The Cranky Product Manager

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 not know such a customer. DysfunctoCrank 6.0 had only been released two weeks ago, WITHOUT a Beta program (don't ask... don't ask). Furthermore, DysfunctoSoft's order fulfillment and CRM systems were so dysfunctional that they had prevented even the most enthusiastic maintenance customers from so much as requesting the new software.

So, again, no. There was no customer that even HAD Crank 6.0 in its possession, never mind had developed an application on top of it.  Forget about one that had developed a fantabulous application worthy of some sham award from a bunch of friggin high-priced streetwalkers who call themselves unbiased but are so shamelessly For Sale.

But not to be deterred, Artie AR managed to find a customer interested in a nice vacation and a discount on software license fees within a few hours: a customer who would be willing to talk to Whorehouse #2 and the media about what they PLANNED to do with DysfunctoCrank 6.0 and describe the simplistic things they had already done with release 5.4.  Apparently, this plan was all good with Whorehouse #2. Still worthy of an award, but maybe DysfunctoSoft should purchase some more of Whorehouse #2's research offerings (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Any more questions on how the Cranky Product Manager became so cynical?  Or about when her youthful idealism was crushed into powdery dust?

Streetwalkers in Disguise

The Cranky Product Manager has many personality failings.  Foremost is crankiness (big surprise there), second is pride, and third is a lust for fame.  Combined, these character flaws form a potent and dangerous cocktail that makes her intensely dislike a certain class of people: those whores, those streetwalkers in disguise, those hookers with the hearts of stone.  Yes -- you guessed it -- the Cranky Product Manager is referring to those sluts-for-hire, the technology analysts. 

To avoid being sued, the Cranky Product Manager will refer to her least favorite yet most prominent technology analysts by the pseudonyms "Gardener" and "Forrest Ranger."

Let's rewind to some time ago.  The Cranky Product Manager had individual sit-downs with the Heidi-Fleisses-in-training for each of these firms.  The supposed goal of these meetings was to get some consulting advice from these man-whores: what do they think of our product strategy, how could we improve it, etc... 

As if.  As if the Cranky Product Manager or her company (or any company) would ever take strategic advice from these 'hos.  Those supposed "analysts" are too vested in making their lazy predictions of the future come true, so they can play the part of the business genius with clairvoyant powers, instead of the dirty-kneed harlots they are.  If they haven't already placed your company in their Magic Qu@drant or Le@der Wave, then their interests are AGAINST yours. UNLESS... unless you can make their jobs infinitely easier by doing their job for them.

Let's come clean with the REAL goal of these meetings, implicitly known by the Forrest Rangers, the Gardeners, and -- of course -- the Cranky Product Manager.  The Cranky PM's company generously paid the whores, the Cranky Product Manager (playing the part of the John in this scenario) then met with each Brothel's most highly paid call-boy and spend an hour selling him on her view of the industry, the market opportunity addressed by her product, and why her product will win -- all with a bevy of supporting research, industry statistics, and beautiful yet information-rich powerpoint slides.  The goal, known by all and voiced by none, was to get the Forrest Ranger or Gardener to then regurgitate the Cranky Product Manager's research -- verbatim, preferably -- in "planning assumptions" and advice notes for the Brothel's "other" paying customers: the IT departments of the world's largest companies. 

Of course, it worked as predicted (with 0.8 probability). The analysts / ho-bags -- lazy if nothing else -- faithfully republished the Cranky Product Manager's slides, full of compelling graphs and thought provoking methodologies, as if they lovingly created them on their own instead of plagiarizing them from a vendor. Then, the IT departments of the world's finest companies paid premium prices for this "unbiased" research and believed much of it.  Hopefully, as a result, they will buy more of the Cranky Product Manager's product.

All this is exactly the outcome the Cranky Product Manager originally sought.

So why does it smart so much when she sees her research and analysis published under a highly paid prostitute's byline?

(Furthermore, isn't the Cranky Product Manager, not the analyst, the hooker? Or maybe she's the pimp?  And the customer is the one getting f*$#ed here...  This analogy is breaking down rapidly...)