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Nick's introduction to the role of Product Manager

Writer's picture: Nick HudlestonNick Hudleston
A Product Manager juggling many items while being Zen and floating above his desk
Product Management is just like this, just less Zen!

I'm tired, it's been a long day at another business expo, and I let my guard down..."I'm a Product Manager" I say, pinching myself as the words slip out knowing what's coming next: 


"How nice" … and then ... here it comes … tumbleweed!


Whether a favourite grandma or business person, the reaction is typical. People have an idea what being a Salesperson, Accountant, or Designer involves, but few know what a Product Manager does.


Having said that, there are exceptions: mostly within large companies and corporates. 

Britain has 5.51 million 'small' businesses (classified as up to 49 employees), out of a total of 5.6 million private businesses. Yet very few have full time product managers nor apply their techniques.


Amongst those 98.4% of UK firms, it's mostly within the 'Tech' sector where Product Management's strengths are recognised and employed. In fact, these days almost all textbooks, blogs, podcasts and vlogs on Product Management, discuss how to be a Product Manager within the tech sector, and generally in larger tech businesses. 


This reinforces the impression that "Product Management isn't for us".


I first encountered the role on 9th September 2001, yes...'9/11'. 

As I arrived for interview at Schüco UK in Milton Keynes, the receptionist told me an aeroplane had just flown into one of New York City's Twin Towers 10 minutes earlier, but didn't have any further details on how serious it was.  Four hours later I emerged from an intense series of interviews, my career and the world both changed forever. 


Schüco UK recruited me as their UK Product Manager for Metal Systems, to replace the glazing systems industry legend, the wonderful and then soon to be retiring, Mr Terry Charnell (RIP).


I spent a month at Schüco's HQ in Germany on an excellent company induction course, all held in German. Fortunately I had an ear for that wonderful language, having spent the first 4 years of my life there but I was dreaming in German by the end. Along with 29 other new recruits from around the world, from every level of seniority and function, I spent the month learning about the business, and getting to know each other, which would prove useful in the years to come. However it wasn't an introduction to Product Management.

I still didn't really know what the role would involve.


In that first year or so shadowing Terry, he seemed to be a fire-fighter, an international liaison officer, a designer, a technician, a quality manager, a trouble shooter and much more.


First Terry lesson: the many hats of a Product Manager and learning how to juggle them, is core to the role.


As is coffee... lots of strong coffee.


We had a constant stream of execs and top clients knocking our door or phoning in daily... "Terry, you wouldn't just do me a little favour?". They wanted technical information, shortcuts around the UK Technical Office queue system, or for approvals from Germany for exceptions to 'The Manual', Germany's rule book on how to use each of their products. Some days Terry seemed more like Cerberus or Fluffy (from Harry Potter)... "It's not in The Manual, so you can't do it!"


Another Terry lesson...Documentation! It has to be correct and suit the audience. Vital to a product's success, Schüco's was some of the best, but not perfect. We were the UK's arbiters for the manuals' translations, working closely with the Translators in the office next door. German 3 letter acronyms were sometimes hilarious and unprintable in anglo-saxon English! Despite how good these documents were, we and our UK customers were regularly finding mistakes, that we would mark up and pass back to HQ in Germany.


His address book was gold dust, holding the keys to back doors into the German HQ. Our little shared office was the opposite of that fabulous WW2 war film, The Great Escape! Terry was tunnelling INTO the camp and 'Tom', 'Dick' and 'Harry' were only three of his many secret tunnels.


Terry lesson: and actually I was warned at interview about this, a Product Manager must get on with everyone, and big corporations need them to break down silo walls and build interconnecting tunnels of communication, because by their very success and size, these walls become almost inevitable.


When he wasn't 'Tunnel King', Terry was 'The Forger', just as good as Donald Pleasence's character Ft Lt Blythe in the film. 


He had tracing paper offcuts everywhere, with which he'd trace profiles from the German manuals and then alter them, and photocopy the result. Then he'd fax it to a UK toolmaker for a price and get the extrusion dies made for the customer. All more or less behind the backs of UK and German execs. Some of the UK's most iconic architectural buildings are glazed thanks to Terry's tracing paper.


Terry lesson: sometimes you have to bend the rules to give the customer what they need. Sometimes!


Clearly I wasn't going to be able to be another Terry, 'they' broke that mould. I had to find my own way.

So, back in the UK I attended an independent, week-long residential training course on Product Management. It was one of those defining moments in life for me. At last I understood, and thought…


"Why aren't all businesses doing this brilliant Product Management stuff?"


Well in truth, most are doing bits and pieces, to some degree, but rarely sufficiently. Unfortunately many fail in major areas, resulting in lacklustre sales performance and bland customer satisfaction levels, poor NPD, late to market launches bloated by last minute CEO-added vanity-features, or worst of all, horrendous situations like the Grenfell Tower Disaster.


"But we're a service business, we don't make a tangible product, it doesn't apply to us!" 


Wrong! 


Amazon, Virgin, Dominos, Marriott International and HSBC all have plenty of Product Managers.  And at the other, infamous end of the spectrum again, those firms responsible for The Grenfell Tower disaster - almost all were service businesses. Designers, project managers, surveyors, installers, public servants, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report should be mandatory reading for every aspiring Product Manager.


"But Product Management is for business giants. We're only 10 (20, 30 etc) people."


How do you think these great brands became so successful?  Great innovations have to be planned, developed, protected, verified, documented, launched and delivered, and then nurtured throughout their lifecycle to keep up with ever changing market landscapes.

Product Management principles apply to every single business, regardless of size, service, product, sector, B2B or B2C. 


"Sounds like Marketing - Can't they handle it?"


No! While some of the principles and tools are shared, and indeed the disciplines usually work closely together, they come at things from very different perspectives, with different, duties, tools, inputs and outputs. They also tend to be different types of people.

Put very simplistically, they're opposite sides of the same coin. Actually, they are more like 'Tag Team' wrestling, back and forth complementing each others' activities throughout the product or service's lifecycle:


  • The Product Manager ensures the product or service delivers value that customers want and need, to meet the business's goals.


  • The Marketing Manager ensures customers see and understand that value, and that their loyalty is retained.


Whether you make lanterns or ladders, provide designs or dentistry, litigation or landscaping, good Product Management will improve your products' and your business's success. 


Be more Terry!


If you want to discuss how we can help you and your team with improving your Product Management, click on our Contacts page, and get in touch. We're very friendly, and not at all judgy!



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