The document discusses how product managers can increase their output and the output of neighboring organizations they influence. It argues that a product manager's output is equal to the output of their own organization plus the output of neighboring organizations they impact. It identifies the engineering, marketing, sales, customer success, and support organizations as neighboring organizations. The document outlines three types of high-impact activities for product managers: collecting information, sharing information, and making decisions. It provides examples of how product managers can focus on high-leverage activities that impact many people or organizations over a long period of time.

1. High Output Product Managers
Todd Olson
CEO Pendo

2. A little about me...
CEO/Co-founder, Pendo
VP Product, Rally Software
President, 6th Sense Analytics
Chief Scientist, Borland Software
….
@tolson

3. What is Pendo?
3
ANALYTICS
Capture ALL user behavior
in your application
FEEDBACK
Survey users in-app for
incredibly relevant input
GUIDANCE
Deliver contextual help to
simplify the user experience
A New Path to Product Success
www.pendo.io

4. Product Managers Don’t DO
Anything

5. Can’t really measure it

8. Dan Schmidt, Quora

10. A manager’s output =
The output of his organization
+
The output of neighboring
organizations under his influence

11. Neighboring Organizations
Produc
t
Engineering
Customer
Success /
Support
Sales
Marketing

12. Product Managers are
know-how managers and
“[their] potential for
influencing neighboring
organizations is enormous.”

13. Output of Neighboring Organizations
Organization Output
Engineering Quality Software Product
Marketing Marketing collateral, leads
Sales Revenue
Customer Success Renewals / Upsells
Support Resolved tickets, happy customers

14. A manager’s output =
L1 * A1 + L2 * A2 + L3 * A3 …
where...
A = activity and L = leverage of the
activity

15. 3 Kinds of Manager Activity
1. Collect Information
a. Market, customers, product info, competition
2. Share Information
a. Market, customers, product info, competition
3. Make Decisions
a. Product prioritization, roadmap

16. Focus on High Leverage Activities
t
An action that affects many people /
organizations
An action that affects people over a long
time

17. For example...a Authoring a Single User Story

18. Product Management Activities in
Engineering

19. An estimated 1 million
technology jobs will go
unfilled by 2020, according
to a report put forth by
Microsoft in 2012. Publications
like The Wall Street Journal and
even the White House repeatedly
cite this projection, ringing a
nationwide alarm of a severe
shortage in technical talent.

20. Reduce Requirements Defects
The source of requirements defects is insufficient collecting and insufficient sharing of information.

21. Build Features that are Used
Are you done-done?
Are customers trying it? Which?
Do they continue using it after they started using
it?
Did it deliver the intended value?

22. Follow-up and Collect Information
“Great tool for notification about next
releases in product. Keep up the good work
guys!”
- Customer 1
“not bad but they would be cooler if they
didn't overlap the top of the page and
instead added padding or margin to the top
of the body”
- Customer 2
“I want the option to push the entire content
down if it is top positioned. Not just overlay
from the top of the browser window.”
- Customer 3
Features can have a very
long shelf-life affecting lots
of people over lots of time.
Get it right!

23. Build High-Leverage Features
What can we build that enables others to
innovate?
APIs?
Integrations?
Partners?

24. Product Management Activities Outside
Development

25. Support
What are the top type of requests?
What takes the most time to resolve?
Are requests increasing or decreasing?
Are certain types of customers more apt to
submit a ticket?
Is support fully up to speed on the latest
features?
Collecting information.
Sharing information.

26. Customer / User Churn
Are visitors who start with our product sticking
with it?
Are customers who start with our product
sticking with it?
How much did it cost to acquire each
customer / user?
Why are they churning?

27. Optimizing the Sales Funnel

28. Marketing
Market knowledge
Product expertise
Who are the best leads? What personas?
How do we reach these people?
Collecting information
Sharing information.

29. Sales Coach
Competitive win/loss
Overcoming objections
Pricing / Packaging
Collecting information
Sharing information.

30. And report on the results
Organization Problem Activity Results
Sales Losing early in the
sales cycle to
competitor XX based
on the ability of YY.
Went deeper in XX to
discover more differentiation
(collect info), built YY (made
decision), and update sell
against sheet (share info)
Competitive win rate against
XX increase 100%.
Sales /
Marketing
Churning a bunch of
prospects early in
trial
Went deeper to understand
the type of customer, found
we were attracting to the
wrong type of customer
(collect info) hence their
expectations were incorrect.
Work with marketing to adjust
targets and messaging.
Reduce prospect churn by
50%.

31. Transition your thinking...
Own the vision
Build the roadmap
Write the stories
Share your know-how across the
organization to help it increase its
output.

32. ?
What are the
Highest Leverage
Activities you can
do TODAY in your
Organization?

34. Questions?