5 Steps to Services Leadership in a Product-Centric Company

June 1, 2007

The Stranger in a Strange Land Series: 5 Steps to Services Leadership in a Product-Centric Company
Step Two: Revise
By Jim AlexanderSuccessfully leading a professional services organization in a product-centric company is not for the faint of heart. Learn what works. In last issue’s discussion of Step One, Analyze, I stressed the criticality of getting relevant, in-depth, current information about key clients, the marketplace, and your professional services organization. In this issue, I will talk about .......



what to do with that information--to rethink, reformulate, and revise your professional services business and your personal leadership plans. First, we’ll discuss how to use the information to test the probability of accomplishing your business goals. Then, we’ll explore how to create a logical yet emotionally appealing case for change that people will not only accept but get excited about. I’ll also introduce two powerful tools to help you along your path. And finally, I’ll give you a real-life example on how to get key players on board. This is how a Stranger earns his or her keep!



Take a Reality CheckAs a smart executive armed with the new, relevant information of analysis, the first thing you need to do is take another look at your goals for your PSO. Are they appropriate based upon what you now know? Realistically, is your mission attainable? Where can you expect resistance within the organization?
The Force Field Analysis (Figure 1) is a great tool for helping make this assessment and answer these questions. It quickly (it takes about 20 minutes) can help you grasp where you are in relationship to accomplishing your PSO mission and identify the "forces" that can help you or hinder you. Here’s how you do it: First, using the information gathered in Step One, you (or you and your team) need to list all of the forces (factors) that can help you accomplish your PSO goals. These are the things that you have going for you. Next, list all the factors that can hinder you in accomplishing your goals. Then, eliminate all but the six to eight most important helpers and hinderers. If you’ve been honest with yourself, you are now facing your current reality, however satisfying or unpleasant it may be. It may confirm the "do-ability" of your mission or cause you to make some adjustments. Either way, next you will need to find ways to leverage the helping factors and eliminate (or at least minimize) the hindering factors as you move ahead. Revisit this tool at least every six months to take the pulse of your change efforts.
The revelations of putting one together can be quite impactful. For instance, a recently hired vice president of professional services (she asked not to use her name) in a hardware company had this to say after completing this exercise in one of our transitioning workshops:

"You know, it just isn’t going to work. When you look at all the factors working against me, there is no way that this box company is ever going to be services-led. I’m going to have to change my approach or get my resumé up to date!"

This was tough to swallow at the time, but better then than later! She was able to lower her sights and develop a much less aggressive plan that was more appropriate to her current situation. Instead of sailing off into a storm that promised some very big waves, she battened down the hatches and waited for the tide of opportunity to rise.
Build an Appealing Case for ChangeOnce we have confirmed or adjusted an appropriate and attainable mission for our professional services organization, we need to make it appealing—appealing enough to the key stakeholders inside and outside the company so that they will consider changing their behavior. As all the Strangers out there know, this can be challenging!
To align the information so that it will have the highest probability of being accepted by the key stakeholders, you first need to have a good understanding of both their business issues and their personal issues. I recommend a very simple, yet powerful, tool to do this: the Stakeholder Analysis (Figure 2). Stakeholders are anyone who have a "stake" (something to win or lose) in whatever you are proposing, or promoting, or promising.

1. First, you need to identify all the main players that might be impacted by your ideas and determine their roles (the Force Field Analysis will help). Depending on your issues, the size of your organization, etc., this could range from six to 60 people. In Figure 2, I just list three stakeholders to give you an idea of how it works.
2. Next, you determine their business issues. In this case, the CEO was most concerned about regaining market leadership and new competitive threats. The CFO was (no surprise here) mainly concerned about cost control and shrinking profit margins. The vice president of sales was concerned about hitting his high-growth target, period.
3. Third, you examine their personal issues. In this case, the CEO took pride in being known as an innovative leader. She wanted to broaden her influence in the organization, as the CEO would be retiring in two years and she wanted to make a name for herself. Hence, anything that demonstrated her prowess would be of interest to her. The vice president of sales considered himself not only an expert in sales, but in marketing, strategy, the industry, just about everything! What was important to him was that he looked good.
4. With all of the above done, now you can think through what you will want to communicate to each key stakeholder, and how you will want to communicate it. Just looking at the three stakeholders above, you’ll quickly see that presenting the same message the same way to all three is a plan of disaster—the best you could do is one out of three, and this isn’t baseball. Each individual needs to be treated as an individual, and your ideas must address their unique issues, showing them how they can benefit on both a business and a personal level. They don’t have to be lengthy, but you need an individual plan of influence for each key stakeholder.

One of the most important aspects of this tool is that it forces you to think through all of the people who might be impacted by your plans. Many times, it is much broader than you originally thought. Furthermore, the first time you complete one of these analyses, you probably will find some gaps. It will force you to do some homework. It also will take the investment of a few hours (sometimes a day or two), but it is well worth it, as it greatly will improve your odds of success. And as services leaders in product companies, we should use all the tools we can get our hands on.
Energize through InvolvementA cardinal enabler of getting people to accept and embrace change is involving them in the process. Nothing works better. So look at all your key stakeholders and think about ways you can involve them. In the last issue of the Professional Services Journal, I showed you how to involve your key clients in the services process, especially with regard to understanding needs for current and future services. This involvement pays off big time when you go back to these same clients and tell them what you are doing and why. In most cases they are ready to buy, mainly because they helped contribute to the process.
The same is true, and maybe even more important, as you try and influence your product peers and superiors in your company. Remember that what makes perfect sense to you may well appear alien to others in your company. You’ll remember that Step One emphasized personal interviews and focus groups of internal personnel. Doing these data-gathering activitiesnot only yields good information, it is setting the stage for buy-in.
Here is another very powerful involvement approach: Have the management team wrestle with the data--problem solving, coming up with options, determining the strengths and weaknesses of each choice, and reaching agreement through collaboration. Correctly done, this is a vehicle for accelerating positive change and advancing your services agenda.
Tony Pajk, president of Branson Ultrasonics, was faced with a tough task. He saw the need to aggressively move to services, but most of the players on his executive team were blinded by their current business success. Following his consultant’s advice, he decided to do a global voice-of-the-customer project to better understand the services potential and the best places to focus. To get his execs on board, he required all of them (including himself) to be involved in conducting the key account interviews, then analyzing the information and sharing it with their peers at a two-day services blueprinting session. This is what Tony had to say:

"My team was very skeptical about services in the beginning. Most felt our current efforts were effective. Nor were they very optimistic about customer reception to the interview process. However, the impact was remarkable. Sitting face to face with key accounts and not talking about products, but listening to the customers’ business issues and organizational problems was very powerful and enlightening. They came to the blueprinting session highly energized and wanting to speak up for the customers they heard! They put aside their past biases and worked together to create a doable services plan. This was the turning point of truly getting the services buy-in at Branson and reinforcing our message to our customers that we were more than a product company, we were a total lifecycle solutions company."

The step of Revise is all about using information to take a hard look at your services business and personal leadership plan, making realistic changes, and taking the right actions to get key folks on board to help you accomplish your goals. It is about the difference between being skeptically viewed as a "stranger" or being admired as a "unique contributor" that makes everyone in the organization more successful.
In the next issue, the journey progresses! Read and learn about Step Three: Survive—buy some time while building capabilities.

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Jim Alexander is a partner at Alexander Consulting, LLP, a management consultancy that creates and implements strategies for professional services organizations. Jim (along with Mark Hordes) is author of the new book SBusiness: Reinventing the Services Organization. Contact him at 239-283-7400, ac@alexanderconsultingsbiz.com, or visit http://www.alexanderconsultingsbiz.com.
This article originally appeared in the May 28, 2004 issue of the Professional Services Journal, a publication of InternetVIZ.

AIPMM: Product Management Articles for Product Management

Product Management Articles for Product Management

Agile Development - A Brief Introduction

September 3, 2009

Agile Development - A Brief Introduction
By S. Gwyn Fisher
Agile is based upon a number of guiding principles that all Agile teams follow. For the purposes of this discussion, three principles - or values - are of particular interest:
Quality software development; Iterative flexibility; Continuous improvement
Quality Software Development
The primary focus of Agile development is to enable the development of quality software that satisfies a customer need - i.e. provides a functioning feature or capability - within a specific period of time (typically no more than a few weeks) called an "iteration". In theory, a product developed in an Agile environment could be market-ready after each iteration.
Delivering a series of market-ready products, each in just weeks, demands that a rigorous quality process be built into the Agile development cycle. Each iteration must be fully developed: tested, defect-free, and complete with documentation. Our expert team solve source code analysis problem easily with wide experience.
Iterative Flexibility
With a focus on speed and nimbleness, Agile is open to changes that inevitably arise throughout the development cycle. The iterative process is flexible, based on an understanding that original requirements may (or will likely) need to change due to customer demand, market conditions, or other reasons. Because business users are involved throughout the process, and because each iteration is short, new requirements can be introduced and prioritized very quickly.
Continuous Improvement
An Agile environment provides developers with an opportunity to learn new skills and to exercise greater autonomy to do their jobs. The iterative framework is empowering because it enables continuous improvement, with testing/quality assurance occurring as part of the iterative process, rather than only periodically or at the end of a long process when it is often difficult or not cost effective to fix coding defects or to incorporate lessons learned along the way. Agile also makes the testing and QA process transparent to the developers who originate the source or static code analysis, further contributing to their learning and facilitating future improvements and coding efficiencies.
Bug-Free Code Greases Agile's Wheels
One of the development principles put forth in the Agile Manifesto (widely recognized as the de facto definition of Agile) states that, "Working software is the primary measure of progress." Working software implies software that is free of issues that break builds, cause unexpected behaviour, or which do not meet the product's requirements, as well as mundane programming defects (a.k.a. "bugs").
This principle is not unique to Agile - many software development processes, including formal ones such as CMMI and Six Sigma, encourage the creation of bug-free code as a fundamental principle. These processes encourage in-phase bug containment - the practise of preventing bugs from being passed downstream from the phase in which they are created. Agile also implicitly emphasizes in-phase bug containment. Given its focus on short iterations, Agile processes must ensure that any potential software degradations are quickly identified and corrected so that the whole team can move on to the next iteration - all while creating functionally complete, working software.
S.Gwyn Fisher is the CTO of Klocwork, a leading developer of source code analysis software and he is expert in software quality tool.
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Belonging to the Brand

March 11, 2010

Persuasion in the Marketplace; Belonging to the Brand
By Paula GrayPersuasion is the act of changing an individual's attitude or belief as a result of receiving a message. This is a large part of brand management; to create an environment and opportunity to persuade a consumer to purchase one product over another. How do companies go about persuading consumers? How do they differentiate their product from a competitor's nearly identical product, in the mind of the consumer? How do they create a particular attitude or belief around their product? Why would individuals allow themselves to be persuaded?

Humans naturally want to feel that they hold an accurate view of the world around them. When the issue is of particular importance, they tend to spend a great deal of time and effort to analyze the relevant evidence (Lundgren & Prislin, 1998). However, when individuals do not have adequate time to research and analyze data they often resort to shortcuts for evidence.The persuasion is an internal process within the mind of the listener. There are several factors or needs that may motivate the individual: the need to be accurate, the need to be consistent, and the most important need for acceptance and belonging to a group. Too many brand managers ignore the latter to their detriment. An examination of all three motives will reveal why understanding the need to belong can create a brand that consumers fully participate in as a community.
There are three main sources of the shortcut data. The first source includes ready ideas in the message, which are those that are easily pictured in the mind of the consumer, and therefore considered cognitively ready. Advertisers often use this method by repeating a key phrase several times. Requesting that the listener picture an idea or concept makes it more believable and enhances the readiness as well (Garry & Polaschek, 2000). The second type of shortcut data is the response others have to the message, which the individual allows to influence their own response. The third type of shortcut data is the credibility of the message deliverer or source of the message. The individual bases the credibility on trustworthiness and expertise.
The need to be consistent can be explained with the theory behind the consistency principle, which states "people are motivated toward cognitive consistency and will change their attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and actions to achieve it" (Kerick, Neuberg, Cialdini 2007). In our society, consistency is considered a positive quality or attribute in a person.
The modern well-managed brand also taps into the consumer's need to belong. A brand can have a community surrounding it, which is similar to a neighborhood, but a brand can span geographic distances and is often defined by a state of mind or shared conviction. A sense of belonging is what draws cult like devotion from some brand followers. "A community of like people implicitly and sometimes explicitly endorses the individual. It's a vital ingredient of the sense of belonging -(Atkin 2004).
Successful brand managers understand that they cannot create a space that is a place for everyone to belong. There is no way possible to satisfy all demographics at the same time so they may target a group that identifies as being separate from the mainstream. Harley Davidson brand of motorcycles includes in its brand guidelines the "Harley Truth #1: Harley is not for everyone.'"
In order to hone in on those persuadable consumers, and appeal to their need for belonging, a brand must create a mutual sense of separation with them. The brand manager will need to determine the potential customers' feeling of difference, declare the brand's difference with language and tenets, demarcate the brand from the rest of the world, and vilify the competitors (Atkin 2004).
The need to belong is a fundamental human need. Lisa Berkman of the Harvard Public School of Health, part of a group of sociologists and physicians who study the effect of social support on recovery rates among their patients said "The degree to which we feel part of our community or have deep abiding social and psychological resources help to determine how protected we are against biological, environmental or interpersonal assaults" (Berkman, et al 1992). Brands can provide the communities where people can interact and belong. They can provide venues for association that are relevant to contemporary conditions (Atkin 2004).
As the brand becomes a community, it can serve to satisfy not only the need to belong but also the other motivations behind a consumer's persuasion. By also creating a space with credible, like-minded messengers, and by maintaining consistency it sets up an environment where a consumer is more likely to be persuaded to buy.

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ReferencesAtkin, D. (2004). The Culting of Brands. New York: Penguin Group.
Berkman, L., Leo-Summers, L. & Horowitz, R. (1992) Emotional support and survival after myocardial infarction, Annals of Internal Medicine (117, no. 12): 15 December, 1003-1009.
Garry, M., & Polaschek, D. (2000). Imagination and memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 9, 6-10.
Julka, D.,& Marsh, K.(2000) Matching persuasive messages to experimentally induced needs Current Research in Social Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 21 Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.5.21.htm
Kenrick, D, Neuberg, S. & Cialdini, R. (2007). Social Psychology Goals in Interaction (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Lundgren, S. & Prislin, R. (1998) Motivated Cognitive Processing and Attitude Change Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 24, No. 7, 715-726

Three Tips For Successful Product Management Today

March 5, 2010

Three Tips For Successful Product Management Today
By Philip Casini
What happened to the days when product management meant targeting a customer base, identifying specific needs, taking the time to build the right product, and growing marketshare though strong brand and quality satisfaction promotions? They are long gone. Several key dynamics have changed product management forever:


1. The rising complexity for products today to be competitive is escalating the engineering costs. Even outsourcing the development work has a price, and engineering resources in most companies are getting tighter. More and more tough decisions are made on the priorities of new products, most of which are great ideas that never will touch a customer.
2. The revolution of outbound marketing over the internet means virtually any company of any size any where in the world can compete for the attention of the customer. There are no barriers to entry here anymore.
3. Low cost development centers located internationally has shown quality control can vary greatly and production costs can escalate (have you noticed the frequency by which some of the biggest names in the electronics business are experiencing product recalls?)
One of the biggest reasons these changes create havoc in a company is that the product development process has not evolved at the same pace as the outbound marketing. Doing things even remotely the same old way is just not effective anymore. So what steps can companies take to regain product management efficiencies?
1. It starts with a revamped process. There are three critical questions that should be answered in order to justify spending precious resources to develop a product
a. Can a market opportunity be identified where the core competencies of the company has the ability to drive the product innovation enough to become a market leader?
b. Is the market relevant to the corporate goals?
c. Is someone really committed to buy the product?
But wait, these sound like market research questions. Yes they are. However the difference is that today's market requirements change much more quickly. So these questions have to be asked during every step of the process all the way to the final decision to engineer the product. In the past these questions were normally answered early in the process and shelved until the product comes out. This is a source for obsolescence development today.
2. Let product development decisions be made by the people who have to do the work to make the product happen. Because products are so complex, and markets change so quickly, there is no longer enough time nor the right words to communicate clearly to anyone outside of the process all the nuances of a market opportunity. Key strategic decisions still must be made by upper management. But empowering the people executing the process is the most efficient way to ensure your product stays relevant. This includes integration of engineering resource allocations so that the process can continually assess, and reassess, the priorities of the engineering teams.
3. Build quality control into the development process. The days of shipping a new product to a dedicated quality center are long gone. That does not mean this should not be done. However, with the rising complexity of products and the distribution of development tasks across perhaps several engineering groups, a centralized QA team cannot be held responsible for having the knowledge and skills sets to identify and address detailed problems. Quality control has to now be an integral component to the development process. Design with quality in mind and the end result will be much better before it hits the QA team.
The ability to cope with the dynamism built into today's market opportunities are the difference between successful products and lost leaders. An acute awareness and willingness to embrace the dynamics is the next evolution step after the tactical tasks that many companies have been undertaken (such as developing lower cost engineering centers world-wide, reducing the number of products being built, re-focusing core competencies, right sizing....)..
The changes suggested here are not necessarily expensive or require massive shifts in resources or skills sets, or even the acquisition of new capital or skills. Simple but effective steps can make a big difference.
Advance Tech Marketing (ATM). is a marketing consulting firm specializing in individual skills training for marketing professionals. For more information, see http://www.advancetechmarketing.com
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