying industries than the male respondents?
• Sexism? (which might be increasing over time?)

The first three hypotheses could potentially be ruled out by slicing and dicing the raw survey data.

Pragmatic Marketing (Steve Johnson, you are my idol even though your blog is almost solely links to the content of others), the Cranky Product Manager would appreciate it if you would release some more analysis relative to the Product Management Gender Gap.

The Cranky Product Manager wants more women in the profession.  She is truly sick of being the only woman in the DysfunctoSoft Product Management group. She's tired of being referred to as a "woman product manager" as if it were a wacky novelty to be, well, such a BIZARRO thing.  She's fed up with DysfunctoSoft's newly hired engineers, especially those not raised in North America, automatically assuming she is a technical lightweight, the "Demo Dolly," or -- worse -- someone in HR.  Just because she is that stereotypically least technical of all creatures, The American Woman.

Truth is, the Cranky Product Manager is the most technical PM in her group. And back in the day, she'd code circles around your asses, beeyotches. Even though she looks like a supermodel.  (A supermodel with a fat ass, baggy eyes, and gray hair, that is...)

The IT Awards Show

The Cranky Product Manager continues to be stunned by anyone who thinks technology analysts are anything but lazy-ass whores who combine the ethics of Dennis Kozlowski with the hypocrisy of Cardinal Bernard Law. Isn't the secret out already? Haven't we all heard this story before?

Yet, somehow, in her travels the Cranky Product Manager meets hoards and hoards of IT managers and "Business-Side Project Owners" who hold the word of the Gardeners and the Forrest Rangers in great esteem. Why? Because, deep down, they still believe in voodoo and witchcraft. They believe the claims from the Gardener brothel -- that a surprisingly low-precision, intellectually lazy, almost entirely subjective, opaque, overly simplistic, two-by-two table is indeed Magic. Preternatural, even. And if the Gardener has "magic" on its side, well best do what Gardener says, right-o?

WAKE UP, buyers of enterprise software!  Honestly. Get a clue. Don't make the Cranky Product Manager come to your house and get all cranky in yer face. She has tremendously bad breath. And she spits when she talks. You wouldn't want this. You wouldn't even wish it on the neighborhood a-hole who simply MUST mow his lawn at 6:30 every Saturday morning and just HAS TO scream at and berate his kids from his driveway every. single. effing. night.

Think the tactics of these -- ahem -- "analysts" have changed in recent years?  That the additions of "ombudsmen" and ethics committee have made them unbiased? Ha. Let the Cranky Product Manager tell you a little story...

Recently, DysfunctoSoft tripled its "consulting" contract with Big Whorehouse #2.  The results of the payoff were speedy. Within weeks, DysfunctoSoft's Analyst Relations Manager called the Cranky Product Manager in a panic. Apparently, Big Whorehouse #2 wanted to give one of DysfunctoSoft's customers an "IT Excellence" award or some such, for its fantabulous IT project which just so happened to be built around the latest version of DysfunctoCrank, the product so lovingly managed by the Cranky Product Manager.

Sounds great, right? So why the panic?

Well apparently, Big Whorehouse #2 did not actually have a particular DysfunctoSoft customer in mind for the award. In fact, they tasked DysfunctoSoft with selecting the recipient.

And thus the panicky inquiry from Artie in AR: Did the Cranky Product Manager actually know any customers who had successfully built a fantabulous application around DysfunctoCrank 6.0? A customer who would be effusive and fawning in its praise of DysfunctoCrank 6.0? A customer who would wax poetic about the awesomitude of DysfunctoSoft Corporation? A customer interested in an all-expenses-paid trip to a golf resort?

Well, no. The Cranky Product Manager did no