Software Product Manager by Gopal Shenoy

A fundamental product management principle that I live by is Customer obsession! To me, everything starts with the customer and the painful problems they have that they expect my product to solve. I have always coached the product teams I have led using this mantra. No one in the office…

Often times, product teams say that they are data driven or express an interest to become data-driven. But what does “data-driven” actually mean? Data-driven means you rely on data (facts) than personal opinion or intuition to make informed decisions. One of my favorite quotes is the following: “If we have…

Over the last few months, I have been interviewing for a software product management leadership position – Director or VP level. The search took over 6 months (discounting the lull between Thanksgiving and New Year when hiring activity is understandably very low).  Over the course of my 25+ year career,…

From the time product management has been around, there is a notion that to be effective, product managers should behave like CEOs for their product. A belief that the successful product managers have the power to make decisions for their product like CEOs do for a company. Others can provide all the input they…

You all have likely heard the term FOMO – “Fear of Missing Out” – the fear that makes us buy products/services because everyone else is doing it and for the fear of missing out on something that others are getting out of it. A fear that has been proven to move…

As software product managers, we often deal with cross-functional issues from time to time such as projects that fall behind schedule and now risk making a release, creative designs not ready for implementation, serious production issues that require immediate swats to be released etc. When such problems crop up, keeping…

If you are a product manager thinking about your next career move or someone looking to move into product management, this is THE book you should read and have as your reference.  I have been doing product management for many years and I found the book so resourceful. Gayle Laakmann…

This is the most frequent question I get from readers of this blog. Folks who currently are developers, QA engineers, sales professionals, customer support specialists have all asked me this question. I have written how you could start making the move to product management. But here is a course that…

So you have landed an interview for a software product manager position. You are excited! You show up for the interview and the interview is a bust. You do not get the job. Causes? Having interviewed many product managers, who looked very promising on the resume and ended up being…

Should it be the state of product development, the next release, the next sprint? Should it be what keeps the company executives awake? Should it be the competitors? While some of these should indeed keep a product manager awake, the most important thing that should keep him/her awake should be…

It has been months since my last blog post. Call it laziness, lethargy, procrastination, sudden lack of confidence in my writing skills – every one of these had something to do with it. I used to tell myself that I had to do it. But never did it. Last night,…

In an agile development process, you typically launch new features into production every 2-3 weeks. Before launch, it is important to ensure that all stakeholders get to know about the new features to be released. It is especially important for Customer Support, Training, Translators, Sales etc. to get to know…

In the past, I have written what a new software product manager should plan do in the first 30 days on a new job to be successful. If you are planning to start on the right foot at a new job, a key thing you need to understand is constraints.…

I have been reviewing tens of resumes lately as I have been looking to hire a product manager in my group at Care.com. Here are some patterns that I have noticed that makes me to quickly move on to the next resume: Buzzwords: When I read “Builds and manages relationship…

This post is a guest blog post by Ilya Mirman, former VP of Marketing at VMTurbo, CilkArts (acquired by Intel), Interactive SuperComputing (acquired by Microsoft) and SolidWorks Corporation. Ilya is currently an advisor to many startups in the Boston area. I was 9 years old when my father taught me…

What a product manager needs to succeed is momentum. Momentum in product development, in product sales, in customer adoption, …. – you name it. Lack of momentum is akin to death. If your company is not willing to make necessary investments in your product, it will die. If enough engineering…

It has been a while since I have been in blogging and a lot has happened in the world during that timeframe. My idol Steve Jobs has passed, iPhone 4S is out, Gaddafi is dead, Greece has been in turmoil sending the financial markets on a dizzing roller coaster and…

In an organization, where should product management report to? Sales? Marketing? Engineering? CEO? Customer Support? All of this is possible but where can it be the most effective? Before we answer this question, let us make sure we are aligned on the role of a product manager. In my opinion,…

On Friday, I had to complete my self evaluation of my Q2 performance review. As I was reviewing myself, I noticed that I had to continously mention how “I” got this and that done. Too many “I’s” were making me uncomfortable that I had to pause and think about it,…

Last week, Gazelle moved its office from Allston to downtown Boston. No move is easy – new desk, new neighborhood, new commute, everything to get adapted to. My commute to the new office is now 1 hour 45 minutes each way. I have to drive to the train station for…

When does a startup stop being one? Is it when: It gets funded – no, can’t be because vast majority of them get seed funding. It gets customers – no, that can’t be it either It gets revenues – no, because customers could be paying for the service It becomes…

Most of my product management career has been spent doing B2B product management. For the last year and a half, I have switched over to B2C product management in my current role as Director of Product Management at Gazelle. Last 12 months has been a lot of fun learning a…

In the past few weeks, I had the opportunity to sit through three product demos that were all done using web conference (Goto Meeting and WebEx). Two of these demos went very well, we understood everything we wanted to know and we figured out whether the products will meet our…

When I have done customer interviews to better understand customer pain points and ways to enhance the product, often times I have been asked one of two questions: Are you really interested in solving this or listening to my problem? I only have 2 licenses of your software. Don’t you…

I am currently enjoying my week long vacation in my hometown of Ernakulam after a week of software product management seminars and workshops in Bangalore and Hyderabad. As a bonus, my host Pinkesh Shah, CEO of Adaptive Marketing and I were invited to the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad…

Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2011! Thank you for reading this blog in 2010 and for your support. Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2010: 1) 10 job hunting mistakes you should avoid 2) Software product manager’s first 30 days at a new job …. 3)…

I am very pleased to announce that I will be in India to conduct 2-day product management workshops in Bangalore (Feb 1-2) and Hyderabad (Feb 4-5) early next year. I will be offering these workshops via Adaptive Marketing Inc. that I had introduced in my earlier post. In the past…

It has been 20 years since I left India as a young graduate. Indian software industry was unheard of at that time or was in its infancy. But since then, India has become the global powerhouse in software services. Initially, the industry grew mainly through outsourced projects for clients in…

Last week, I got mail from Netflix indicating that my subscription fees was going up by $3 a month from $20/month to $23/month. They suggested that I instead switch to $8/month internet streaming plan. They mentioned that they were fast expanding the library of movies available via instant play. I switched…

I have written in the past about how “if you build it, they will come” is not true when it comes to product management. So it is refreshing to read another product person Joe Johnson from High Start Group echo the same comments when he writes about “Field of dreams…