The Cranky PM has H1N1 – 0r as one reader termed it, “porkulosis”.  No doubt, it is some kind of cosmic retribution for her executing a near flawless product launch earlier this week, and then bragging about it on Twitter.

Unfortunately, this means that the Cranky Product Manager will be unable to speak at Business of Software 2009. 

She is SO sorry and very, very disappointed.  She had her wig and sunglasses all set to go, and had been working on her presentation for weeks.  (Maybe she’ll record it as a webinar some day, so that the effort does not go to waste).  She was really looking forward to attending the conference and learning at the feet of gurus like Geoffrey Moore (her hero) and Joel Spolsky. 

Damn you, swine flu!

In the Cranky PM’s stead, @NeilDavidson, the fearless organizer of Business of Software 2009 will be doing a talk on the “weird pyschology of software pricing.”  Very interesting topic, and it is sure to be a great presentation.

Anyway, the Cranky PM is super-duper sorry.  She feels like she really let you down.  She hopes to try again next year at Business of Software 2010 in Boston.

As you might know, the Cranky Product Manager is scheduled to speak at the Business of Software 2009 conference. In a crazy-ass wig and sunglasses. As if that really disguised anyone. Maybe the CPM should get one of those Scooby-Doo Villain masks….

Ack.  Focus, CPM!

The topic: the Cranky Product Manager is gonna talk about the big dysfunctions that seem endemic to nearly all B2B software vendors:

1. Marketing lies – intentional and unintentional.

2. Ridiculously complicated licensing, option-itis, and near-malignant product proliferation.

3. Wrongly applying the 80/20 rule to product development (example: delivering a product that does only 20% of the main use case, yet expecting 80% of the product’s potential revenue)

The request for your help:

OK, the Cranky PM wouldn’t have known the above were nearly universal ills, if it were not for her readers sharing their woes that were eerily similar.  But she still feels dissatisfied.  Needs more woe-sharing.

So, as she prepares this little talk, the Cranky Product Manager could use a bit of help. From YOU.  Just answer some questions.  Share your stories.  Email ‘em to crankypm@crankypm.com.

• Have any stories, anecdotes, or egregious examples that pertain to the above topics?  (email crankypm@crankypm.com)
• How costly are these dysfunctions, in your experience? (email crankypm@crankypm.com)
• Do you agree or disagree that these are “universal problems” in the B2B software industry?  (email crankypm@crankypm.com)
• Are these problem fixable?  How?  Did you fix them?  (The Cranky PM always hears about the unfixable — hearing you FIXED something would be a welcome change). (email crankypm@crankypm.com)
• Any other ideas or thoughts on these topics?

Rest assured, that while your stories will be fodder for my session, I will definitely disguise any info you want and protect your confidentiality.  Promise.

PLEASE HELP A SISTAH!  Email the Cranky PM!

But, cripes, so many of them suck.  In particular, so many business cases use a device that is a major peeve of the Cranky Product Manager.  Oh yes, you know it.  You’ve probably done it yourself.  It’s the “one percent of the market” argument.  It usually goes something like this:  “The total market is $X.  If we manage to garner just 1% of that total market, we will have $Z in revenue per year.  $Z is a lot of money!  Ergo, fund my project.”

Gack.

This argument seems wise and safe…. conservative even. After all, it is no major achievement to acquire a paltry 1% of a market… OR IS IT?

It is.  Trust the Cranky Product Manager, this argument is WICKED WEAK. It ignores the dynamics of how competitive markets work, especially in the software industry.

In the beginning of a new market’s life, sure, there are lots and lots of competitors.  Enough that many players might achieve 1% of the market.  That’s what markets look like when they are immature and stupid. But soon enough, the market’s childhood is over and you have an adolescent market on your hands. 

And in an adolescent market, a 1% position is completely unsustainable.  Because as that market starts sprouting the accouterments of puberty — the appearance of chest hair, voluptuous hips, or the first contrarian articles in the press (a la “this technology is not quite the shizz that was promised”)  – the number of players shrinks big-time, as the small-time players — the ONE PERCENT players — all die or get acquired.  And voila!  You end up with about 5 players.  And you better believe they all have more than one percent of the market.

And then, our frisky little teenager of a market grows up more and becomes a fuddy-duddy adult, with only 2 or 3 players — the smallest of which will almost certainly have at least a 15% market share.  And that is likely that way it will stay until the market is wheeled off in a casket, or at least put into an assisted living facility.

Anyway, all this rambling about puberty was the Cranky Product Manager’s way of saying that aiming for 1% market share is  basically aiming for failure.  You can’t sustain that.  You’ll either be a success and have a MUCH bigger market share, or you will fail and not exist.  And do the Cranky PM a solid….DON’T show her any business cases where you are aiming for failure, okay?   And don’t show a business plan that only applies during the market’s childhood years.  Show her your plan to become one of the top two or three players in the market’s adulthood – preferably the NUMBER ONE PLAYER — with a hell of a lot more market share than 1%.  Either that, or GO HOME. 

OK, don’t go home.  Your spouse doesn’t want you there either.  Go take up residence in the local Starbucks while you work on the next draft of your oh-so awesome business plan.  Get back to the Cranky Product Manager after you fix it.

Readers, add your own “10 things” that you’ve learned about product management in the comments.

1. On overly-complex pricing models: If the sales force wants you to give them a training class on the pricing model, then your pricing model is too complicated.  If your price list is more than 6 pages, it is too complicated.  If you have more than 3 basic product configurations (example: Starter, Standard, Enterprise), it is too complicated for your Sales Droids, your prospects, and your customers.

But mark the Cranky Product Manager’s words, you WILL one day be tempted to create all manner of add-on options and product combinations.  It happens to the best of us.  Those freakin’ Option Pushers are always hanging around the schoolyard, offering the first hit for free.  But JUST SAY NO.  Otherwise, watch your sales cycle get ever longer, your customers get suspicious and impatient, and your costs SOAR for product development, customer support, marketing, training, sales, business development, documentation, partner and sales training, finance, and order processing (only professional services benefit from Option-itis).

2. On the illusion of technical genius: For men, to make business-side people think you’re a technical genius, do the following: talk too loudly about how smart you are, sneer often at the technical credentials of others, denounce others’ suggestions as “trivial” or “non-trivial”, and walk around the office in your bare feet with food in your beard (What? You don’t have a beard?  GROW ONE NOW.  Even if it is scraggly.)

For women, to be thought of as a technical genius by anyone, you must do the following: earn a huge stack of patents, be a former computer science professor at a world-renowned Institute of Technology, have once been the lead architect on a product hailed as revolutionary by Wired magazine, be Asian, and be a really supportive and kind mom and mentor to all the young male engineer puppies.  Oh, and make sure you are NOT blond, don’t EVER wear makeup or skirts, and don’t be a bitch to other engineers, even occasionally. Even then, some 20-something Code Boy will start a whisper campaign that you are not very technically astute.

Oh, the above is for engineers. If you’re a PM, give it up.  You will never have enough technical cred, whether you’re male or female. Period.  Get over it and play the game based on your other charms and skills.

3. On dumbassery: If your VP of Engineering thinks the target customer is just like him (notice the lack of “/her”), you’re doomed.

4. On dumbassery #2: If the VP of Marketing thinks the target customer is just like him/her, you’re doomed.

5. On early-stage start-ups: At most early-stage start-ups, the CEO/founder is the real product manager.  The person with the “product manager” title is a demo monkey, a data sheet generator, and comes up with requirements by officially documenting whatever the CEO/Founder brain-farted in the last meeting.  Have fun being a glorified admin.  Note: this also applies at Apple.

6. On Product Managers who still code: For every month you are in product management, your ability to code degrades by six months.

7. On awards for PMs: If you want to get an award from Sales at the annual Kick-off Awards Banquet, create an awesome product demo, insist that you are the only person capable of giving said demo, and constantly ride shotgun on sales calls.  That’s right, become a Sales Engineer despite your Product Manager title.  But if you want to do the RIGHT thing for the product instead of for your ego, create an awesome product demo, teach it to the Sales Engineers and RECORD it for posterity so they can learn to do it on their own (after the hangover they had during the training class dissipates).  But sorry, no Sales award for you.

Want an award that isn’t from Sales?  Good luck. There aren’t any.

8. On the usual Product Marketing activities: 80% of the “standard” product marketing activities have zero or negative return on investment, and  95% of product marketers don’t give a s#!% and just do them anyway.  Seriously, no one reads data sheets…. but that doesn’t stop product marketers from producing them!  And trade shows do almost nothing to drum up qualified prospects, yet even in this crap economy companies are still wasting man-years of time on them.  Nowadays, let’s add Twitter and Facebook and blogging to the “suspect ROI”  list.  The stuff that does have a high ROI is often unexpected, but who knows what really works unless you actually measure it!

SO….if you ever end up in charge of product marketing, start measuring ROI on each marketing activity.  Even a very imprecise measure is better than nothing.  That means calculating the cost and figuring out how effective your collateral pieces are at getting leads to become qualified prospects to become customers.  This seems like a lot of work, but trust the Cranky PM, it is a lot less work than wasting your time writing useless (yet beautifully formatted) product briefs that only your competition will read.

9. On product communities: If you build a product community, NO ONE will come…. until you hire people to populate it with content that is genuinely useful to your target audience (no rehashing of press releases!).  Maybe then you can get get that snowball rolling down the hill, so it can grow into a huge snow MONSTER of DOOM.

10. On colors and fonts and crap like that: As a product manager, stay the HELL away from marketing/branding meetings where they discuss color schemes and fonts and logos and tag lines.  You will be very annoyed by the huge amount of time and resources being spent on this, when both the PM and the Engineering teams are so grossly short-handed (as they always are).  Trust the Cranky Product Manager on this.  Besides, you probably suck at the whole visual branding/design thing anyway.  Most PMs are.  Have you seen the way most of us dress?  You, sir/madam, are no Don Draper.  So shut up and stay out of it.  Go back to interviewing customers and identifying market problems or something.

Anyway, perhaps as a result, the Cranky Product Manager’s body has become less poluted and her psyche a bit more courageous.  More intrepid. Less of a chicken-shit. And as such, the CPM has actually started SPEAKING… out LOUD!  And you, gentle readers, can even listen in.

First, there was a podcast with the illustrious ho-bag Forrester analyst Tom Grant, back in June.

And then, there was the recent podcast with the celebrated Michael Ray Hopkin, proprietor of the glorious Lead on Purpose Blog and The Product Management Pulse.

Check em’ out.  We discuss all kinda fun stuff, like, is product management the best job or the most wretched?  Where should PM report in the organization (don’t PMs just LOVE to debate that one)?  How do you handle those pesky Sales Droids?  Why do you sometime have to shoot your product in the head?

Note that in both podcasts, the Cranky Product Manager’s “real voice” has been distorted mightily, and that her hideous cackle-laugh has been replaced with an equally horrendous, yet different, cackle-laugh.  The Cranky PM is not that courageous yet, folks.  (You will, however, determine that that Cranky Product Manager has a quintessential middle-America accent.  Go do some detective work with that.)

Next up?  The Cranky Product Manager is going to speak IN THE FLESH at The Business of Software 2009 Conference (a Joel of Software Conference) in San Francisco, November 9-11.  It should be a WICKED AWESOME conference.  The possibility of meeting the adorably brilliant Joel Spolsky and her hero Geoffrey Moore (not to mention the wicked awesomeness of Kathy Sierra, Heidi Roizen, Don Norman and Paul Graham) is why the Cranky Product Manager decided to take on this risky adventure.

Needless to say, the Cranky PM is scared s#!#less.  She’s not yet sure how she’ll handle the anonymity issue — should she “come out”? Wear a wig and sunglasses?  Hire a devastatingly attractive model to go in her place?  Take lessons from that douche David Blaine on how to enter and escape from a conference room without witnesses? Or what…?

—————————————

ASIDE:

Maybe it’s time to just come out and get it over with.  A wise reader recently forwarded the Cranky Product Manager this advice from famous blogger Penelope Trunk – she says to blog under your real name, as someone whose anonymous blog went so awry that she ended up chaning her REAL NAME to her pen name.  And while the Cranky Product Manager is DEFINITELY not EVER going to change her real name to “Cranky PM”, it did give her food for thought….

The Cranky PM feels positively DIRTY publishing this, but it is very excellently written, quite cranky, and pretty durn funny (O-holes!  *snort*).

——————–

Here’s a quick memorandum to Cranky Product Manager, Cranky Marketer, Cranky CEO, and all the other members of the Cranky League. You may be shocked to hear that you have my sympathy…Up to a point. As soon as it starts warping the relationship between vendor and analyst, your collective crankiness means exactly Jacques Merde.

You should take a good look at how dysfunctional families behave, since as a group, that’s how many of you operate when dealing with the outside world. In exactly the same fashion as a dysfunctional family, you pretend that you can conceal your problems from outsiders. (You can’t.) If one of these outsiders takes note of these problems, you denounce them loudly and angrily. (It’s not convincing.) And you refuse help from anyone, not because you might need it, but because the shame of admitting to your problems might cause some beloved, confidence-defining portion of your anatomy to shrivel up and fall off. (It won’t.)

Just like any dysfunctional family, your attention is focused inwards. The tiny world inside your four walls, even if it gets abysmally ugly, can dominate your mind in the same way that a moth can’t think of anything but slamming itself over and over against a porch light. In contrast, outsiders—customers, partners, analysts, journalists—are just an annoying distraction. You want to get any odiously necessary contact with outsiders over with as quickly as possible, because you have to get back to winning that incandescent argument with the obnoxious twit who works on the next floor up.  And you act surprised when people don’t seem to like you.

If you think the dysfunctional family comparison is unfair, let’s take a look at how neurotic your behavior really is. We’ll use a typical pre-launch analyst briefing as a case study.

• You want to get analysts to praise your upcoming Mega- Über-Super Release Of Ultimate Power And Awesomeness. (Check that box: “Get analyst buy-in.”) However, you wait until the last possible moment to give the briefing, when it’s far too late for analyst feedback to have even the slightest effect on the release. Everyone knows what you really want is validation. When you don’t get it, you act hurt and outraged, like the relatives who ignore you the rest of the calendar year, but there’s hell to pay if you forget to send them a Christmas card.
• You try to convince the analysts, during the briefing, by talking them to death. Surely, if you keep piling up the words, the collective weight of them will crush any objections. Forget having a conversation, or questions, or even a bathroom break. And why stop talking long enough to show the product, when you can continue describing it in terms of abstract boxes, circles, trapezoids, and arrows in a PowerPoint slide? Or 187 PowerPoint slides?
• Rather than providing direct access to reference customers, you tell us that you have a case study. Or, to paraphrase, you know a guy in your company who knows a guy in another company who told the first guy that the new product looked pretty good. This standard of evidence works pretty well for the enthusiasts of the weird and unexplained phenomena like Bigfoot and UFO sightings. The problem with the skeptics? They just don’t want to believe.

As obnoxious as this behavior can be, you still haven’t completely destroyed our sympathy. We know how much effort goes into an analyst presentation—all the hand-wringing behind the scenes, especially with the CEO, CMO, CTO, and all the other executive-level O-holes involved.

Unfortunately, despite all your pains, the result is a lot like the hideous plaid sweater you got from your well-intentioned but fashion-challenged aunt for your birthday: It’s not the gift you wanted. Hell, it’s not even what you explicitly asked to get.

I’m sure that, if the briefing doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, verbal fisticuffs ensue. However, these arguments among the Cranky Department Heads don’t usually make the next briefing any better. Dysfunctional families argue a lot, but the arguments are never about the real problem. If you can exhaust yourself yelling at Bob because he left the toilet seat up, or laying out your careful argument proving that Mary doesn’t give you the respect you deserve, or reminding Frank that you warned him a thousand times over that the god damn puppy he wanted was going to ruin the furniture, you don’t have the time or energy left over to discuss anything substantive.

So, if the Cranky Engineer didn’t get all the requirements info he wanted, or the Cranky Marketer feels unappreciated for all the great leads she generated, Boo Fricking Hoo. Welcome to life in the vale of tears, where you might get the chance to fix some of these problems, but others will stubbornly resist all your world-class wailing and gnashing of teeth. No one expects you, or your company, to be problem-free. We do mind, however, if you use your problems as an excuse to treat the rest of us shabbily.

You remember the Cranky Marketer, don’t you? That dude/dudette who thinks that in general Marketing is too busy with tactical crap to learn about and understand the customer, and that therefore Marketing’s failure to do its own job is somehow Product Management’s fault? (See Part 1, and Part 2, and the Cranky Product Manager’s response here).

Boy, that Cranky Product Marketer  pissed the Cranky Product Manager off.   Especially when she read Part 3, which she now posts here.  Once you read it, you will see why it cheezed off the CPM so much – enough that she could not bring herself to post it for several months.

But perhaps the intervening months have made her wiser. The Cranky Product Manager realizes that there is indeed something for us product managers to learn from this post from the Cranky Marketer, despite its thesis that there are basically no decent product managers out there, and despite its strong resemblance to another blog’s post on this very topic.

The Problem with Product Management, by the Cranky Marketer

(Part 3 in a series – see part 1 and part 2 here)

If there is one group that should actually work well with Marketing, you’d think it would be Product Management. C’mon folks!  Product Management was created from Marketing’s very womb. But perhaps, like Shakespeare’s MacDuff, it was from that womb untimely ripped.

Perhaps Product Management has some sort of reverse Oedipus complex with Marketing, or the problem is simply a transference issue related to the nasty aspects of the Development-Product Management relationship. Regardless, there’s way too much friction between Product Management and Marketing.

To paraphrase a recent post by the Cranky PM:

Product Management Community, WTF is wrong with you?

Why was it that in all my years as a Product Manager I never noticed that the Product Management community is filled with such a wide array of bizarre characters and arrogant jerks?

Let’s do a little segmentation. Let’s create the Product Manager Magic Quadrant. And trust me, this is one Magic Quadrant that’s sorely needed.

Gartner, you’re on notice. If you start using this in any way, I’ll sue your ass off.

And Forrester, if you put this into a “Wave” and repurpose it, make sure you send me a fat royalty check. I have a soft spot for you Forrester because you actually have analysts who cover things like Marketing and Product Management. Way to go!  And I promise not to sue you as long as the royalty check is big enough to let me take my family on a nice vacation away from my coworkers. I need that vacation real bad.

So, like all Magic Quadrants, this one has two axes.

The horizontal axis represents level of knowledge of the Product Manager. This is a combination of the PMs ability to understand market problems, customer needs, technology trends, and of course, their own product at a reasonable level of detail.

Note: very few PMs have deep knowledge in all areas, though many think they do, so very few PMs will be on the far right of this quadrant.

The vertical axis represents the ability of the Product Manager to effectively work across teams, This means that as the product or release is being developed, the rest of the company is kept informed and updated of progress, issues and opportunities so as to maximize revenue potential and minimize lag and wasted efforts.  And of course, on this axis, there is a slight bias to how well they work with Marketing. Hey, it’s my Quadrant, I’ll define it how I want to.

Note: a lot of PMs think they’re the ultimate cross-functional leader, but guess again. Every PMs will claim they’re easy to work with and keep everyone else up in sync. How could they answer otherwise? But the reality is this is not the case so a lot of PMs will not score at the top of this axis.

I’m sure you would agree, knowledge and ability to work across teams are two VERY important traits for product managers to have. So here’s what the Product Manager Magic Quadrant looks like.

As you can see from this Magic Quadrant, the pickings are slim with the vast majority of PMs either too unskilled or too arrogant to be helpful.  The knowledge that Marketing needs about the product, product direction, strategy, capabilities, differentiators etc. is very hard to come by, with Angels being the ones who can convey it with any credibility and without extracting a severe price for that information.

With Assholes, the information has to be painfully extracted, and in most cases, abuse is heaped on the Marketer by the Asshole.

And of course, with the Misfits and Tenderfoots (Tenderfeet?), there isn’t a lot of information to actually extract, so what’s a Marketer to do?

Product Management is an important role and those of us who depend on Product Management to help enable us to do our jobs better struggle because a key piece of the chain is weak or missing altogether. As I said in my first post, it’s very difficult for Marketing to be the product and customer expert given all the other things we have to do in our job.

As Product Managers, ask yourselves how much thought, energy and time you spent researching needs for your most recent major release? How many discussions did you have amongst yourselves and the Engineering teams on architecture changes to make the product better? In how many internal conversations did you spend time debating competitive and technology issues before you came to agreement of what would and what wouldn’t be in that release and how it would be implemented and exposed to customers?

Now ask yourself, how much time was spent helping Marketing understand all those decisions you made, why you made them, the background information behind the key decisions, the alternatives you did and didn’t consider, the way the competitors do or don’t address the same problem sets etc.

I’m sure the ratio of time spent with Marketing is only a tiny fraction of the time you spent amongst yourselves and with Engineering. And then you wonder why Marketing “doesn’t get it”, or why Marketing “dilutes the message” or why Marketing “focuses on the wrong things”.

You didn’t gain your deep insight based on a 90 minute Powerpoint webinar, so why do you expect Marketing to be any better?

You want Marketing to gain a deep understanding of all the hard work you did over the last 6-12 months so as not to dilute the message etc.? Then don’t think we’re dumb or dumb things down for us.

Give us the facts, early and often. Give us time to think about the issues, ask questions, debate amongst ourselves and engage back with you. Try it. You’ll be amazed at how great it can work!

Or just continue to be Tenderfoots, Misfits and Assholes and be happy in knowing that the greatest barrier to maximum success of your product is you.

The CSE does not need a marketing funnel hawk.  Funnel hawks, for those who don’t know, are a parasitic form of marketing dweeb who think that they can maintain a funnel report by badgering the sales force.  The sales force avoids talking to these people for the same reason they don’t reply to spam, because any communication will cause a sudden and annoying increase in valueless communication.

Compare this approach to another marketing person who has a 100% handle on the funnel.  When this person learned about a deal I was working on, she hooked me up with a dynamite piece of training collateral that taught the customer how to use the product while highlighting all the features.  The CSE keeps this marketing person apprised of all deals in hopes of getting help in closing the deals.

(BTW.  Do not confuse funnel hawk activity with the CPM’s gathering of pricing information by talking to the sales force.  I can’t imagine who would fire a PM for such an activity, but that person needs to try a new line of work.  Perhaps something involving a squeegee and a dirty rag.)

Do not become a funnel hawk.  If you want to know what’s happening in the field, provide useful help to your sales team and you will be welcomed with open arms.  Random calls asking  “How’s that deal coming?” will not make you anyone’s friend.  Instead, become a sales partner, and you will get all the info you want.

Oh…alcohol helps as well.

For one, the paparazzi never leave you alone.

Second, you never get any ”real-world” Web-2.0 cred – even at a time when everyone else is vomiting  ”social media brand-building” all over their resumes.  Well, guess who has more social media cred than 95% of you?  THE CRANKY PRODUCT MANAGER, THAT’S WHO.  But does the Cranky PM get to brag about such things on her “real world” resume, and maybe angle for a better paying job (or at least keep the one she has)?   HELL NO. In this respect, the CPM’s “real world” resume looks like a 60-year-old grandma’s (see note 1).

Third drawback?  Well, every now and then, an attention-whoring, self-promoting, link-baiting JACKASS has the AUDACITY to call you FICTIONAL! 

GAH!  How DARE he? That JACKASS!

But then the CPM is like, “Well, DUH, of COURSE I’m fictional!” 

But CRIPES it ticks her off, especially when he further posits that the CPM is a project of a commercial firm, written by someone who is familiar with product management but never had the role, and that the author is just making shit up in her posts. 

So the CPM debated the issue with herself: 

CHOICE #1: Bitch about it on Twitter for 60 seconds and then move on.  Reasons for:

1. Attempting to “prove” the CPM’s legitimacy might compromise her real-world identity.
2. What this Jackass wants – DESPERATELY, more than ANYTHING — is for the Cranky PM to send her 5000+ regular readers to his site. all so the Jackass can attempt to convince them to buy training from HIM.  (not gonna happen…)
3. Tom Grant already defended the Cranky Product Manager’s honor on her behalf.  Why beat a dead horse?

CHOICE #2:  Defend self & take The Jackass to task. Reasons for:

1. The Cranky Product Manager rarely backs away from a fight, especially when her FAMILY NAME is besmirched so scandalously.  She has the scars from many a middle-school scuffle to prove it.  
2. The Cranky Product Manager is extremely flawed, prideful, and dumb. Emphasis on dumb.

Hmm…. Well, Choice #1 seems to be the most rational, thoughtful choice.  But the CPM has been dealing all day with a whining toddler who has apparently forgotten everything about using the potty.  She is on her last nerve and therefore she unwisely picks Choice #2.

SO, FOR THE RECORD, the following is THE TRUTH:

1. The Cranky Product Manager is written by an INDIVIDUAL, with occasional guest posters and the help of a “Cranky Sales Engineer” friend.  All guest posts are clearly labeled.  The Cranky Product Manager is NOT the project of a commercial firm or product management organization.  The Cranky PM only WISHES she was actually paid to blog or had regular help to keep this schtick up.  (Hear that, Pragmatic /Sequent /ZigZag /Pivotal /Enthiosys /PDMA /280 Group /Rally /AIPMM /Blackbot – and yes, you, Aass University?   BUY ME!  The CPM will gladly entertain any reasonable offer. She is a capitalist, after all.)
2. As is abundantly apparent to every reader EXCEPT The Jackass, the Cranky Product Manager’s author is a REAL product manager at and has been for <insert number between 5 and 15> years at <insert number greater than two> software vendors and online services.
3. Regarding the story The Jackass claims “didn’t happen,” and thus cites as “proof” that the CPM is not a real product manager….well, SORRY, Jackass, but it DID happen. Not to the Cranky Product Manager personally, as is the case with 75% of the stories in this blog (seriously, the CPM would have a seriously sucky real-world life if all this crap really happened to one person), but to a <former/current> co-worker who is indeed a product manager.

The Jackass claims any PM would be fired if s/he called sales people to develop a product forecast.  OK… well, maybe if the product manager was enslaved at one of those dreary companies with which The Jackass is familiar, where the primary (sole?) function of the so-called Product Manager is ”keeper of the tick-list.”  The Cranky Product Manager can’t comment on that type of company because she has never — and would never – work at a place with such an profoundly limited view of the product management role; her jobs have always had more of a “Product Leader” (both tactical and strategic), “Voice of the Market,” and ”Buck Stops Here” emphasis.

But even at that dismal type of company, the PM would NOT be fired if the CEO ordered her to call individual sales reps to build a forecast.  Seriously, Jackass, did you even READ the post? 

The Cranky Product Manager has to say, she is really dismayed by The Jackass’s small-minded view of product management, especially given his own history in the PM trenches.  Thank Cheezus she never worked for or with him. Keeper of the Tick-list! GAH!  The CPM thought we left that  limited definition behind over 10 years ago. 

That The Jackass is out there proselytizing this outmoded view… well it makes the CPM sad. Very sad. Because he might be undoing the good work others (including the PM training firms that The Jackass disparages) have done educate senior executives and to show how the product management role can operate at its finest.  And, frankly, it’s an insult to PMs everywhere for him to present the 5% of the job that is the most boring and trivial as the whole picture of the product management profession. 

But, gentle readers, it might surprise you that the Cranky PM agrees with the Jackass on one main point:  if  the PM function reports into you, if you think product management’s main job is maintaining the tick-list, and if you simply cannot be convinced otherwise, well then the Cranky Product Manager URGES you to do what the Jackass recommends.  Automate away the PM role with some kind of feature voting tool. 

Why? Because the CPM does not want to WASTE HER TIME applying for your so-called “product management” job.  She’d rather focus her energy on companies that want someone to research customer problems, to be the voice of the MARKET (and not just current customers), to develop visions and road maps for the product’s future, to develop business cases and product strategies, to shepherd new products from concept to reality, and to properly position products and successfully launch them.  And she will then KICK YOUR PRODUCT’S ASS since you ignored all those activities, concentrating on “feature votes” from current customers instead of focusing on the MARKET problems and solutions that land the customers you don’t yet have, and thus providing the only real avenue for growth.

‘Nuff said.  Now excuse the Cranky Product Manager while she gets back to getting a fictional pedicure while sipping a fictional margarita on a fictional tropical beach.

(Oh, and thanks to Tom Grant for chivalrously defending the Cranky Product Manager’s honor.)

————-

Note 1: For those of you who suggest that the Cranky PM’s real world author establish her own independent social media presence…. well, she tried that.  Let’s just say it is the road to madness and to getting caught. If you are a highly distractible and semi-careless individual like the Cranky PM, you will — without a doubt — tweet/email/blog/update from the wrong account.  Trust her. She’s done it, a few times.  How the Cranky Product Manager’s true identity continues to remain a secret is a miracle.

For one, the paparazzi never leave you alone.

Second, you never get any ”real-world” Web-2.0 cred – even at a time when everyone else is vomiting  ”social media brand-building” all over their resumes.  Well, guess who has more social media cred than 95% of you?  THE CRANKY PRODUCT MANAGER, THAT’S WHO.  But does the Cranky PM get to brag about such things on her “real world” resume, and maybe angle for a better paying job (or at least keep the one she has)?   HELL NO. In this respect, the CPM’s “real world” resume looks like a 60-year-old grandma’s (see note 1).

Third drawback?  Well, every now and then, an attention-whoring, self-promoting, link-baiting JACKASS has the AUDACITY to call you FICTIONAL! 

GAH!  How DARE he? That JACKASS!

But then the CPM is like, “Well, DUH, of COURSE I’m fictional!” 

But CRIPES it ticks her off, especially when he further posits that the CPM is a project of a commercial firm, written by someone who is familiar with product management but never had the role, and that the author is just making shit up in her posts. 

So the CPM debated the issue with herself: 

CHOICE #1: Bitch about it on Twitter for 60 seconds and then move on.  Reasons for:

1. Attempting to “prove” the CPM’s legitimacy might compromise her real-world identity.
2. What this Jackass wants – DESPERATELY, more than ANYTHING — is for the Cranky PM to send her 5000+ regular readers to his site. all so the Jackass can attempt to convince them to buy training from HIM.  (not gonna happen…)
3. Tom Grant already defended the Cranky Product Manager’s honor on her behalf.  Why beat a dead horse?

CHOICE #2:  Defend self & take The Jackass to task. Reasons for:

1. The Cranky Product Manager rarely backs away from a fight, especially when her FAMILY NAME is besmirched so scandalously.  She has the scars from many a middle-school scuffle to prove it.  
2. The Cranky Product Manager is extremely flawed, prideful, and dumb. Emphasis on dumb.

Hmm…. Well, Choice #1 seems to be the most rational, thoughtful choice.  But the CPM has been dealing all day with a whining toddler who has apparently forgotten everything about using the potty.  She is on her last nerve and therefore she unwisely picks Choice #2.

SO, FOR THE RECORD, the following is THE TRUTH:

1. The Cranky Product Manager is written by an INDIVIDUAL, with occasional guest posters and the help of a “Cranky Sales Engineer” friend.  All guest posts are clearly labeled.  The Cranky Product Manager is NOT the project of a commercial firm or product management organization.  The Cranky PM only WISHES she was actually paid to blog or had regular help to keep this schtick up.  (Hear that, Pragmatic /Sequent /ZigZag /Pivotal /Enthiosys /PDMA /280 Group /Rally /AIPMM /Blackbot – and yes, you, Aass University?   BUY ME!  The CPM will gladly entertain any reasonable offer. She is a capitalist, after all.)
2. As is abundantly apparent to every reader EXCEPT The Jackass, the Cranky Product Manager’s author is a REAL product manager at and has been for <insert number between 5 and 15> years at <insert number greater than two> software vendors and online services.
3. Regarding the story The Jackass claims “didn’t happen,” and thus cites as “proof” that the CPM is not a real product manager….well, SORRY, Jackass, but it DID happen. Not to the Cranky Product Manager personally, as is the case with 75% of the stories in this blog (seriously, the CPM would have a seriously sucky real-world life if all this crap really happened to one person), but to a <former/current> co-worker who is indeed a product manager.

The Jackass claims any PM would be fired if s/he called sales people to develop a product forecast.  OK… well, maybe if the product manager was enslaved at one of those dreary companies with which The Jackass is familiar, where the primary (sole?) function of the so-called Product Manager is ”keeper of the tick-list.”  The Cranky Product Manager can’t comment on that type of company because she has never — and would never – work at a place with such an profoundly limited view of the product management role; her jobs have always had more of a “Product Leader” (both tactical and strategic), “Voice of the Market,” and ”Buck Stops Here” emphasis.

But even at that dismal type of company, the PM would NOT be fired if the CEO ordered her to call individual sales reps to build a forecast.  Seriously, Jackass, did you even READ the post? 

The Cranky Product Manager has to say, she is really dismayed by The Jackass’s small-minded view of product management, especially given his own history in the PM trenches.  Thank Cheezus she never worked for or with him. Keeper of the Tick-list! GAH!  The CPM thought we left that  limited definition behind over 10 years ago. 

That The Jackass is out there proselytizing this outmoded view… well it makes the CPM sad. Very sad. Because he might be undoing the good work others (including the PM training firms that The Jackass disparages) have done educate senior executives and to show how the product management role can operate at its finest.  And, frankly, it’s an insult to PMs everywhere for him to present the 5% of the job that is the most boring and trivial as the whole picture of the product management profession. 

But, gentle readers, it might surprise you that the Cranky PM agrees with the Jackass on one main point:  if  the PM function reports into you, if you think product management’s main job is maintaining the tick-list, and if you simply cannot be convinced otherwise, well then the Cranky Product Manager URGES you to do what the Jackass recommends.  Automate away the PM role with some kind of feature voting tool. 

Why? Because the CPM does not want to WASTE HER TIME applying for your so-called “product management” job.  She’d rather focus her energy on companies that want someone to research customer problems, to be the voice of the MARKET (and not just current customers), to develop visions and road maps for the product’s future, to develop business cases and product strategies, to shepherd new products from concept to reality, and to properly position products and successfully launch them.  And she will then KICK YOUR PRODUCT’S ASS since you ignored all those activities, concentrating on “feature votes” from current customers instead of focusing on the MARKET problems and solutions that land the customers you don’t yet have, and thus providing the only real avenue for growth.

‘Nuff said.  Now excuse the Cranky Product Manager while she gets back to getting a fictional pedicure while sipping a fictional margarita on a fictional tropical beach.

(Oh, and thanks to Tom Grant for chivalrously defending the Cranky Product Manager’s honor.)

————-

Note 1: For those of you who suggest that the Cranky PM’s real world author establish her own independent social media presence…. well, she tried that.  Let’s just say it is the road to madness and to getting caught. If you are a highly distractible and semi-careless individual like the Cranky PM, you will — without a doubt — tweet/email/blog/update from the wrong account.  Trust her. She’s done it, a few times.  How the Cranky Product Manager’s true identity continues to remain a secret is a miracle.