Working with Engineering by Atul Suklikar at SVPMA Monthly Event June 2003

1. Working effectively with Engineering
Atul Suklikar
Co-founder, VP Product Management
Softrock Systems

2. Speaker Background
 Education: BS EE, MS CS, MBA
 Oracle Corporation: 4 years in Engineering
 Siebel Systems: 6 years in Product Marketing
 Softrock Systems: 6 weeks

3. An Engineer’s Demonization of a PM Courtesy Billy Connolly
Sub-second response time
FLEXIBILITY
Usability
Huge market
Press coverage
Standards support
Features
Bugs
SENSE OF Enhancements
URGENCY Bells & whistles

4. Agenda
 The Goal
 The Context
 The Keys to Success - Provide value to Engineering
• What constitutes value?
• How do I provide it?
 Summary
 Questions and Insights

5. The Goal
 Translate Product Strategy into a successful
Product Reality
 Build lasting relationships with Engineers
 Have fun building products

6. The context
3 Possible Organizational Relationships between PM and Engineering
GM/CEO GM/CEO GM/CEO
PM ENG ENG PM
PM ENG
Typical Rare

7. Typical Engineering Structure
VP  VP of Engineering
Director Architect • Overall leadership
Manager  Directors & Managers
• Focused on delivery
Engineer Staff Engineer
 Architects
• “Big Thinker”
: Typical Progression
• Typically longest tenured
: Individual Contributor
 Staff Engineer
• “Junior” Architect
 Engineer
• Shortest tenured

8. Agenda
 The Goal
 The Context
 The Keys to Success - Provide value to Engineering
• What constitutes value?
• How do I provide it?
 Summary

9. What value can a PM provide to an Engineer?
 Be the voice of the customer
• Synthesize market requirements, customer pain-points, and competitive
landscape
 Prioritize product development
• Release themes, product features
 Guide product wins
• Sales, market perception
 Help career progression
• Product success, internal visibility, external exposure

10. How can the PM provide that value?
 Fully understand
• Customer
Expert
• Market
• Current Product
 Gain the trust by being
• Reasonable
Partner
• Flexible
• Personable
 Effectively promote
Champion
• The Product
• The Engineers

11. Value provided by the PM - Details
 Establish yourself as the Expert
 Build a Partnership
 Be a Champion

12. Establish yourself as the expert
 Areas of expertise:
• Customer
• Market
• Product
 Key parties to target
• Architects, Managers, Directors
 Who can help
• Other perceived Experts – PM, Sales, Services
• Architects

13. Building and Communicating Customer Expertise
 Familiarize yourself with customer usage
• High level knowledge about a large number of customers
• Deep knowledge about a small number of customers
 Use specific customer/prospect names and usage data in MRD use
cases and in conversations
 Have your management reiterate your stature as an expert
• In meetings, conversations, emails…
 Reinforce the perception through first-hand contact
• Appropriate Sales or Service people
• Customers

14. Building and Communicating Market Expertise
 Familiarize yourself with the competitive landscape
• High level knowledge about a large number of competitors
• Deep knowledge about a small number of competitors
 Share this information periodically with Engineering through white
papers, demos, news clippings
 Present a balanced view about their strengths and weaknesses and
how you compete against them
 Use Engineering’s help in analyzing underlying technology trends
to augment your reading
 Limited first-hand contact with Analysts

15. Building and Communicating Product Expertise
 Familiarize yourself with the existing product
• Technical training
• Install development builds frequently
• Participate in testing of the product
 Understand the architecture through conversations with Engineers
• Focus on the what as well as the why
 Reinforce the perception that you understand the product
• MRDs contain references to how things currently work
• Explaining current product behavior in joint Engineering & PM meetings
 Be balanced in your communications

16. Value provided by the PM - Details
 Establish yourself as the Expert
 Build a Partnership
 Be a Champion

17. Build a partnership
 Characteristics of a good partner
• Reasonable
• Flexible
• Personable
 Key Parties to target
• Engineer, Staff Engineer, Architect, Manager, Director
 Who can help
• Your manager
• Architects, Managers

18. Being Reasonable
 Common pitfalls
• Request 10 X the number of features that would fit in a given release
• 80% of features are marked as P1
 A better approach
• Articulate a multi-release vision for the product
• Get the Architects and Directors to embrace and own that vision
• Jointly work with them to define the delivery roadmap
 Over time, develop a feel for (crude) estimations of level of effort
 Involve Architects and Staff Engineers early in the definition
process

19. Being Flexible
 Always keep the big picture in mind
• This is a repeated interaction game – many releases, many products, many
features
 Prioritize judiciously
 Break down features into granular sub-features so that the
essential aspects are not compromised
 Entertain alternate implementations to achieve the same end goals
 If resources are insufficient, offer to make the case to management
for additional investment or reallocation

20. Being Personable
 Interact with Engineers in non-work settings
• Take your Engineering team to lunch
• Explore common interests – sports, movies, etc.
 Make it a point to get to know the (junior) Engineers well
• Drop by their office to chat about what they are working on
• Ask for demos and provide ad-hoc feedback
 Always share positive product feedback
• Forward congratulatory emails regarding sales, deployments, etc.
 Attend Engineering staff meetings on an as-needed basis
 Invite the Engineering Manager to your staff meetings

21. Value provided by the PM - Details
 Establish yourself as the Expert
 Build a Partnership
 Be a Champion

22. Be a Champion
 Things to champion
• The Product
• The Engineering team
 Key Parties to target
• Product – All
• Team – Especially Engineers, Staff Engineers, and Managers
 Who can help
• Your management

23. Champion the Product
 This is part of your normal responsibilities
 The key is to keep Engineering informed and excited
 Present a successful pitch or conference presentation to the
Engineering team
 Share favorable Product Press immediately
 Debrief the Engineering team on conference feedback
 Share clever applications of the product developed for sales deals
or by customers

24. Champion the Engineering team
 Give visibility to key accomplishments
• Especially for Engineers, Staff Engineers, and Managers
• Examples:
— An email to all of PM advertising a brand new feature acknowledging the developers
— An email to PM and Sales Management crediting developers of a particular feature
that was key to winning a deal
 Increase name awareness of the Engineers among your management
during meetings, conversations, etc.
 Nominate Engineers you work with for awards
 Recognize good work by Engineers by conveying your appreciation
to their managers and director

25. Value provided by the PM - Details
 Establish yourself as the Expert
 Build a Partnership
 Be a Champion

26. Summary
 The Goal – A successful Product Reality
 The Context & Structure
 The Keys to Success - Provide value to Engineering
 Expert
 Partner
 Champion
 Questions and Insights

27. Thank you
Atul Suklikar
asuklikar@softrocksystems.com