May 7th, 2003
Leadership In Product Management
Speaker: Ivan Chong, VP, Product Management, Informatica

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Ivan Chong, VP of Product Management at Informatica, presented on Leadership in Product Management to a full room at the May 7th meeting of the SVPMA. Ivan Chong stepped the audience through his learning over the past 14 years. The presentation offered both a framework and practical advise for product managers looking to move from “good to great.”

Ivan never planned on a career in Product Manager until he received a job offer from Oracle in 1989. He described himself as having wandered through his career trying to understand how to cultivate a product management career. He spent six years with Oracle Tools division, another two with net advertising start-up NetGravity, and the last six with Informatica.

Informatica was founded in 1993. Ivan joined in 1997. Two years later the company went public (Nasdaq: INFA). Today the company has over 800 employees, 1700 customers, and almost two hundred million in revenue. It is a leader in deploying business analytics across the extended enterprise.

Early in the presentation Ivan introduced the idea that “Good is the enemy of Great.” Since product managers are good at so many diverse tasks from writing specifications to sales demonstrations, they often do not rise above the everyday requirements of their positions. But the great product managers have an intangible quality that permits them to become thought leaders in their organizations and drive change.

Ivan shared a leadership model developed by Noel Tichy of the University of Michigan. Leaders gain their authority by linking three areas: ideas/business theory, values, and emotional energy/edge.

Ideas/Business Theory
Ideas are a product manager’s political capital. They derive from being the expert on the customer, as well as the product, the market, and the engineering team. The model is nearly the same for a product marketing professional, except they must master the customer, the product, the market, and the sales team.

A customer expert identifies customer pain points. This is more than just relaying requests; it requires understanding the motive for the request. You should study research reports and know what drives customer decisions and what other choices they have. Lastly, communicate customer anecdotes. Having customer stories lets you demonstrate your knowledge of the customer and avoid debates of opinion.

Becoming a product expert requires that you experience the product through the eyes of your customer. You should install your product and use your product. Adopt the new releases of your product as soon as possible to become familiar with them. Lastly, demo your product to understand it through the eyes of the prospect.

An expert on the market knows the competition. You should also learn about your partners and their businesses. Understand how other products are used in conjunction with your product. Further, know what other products your customers use.

To be an expert on the engineering team, stay on top of your projects. Always seek multiple sources of information. Speak with the architects, QA, developers, and the project manager. Understand how the engineering team makes its decisions and how much detail they require for an idea to gain traction.

Values
There are two types of values, operational and foundation. The prior focuses on the criteria under which decisions are prioritized and should encourage behavior successful to the business. Operational values are applied to make tough calls and permit decisiveness on tradeoffs. For example, engineers do not respect a list of features that is not prioritized, but do respect a list that clearly delineates the few critical features that should be completed first.

Foundation values mark the traits of an exceptional leader, which Ivan loosely based on Good to Great by Jim Collins. In order to lead as a product manager you must be passionately dedicated to the success of your product and exhibit an exceptional work ethic. Leaders are quick to take credit when things go well and take responsibility when things go poorly. Further, they display compelling modesty and are often understated.

Emotional Energy/Edge
Emotional energy is employed to motivate cross-functional team members. You must show enthusiasm for the project at hand and communicating a clear vision for change. Create a vivid picture of how much better things can be and a realistic roadmap for getting there. Edge, in contrast, is the ability to make tough yes/no decisions.

Influence
In order to influence those around you, you must represent the product and your responsibilities. If you do not make this clear, others will define your role for you. Articulate your role, the timing of when you will be working on everything from requirements to the beta program, your co-workers know what and when to expect things from you. Also, educate your team on their responsibilities and deadlines.

How do you know if you are good or great? If you are good, you will have an incomplete view of the situation. If you are great, information comes to you. If you are good, you will be left out of the teams decision making loop. If you are great, decisions require your input. If you are good, the team will relegate you to “gofer”, if you are great, the do’ers will come to you.

To effectively lead as a product manager, you must be an expert on the customer, the product, the market, and the engineering team. You must be able to prioritize and make tough tradeoffs. Lastly, you must be enthusiastic and dedicated to the product’s and the team’s success.