Wednesday, January 29, 2003

From 5th to 3rd In my previous post I wrote about the need for PRDs and strategy. The time has come for me to focus more heavily on producing those documents that are needed for my product. Until now, I have been heavily involved in project management, and in operational affairs. I am going to have to back away from those activities and focus more heavily on writing. This transition from heavy involvement to necessary involvement can only occur under the following circumstances: There are sufficient project plans and project management resources in place to cover project management needs. This is difficult because we have even fewer project managers than we have product managers. Project management is an intense responsibility that requires focus and dogged-ness. Operations and CRMs need to take the lead in customer communications. I shouldn't be worrying about operational communications. Of course, the job of the product manager is to be a customer advocate, but I should not be coordinating testing schedules. Any project that is not UMD, Content Management, or Authentication is going to have to go on the back burner. It is dificult to pull away from activities that accomplished something, like the AT environment project, but I gotta do it. It's like travelling up a hill at 65 MPH and shifting from 5th down to 3rd. The thing is going to make some noise, and it may slow down some, but it has to be done. 1:54:09 PM

PRDs and Strategy One of the largest parts of a product manager's life is writing Product Requirements Documents (PRDs). This document describes the features and functionality and other characteristics for a particular version of a product. Every product should have a PRD, and each new version of that product should be described in new versions of the PRD. The content of the PRD is largely determined by the strategy of the organization for that particular product family. For example, my PRD for authentication will largely be influenced by a strategic document that Bob Woolley is writing in conjunction with a cross-fucntional team. If he says it needs to slice and dice, then my PRD will describe exactly what kind of slicing and dicing it does. Engineering then figures out how it slices and dices and how it will be built. As PRDs align with the overall strategy, ITS will get closer to accomplishing its objectives. 12:12:11 PM

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