If thou does this according to THE SOFTWARE LORD’S wishes, the trade magazine just might run an article extolling to the world the virtues of your product.

Keeping in mind the lower-than-expected IQ and extreme sloth of certain members of the press, the Evaluation Guide should be written as if for your computer illiterate grandmother. 

Said Evaluation Guide shall have a screenshot for each and every step, including installation. 

Each step shall describe exactly what to type, what button to push, and why each step is being performed. The steps shall leave no room for misinterpretation.  The reader must not be required to think at all.

Marketing messages and competitive comparisons shall be interspersed throughout the Evaluation Guide, in hope that the member of the press will directly quote your ritually pure text.

 Read more Divine Rules for Product Managers.

Have the Software Gods been speaking to you as well?  Have any additional Divine Rules for Product Managers you wish to share?  Share them in this post comments.  The Cranky Product Manager will feature the best Divine Rules as posts on this blog, with appropriate link-backs to the destination of your choosing….

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Divine Rules for Product Managers #3: On Helping the Press with Product Reviews

Law #2: On dealing with customers who can’t understand you don’t develop custom software just for them.

If a customer presents a detailed list of features, demands they be developed immediately, and then tries to extract firm commitments with specific dates for each feature, the Product Manager shall adroitly step around the trap as follows.

The Product Manager shall assure the customer s/he understands the  issues by paraphrasing them back and sympathizing with the customer’s frustrations. 

The Product Manager shall, in front of the customer, write the details of each issue, for posterity, inside a high-class notebook with gold gilded page edges.

The Product Manager shall frequently say phrases like:

• I can see why that’s important to you
• We’ll see what we can do
• I wish we had the resources to work on all these great ideas… which two are most important to you?

The Product Manager shall not definitively promise a feature will be developed nor its delivery date, unless the feature is already done, tested, and due for release within the next 2 weeks.

The Product Manager shall also take copious notes of the entire conversation and circulate these notes to the Product Manager’s boss and the customer’s account team, highlighting that NO PROMISES were made.

If thou does this according to THE SOFTWARE LORD’s wishes, the customer will calm down and perhaps take a less adversarial approach in the future. Even better, the Product Manager won’t get fired in 6 months for allegedly promising the customer something that can’t be delivered.

—————-

Have the Software Gods been speaking to you as well?  Have any additional Divine Rules for Product Managers you wish to share?  Share them in this post comments.  The Cranky Product Manager will feature the best Divine Rules as posts on this blog, with appropriate link-backs to the destination of your choosing….

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Divine Rules for Product Managers #2: On Dealing With Unreasonable Cutomer Demands

The Cranky Product Manager shall post each Law in a separate post. Eventually, when several Laws are posted, you can view them all together via the Divine Rules for Product Managers category.

Law #1: On preparing for potentially contentious meetings with Engineering

If thou plans to meet with the Engineering team, where thou suspects the Engineers will disagree with the recommended priorities for product development, then thou shall endeavor to informally meet with each member of the team individually beforehand. 

Over burritos or sushi, thou shall endeavor to convince each Engineer of your point of view, describing the use cases and the research thou has done to arrive at the recommendations.  Thou shalt be charming and nice and personable and actually listen for a change.

If the time allotted for lunch is too short to convince the Engineer, thou shall continue the conversation over beers after work.  An official “meeting” is to be avoided.

Again, it is emphasized that thou shalt meet with everyone on the team individually, from the mightiest architect to the meekest junior engineer.

If thou does this according to THE SOFTWARE LORD’S wishes, the big meeting with the Engineering team will go smoothly and everyone will leave with common agreement as to the features and priorities of the next release.

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Divine Rules for Product Managers #1: Prepping for Engineering Meetings

Whoo hoo.

Sorry about the delay.  It’s just a big frakin hassle to put captions on cartoons and create a Cafe Press store — all so the Cranky Product Manager can order some mugs with pictures of engineer archetypes.  Plus she’s wicked lame.

Anyway, you TOO can purchase mugs and t-shirts with the various types of engineers on them.  Give them as presents to your team. Sent some not-so-subtle hints.

In fact, the Cranky PM requires that at least a few of you buy them.  Because if she is the only one carrying around an Engineering mug, it will be difficult to keep her real-life identity a secret.

OK, without further ado…..

The Big Winner - Offshore

The BIG WINNER for ALL the Engineer types is DGentry for his submission for Offshore:

The Cranky PM and “Another PM” (author of the original post) almost wet their pants when they read that one.

You will notice we had to change the cartoon to accompany this caption, but it was well worth it.

DGentry will soon be receiving this fantabulous mug in the mail, courtesy of The Cranky Product Manager.  Why not buy one for yourself?

The Honorable Mention for Offshore goes to Paco for “All your base are belong to us.”

(unobtrusive link to Offshore schwag)

The Veteran

For the Veteran, a reader named “The Other Eric” wins.  Alas, he gets no free mug as he is not the BIG winner.

The Honorable Mention goes to Greg for “Um, we tried that 4 years ago and it was a total failure. Got any other bright ideas?” Too long to fit on a mug, but still spot-on.

(unobtrusive link to Veteran schwag)

The Great One

Our favorite Engineer, the Great One is now immortalized.  Many caption submissions doubted the existence of this mythical creature, but in the end the submission from Eric won:

Honorable mention once again goes to Paco for “It’s okay. It was important to be here for the launch, and I’m sure I’ll be there when my next child is born.” (submitted too late for the contest, alas).

(unobtrusive link to Great One schwag)

The Teflon-gineer

For the Teflon-gineer, the Cranky Product Manager’s most despised engineer, reader Eric wins once again:

All the other submissions were very funny (and long! too long for a mug), but this one from Scott Sehlhorst (of the Tyner Blain blog) wins the Honorable Mention: “I closed that error-message bug with a workaround. ‘Replace users with people who can follow instructions.”’

(unobtrusive link to Teflon-gineer schwag)

The Hotshot

For the Hotshot, the winner is…. THE CRANKY PRODUCT MANAGER. Yep, she liked her own caption the best.  Sorry suckahs.

Honorable mention to Greg for “Dude, I finished that code last night. I’m sure it works! Now ’scuse me while I go grab a Red Bull…”

(unobtrusive link to Hotshot schwag)

The Maverick

No, not that Maverick.  The Software Engineer kind of Maverick.  The winner is roadmapwarrior — check it.  The Cranky Product Manager had a good giggle over this one:

Honorable Mention goes to Scott Sehlhorst again for “I don’t tell you what font to use. What, exactly, is wrong with (lambda (x) (+ (* 2 x) (^ x 2)))?”

His entry brought up nausea-inducing memories of the Cranky Product Manager’s freshman computer class.  Ugh.  Feel sick.

(unobtrusive link to Maverick schwag)

The Clockwork Mouse

The same Eric that won the caption contest for the Great One and Teflon-gineer wrote the original Clockwork Mouse post.  So he kinda wins this too. The actual caption you see below was submitted by DGentry (also the BIG winner):

Honorable mention to NWGuy for “Whew, almost everybody gone; if they got rid of that Naked Programmer I’d be able to go home.”

The Cranky Product Manager has no idea what NWGuy is talking about, but it is just so bizarre she LOVES IT.

(unobtrusive link to Clockwork Mouse schwag)

Anyway, have a GREAT HOLIDAY.  The Cranky Product Manager might actually get another post or two in by the end of the year, since she is off from work and everything.

HAVE FUN AND DON’T PRIORITIZE USER STORIES WHILE INTOXICATED!

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Caption Contest Winners: 7 Types of Software Engineers

Well, readers tipped off the Cranky Product Manager about 2 emails circulating the known product-manage-osphere, each from a different training/certification firm.  These huffy emails were apparently sent to product managers who already had some kind of certification. Recipients were urged to take the Cranky PM’s survey and were explicitly instructed to say certification is super marvelous, akin to a holy sacrament.  Why? “In order to maintain the value and credibility of the professional certification you have worked so hard to earn.”

One of these emails even went as far as providing “suggested answers”  for EACH and EVERY question!

Also, these frenetic emails described the Cranky Product Manager as “biased” and “disgruntled”  !!!

How DARE they!

Hmmmppph.  OK, granted, the CPM is disgruntled.  That’s fine.  Disgruntled is practically a synonym for cranky.

But BIASED? What?  REALLY? As opposed to WHAT?

As opposed to YOU, Certification-Training-and-Test-Giving Firm? You who conducts certification classes and proctors exams for a piddly $2000-$5000 per student per week?

Hang on while the Cranky Product Manager calculates exactly how wicked biased you are, compared to her.

OK, assume you get a class of 10 students at least 4-5 times a year. That means 40-50 students. At somewhere between 2K and 5K per student, that means that you make … (hold on, let’s do the math… carry the two, add the five…OK, math done)…

OK, You OFFICIALLY make a BOATLOAD FROM CERTIFICATION. As in, you could probably make a decent 6-figure income for just 4-5 weeks of work per year. As in, your firm earns somewhere between $700 and $1600 per instructor hour.  Sure, there’s some costs involved (licensing fees to the industry orgs, instructor time, classroom rental,  materials, etc), but the CPM has gotta think your profit per hour is very, very decent.

Nice work if you can get it. No wonder you love certification.

So, no, you’re not biased. NO WAY…. No one would EVER think that.

For the record, the Cranky Product Manager receives NO MONEY from any aspect of certification. She does not (currently) hold any certificates or designations, other than an MBA in marketing and a Bachelors in computer science — both from schools you’ve actually heard of, and NOT because they advertise on TV.

That said, if given the opportunity to score a certification without touching her own wallet, the Cranky Product Manager would probably go for it. Just cuz.  She’s curious about what’s on those tests. Plus she’s pretty awesome at standardized tests — she’s sure she’d crush it.

And crush yo’ heads for  calling the CPM biased, beeyotches…

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Who Me? Biased? (More on Product Management Certification)

No, it’s not something from her recommended “Wicked Awesome Presents for Product Managers” list, alas. (Buy your favorite PM a present now! Last day for shipping).

Nay, it’s a fantastic board game - a classic, with a new twist. It will give you hours of fun throughout the year, and, in fact, throughout your LIFE, as a product manager.  Hang it on your cubicle wall.  It’ll come in handy.

It’s “No, Developer, Don’t Say That” BINGO!    

Whenever you hear a Developer trotting out one of these oft-recited but dreaded phrases, tick off the appropriate box.  Once you tick five boxes in a row/column/diagonal you have BINGO!  Scream out BINGO as loud as you can.  Maybe someone will come give you a prize…

…or at least a hug, some Kleenex, and a Prozac perscription.  Hearing those developers talk like this all day can force even the most upbeat Produt Manager into a bottomless depression.

Thanks to the Twitter followers @dan2bit, @nolanzak, @jen_monkey, @tojarrett, @lorifraleigh, @ec1964, @ryanshuya, @mlortz, @tsahil, @Hagoleshet, @cmclellan, and @scottcote for helping create this.

And check out the related “Things to Say When You’re Losing a Technical Argument” list  - an oldie but a goodie.

More official rules for Bingo and Buzzword Bingo are here.

Related Posts:

• The 7 Types of Software Engineers
• Three Things the Cranky Product Manager Doesn’t Want to Hear

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Wicked Fun Game Highlighting the Never-Ending Battle Between Product Management and Development

Brief highlights:

• 188 responses
• 98% of you are currently, or were once, product management or product marketing professionals
• 58% of you have no certification of any kind. (110 people)
• 34% of you are Pragmatic Marketing Certified. (64 people)
• Very few of you are certified as AIPMM CPMs (14 / 7.45%) , AIPMM CPMM (5 / 2.6%), or PDMA NPDP (6 / 3.2%)
• For the PDMA and 2 AIPMM certifications, nearly 2/3 of the respondents were unfamiliar with the certification.
• In contrast, only 25% were unfamiliar with Pragmatic Marketing’s PMC certification.
• 62% thought the Pragmatic Marketing certification was somewhat or very valuable.  The numbers were far less for AIPMM or PDMA, mainly because people were unfamiliar with these certifications.
• The most frequently cited reasons for getting certified was “my company paid for it” and “my company requires all PMs get it.”
• The more junior you are, the more certification helps you.
• A huge number of you passionately believe that certification is a “huge waste of time.”

Here’s the complete report via HTML, courtesy of Survey Gizmo:  Product Management Certification Survey.  It includes all the answers to the “essay” questions.  Very interesting comments. Check it out.

Here are the results in PDF, for if/when Survey Gizmo deletes the above web page (also contains the complete answers):
PM Certification Survey Results Report (PDF).

Here’s all the raw survey results in Excel (with IP addresses stripped out), so you can cross-tabulate answers:
PM Certification Survey Raw Data (Excel).

And a few lovely charts and graphs:

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Survey Results: Product Management Certification

So WHY then, WHY(!?) do so many so-called Beta testing programs seem explicitly designed to PREVENT this type of feedback?

Let the Cranky Product Manager classify and explain the different types of Beta programs, of which the vast majority  do NOTHING to improve product quality or identify customer issues.

1. The “Don’t You Dare Complain Because This is Free” Beta

This type of Beta is otherwise known as the “Google Beta”.  An Example? Take Google Gmail, which put out its Beta release on April 1, 2004.  As of this writing in December 2008, 4.5 years later, Gmail is still officially in Beta, with no word for an official release. Ever. 
Clearly, the purpose of this type of Beta is NOT to collect customer feedback.  More likely, the “Beta” designation is a euphemism for “No Support. Take It Or Leave It. Don’t Complain To Us If It Doesn’t Work Because It’s Free.”
If there is no mechanism in place to actively contact Beta customers and solicit their feedback (as opposed to just relying on them to send messages to a forum or send YOU an email), and if there is no path to ever release this product, well it’s a “Don’t Complain Because It’s Free” Beta.

2. The Paper Beta

This is where a company has a ridiculously short Beta period, and as a result recruits very few (if any) test customers and thus gets very little feedback.  The whole goal here is to NOT uncover issues.  Instead it is to push a piece of crap out of the door on a certain date, regardless of (lack of) quality, while still being able to honestly look customers in the eye and tell them your product was Beta tested.  Because, yes, savvy customers ask that. 

(Even savvier customers ask how big the Beta program is, how many customers participated, how long it lasted, and how many issues were uncovered and subsequently fixed.)

Result?  There is no real effort to sincerely, honestly collect feedback.  And any feedback uncovered will probably be ignored - because “it’s too late to fix it now.” Bugs will be filed, and possibly, MAYBE, they’ll be addressed in the next production release.

If your Beta uncovers less than 10 issues or is less than 4 weeks long, congratulations, you had a Paper Beta.

WARNING: Running a Paper Beta will DOOM your efforts to recruit customers for any future Beta program - Paper or not. The few customers that do participate be incensed that they spent time installing, testing, and providing feedback on your software, only to have their issues summarily ignored and potentially never fixed.

3. The “Agile” Beta

Allergic to any form of process, some Agile proponents will claim their awesome methodology eliminates the need for expensive Beta programs.  Why? Because, supposedly, with Agile the product is “Beta every day,” or at least it is at the end of each sprint or iteration.  And part and parcel of the Agile philosophy is getting direct customer feedback throughout the entire development process. Ergo, the claim that no Beta Program is needed.

All this is fine and good, but it still does not obviate the need for a Beta program.  Because without getting actual product into the hands of actual customers, you won’t uncover the problems that can’t be uncovered in internal-only testing.  It is ESSENTIAL that the customer actually attempt to use the software ON THEIR OWN, for things THEY actually want to do. If they don’t and you just provide a demo or screenshots (as is often the case for Agile-style “in process” customer feedback), well TOO BAD it doesn’t count.

How did you get into this sad situation?  Most likely, it’s because you’re letting the Development organization push you around.  Because, after all, if the Beta program is eliminated, their jobs become easier and less work. Plus, they can now push their risky bug fixes to the very last minute - as in minutes before that “final build.”  This is extremely dangerous yet happens all too often. 

4. The Haphazard Beta

The Haphazard Beta is one where you get the product to a particular state, claim it’s Beta, and THEN try to figure out (last minute!) how to actually recruit some customers and get some usable feedback.   There’s no organization, and no directed attempt to collect and quantify feedback. 

It’s a mess. A big loosey-goosey, panicky mess. 

And it’s your fault, Product Manager. Your fault.

If you had been on the ball and actually done some recruiting ahead of time, along with a smidge of planning about how to collect and handle issues, well you might have actually had a REAL Beta. Alas, it’s too late to fix it all now. So hold on tight, pray you don’t lose your job, and promise to do better next time.

5. The Real Beta

This is the Beta program done right.  Real customers and prospects actually use the software and identify issues (at the bug level, workflow level, and higher levels) that you could not have found on your own. 

And THEN… here’s the kicker…. you actually DO something about the issues they find.  That is, YOU ACTUALLY MAKE CHANGES.  You fix the bugs.  You fix the work flows… You learn how to make your product better. 

And it all goes smoothly.

You have recruited enough customers - in both number and variety - to accurately represent your target market.  You have enough time to fix their issues.  You care enough about putting out a quality product that the final product is something that you can be proud of - something that won’t create a PR disaster requiring a zillion-dollar advertising Band-aid, like the well-known disaster below…

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The 5 Types of Beta Testing Programs and Why 4 of Them Suck

Please participate if you haven’t already. And forward it to other PMs, PMMs, and people who hire PMs/PMMs. The Cranky Product Manager is genuinely interested in the responses.  As are many other people.

The Cranky Product Manager will post the complete survey results, including all raw data, very soon. Probably on Monday. But no promises.

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PM Certification Survey Closes 12/19 midnight

And if so, which ones are worthwhile?  There’s the AIPMM Certified Product Manager (CPM), the AIPMM Certified Product Marketing Manager (CPMM), the PDMA New Product Development Professional (NPDP), the Pragmatic Marketing Certified (PMC) one… A sea of initials that no one knows.

If Google searches on this blog are any indication, lots of other people wonder if certifications are worthwhile as well.

So help the Cranky Product Manager, help your peers, and help yourself. Take the below quickie survey.  Forward it to other PMs/PMMs you know.  The Cranky Product Manager will publish full results in about 10 days, and she will also make the entire results spreadsheet available for download on this blog.

And then finally, we can have a better idea whether these certifications actually mean something.

(And if you are a consulting firm that sells training for these certifications, DON’T BE A CREEP AND TRY TO SKEW THE RESULTS BY GETTING YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY TO VOTE).

If you are viewing this in an RSS feed reader, access the certification survey here.

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Survey: Scam or Shrewd Move? Certification for Product Managers