Today on the OnProductManagement blog (one of my favorites,) guest blogger GeekMBA360 writes about the Triangle Offense in the NBA (made famous by Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers) and what it means to Scrum Mania. It’s a great analogy, with his lesson being: A great team implements whatever system fits it the best. It doesn’t try to impose a system on a group of players.
While GeekMBA360 took his NBA lesson to product management world, in the form of how development teams grow and work, there is another lesson for product managers: No single framework will have all elements apply in your environment. You must learn what is important, and adapt those to be successful.
Pragmatic Marketing has a great solid framework that they teach in their Practical Product Management seminar. (You know I am a fan of PM, so I won’t go into why you should take this class here if you haven’t, but encourage you to do so already. I mean, seriously, what are you waiting for?) ZigZag Marketing also has a Product Management framework they teach. And, 280 Group offers training, even for the AIPMM Certification program.
But, not one of these offers prescriptive, defined steps for a company to take. Why? Because like each NBA (or MLB or NFL or NHL) team, every environment is different. We each face our own challenges, have unique skills prevalent – and driving – on our team, and different personas we serve in our markets.
So, am I in trouble? Are we doomed to never see progress or improvement? No!
Companies with product management in place are not doomed. The key is to find the right quality of product manager who can adapt the concepts contained in the framework to work within your specific environment. After all, no parent follows the same formula for rearing their children, yet they turn out to adults just the same (for the most part.)
Look for the skills of a product manager; stop worrying about their domain knowledge. See how adaptive they are. Ask whether they can look at the framework and apply it to your situation. It’s about having the ability.
From the outsidein view, when you try to fit everyone and everything into the same model, you fail. You run against roadblocks you don’t understand. You produce a product that doesn’t meet your market needs and you don’t know why.
In short, you fail.
[Okay, here is my shameless plug ... but, it's my blog, so I can. If you are looking for a product management professional is firmly rooted in the knowledge of frameworks (with the certifications to prove it,) yet has proven expertise in adapting to environments, please contact me. I am looking for my next great challenge and opportunity as I am currently in transition. Thank you.]
