At my company, it’s annual review time, which means that I get to spend quality time writing about what I have accomplished over the past 12 months and how it relates to my role as Product Manager. Now, as an individual contributor, I like the annual review process (I’ve been on the management side, too, and that’s not as much fun). It gives me an opportunity to reflect on how far my product has come from a year ago, identify areas for growth and lets me campaign for a salary increase. But in a role like Product Manager, what are the best ways to evaluate success?
Marty Cagan, principal at Silicon Valley Product Group recently wrote in his blog about ways to measure Product Managers. He comments that there are many factors to consider (revenue, page views, profit, etc) but proposes using customer satisfaction and more specifically whether customers would recommend your product to others, as a key metric of Product Manager success. This method is called Net Promoter Score or NPS and is the focus of a book by Fred Reichheld called “The Ultimate Question.” Note: I have not read the book, so I am neither recommending it nor dissing its ideas or content.
Happy customers typically mean that your product is meeting the needs of users, either by filling a gap or by improving on an existing product’s capabilities, but I don’t see it as a universal success metric for Product Managers. There are too many other variables, not only within a Product Manager’s day-to-day responsibilities, but also as a function of the capabilities of the product and the match with the customers’ requirements.
In this article, I am only going to talk about the latter (the former is a topic all its own). There are many layers between the product and a satisfied customer. It starts with the initial engagement with the Sales team. If it was an inbound inquiry, did the Sales team respond quickly and effectively? If it was an outbound inquiry (read: cold call), was the Sales rep courteous and helpful in determining if the product was an appropriate solution for the prospect? The prospect’s experience with the first touch lasts for a long time.
I just recently heard a story from one of my Inside Sales reps about how she had a call with a prospect who was grateful to get a call from us because the prospect did not want to re-initiate contact with the previous Sales rep due to having had such a bad experience with him (a rep with a reputation for having made many, thankfully, is no longer with the company. How long had that prospect waited to move forward?
Other things affect customer satisfaction with your product, too. Did they have a good experience during the price negotiation? Does the product do what the Sales rep said it would? Have they successfully resolved working with the product support team? Do they hate their boss/job/company? Any of these could impact whether customer x is going to provide a positive score, but they don’t necessarily reflect how well a Product Manager is doing his or her job.
Jeff Lash also writes about what Product Managers should consider as they plan their professional growth. In his blog, he comments about what Product Managers shouldn’t do (all of his intros focus on how to be a BAD Product Manager–
If you want to be a bad product manager, don’t evaluate your performance or attempt to improve. Assume you’re doing a fine job and leave it at that. You were hired for the job and you’re still in it, so you can’t be doing that badly, right? You’ve read some articles and part of a book a few years ago, so you’ve got the basics covered, and since you’re actually doing product management, that’s the best way to learn.
Jeff goes on to comment on an article from PragmaticMarketing.com by Alyssa Dver called Are You Decent? The Naked Truth About Product Management Performance, which talks about Product Management self-evaluation. She addresses 4 topics, but I like the third one, Assess Yourself in a Measurable Mirror, the best. She lists several questions that Product Managers should ask themselves. The following ones struck me as especially valuable (some match the ones that Jeff highlighted, too)–
- How many sales calls have you been invited to attend? Is that too many or not enough? Do you decline invitations because you are double-booked? Why haven’t you been invited to more? Is it because Sales has other people who are talented and know the product/market as well as you or is it because the salespeople see you as a liability, not an asset, with customers and prospects?
- Do you prioritize a customer meeting over an internal meeting or other diversion? Are you getting in front of as many customers as possible to get product input and better yourself as a PM?
- Would your boss hire you again if he/she went to another company? Would your colleagues act as good references for you with a future employer?
If you don’t ask yourself (and others) honest questions about your performance, you won’t have a yardstick to measure how you are doing as a Product Manager. Be prepared to ask painful questions and get (sometimes) painful feedback. It may not feel like it at the time, but you will be making yourself a better, more valuable Product Manager.