Well - I've got power and an internet connection - things are looking up. The before lunch session is with Alyssa Dver (who used to work in product management at Cincom, well before my time here). Slyssa is the author of "Software Product Management Essentials".

Alyssa has 20 years of experience in the Product Management experience, as well as consulting experience in the field. Some objectives for the talk:

• Benchmarks against other PMs
• Insight on best PM practices
• Ideas and metrics in the field
• Other expectations (and how the field has changed)

We are starting off with a question for the audience - "What is a Product Manager?" - the issue is, it's not an easy field to define. The role tends to differ by company and product sector. There is no standard definition. The average PM crosses multiple business and technical boundaries. The Average:

• 36 years old
• 88% claim to be somewhat to very technical
• 91% have college degrees, 39% have a Masters
• 29% are female (down from the past)

The typical Product Manager represents three products. Typically, PMs report through marketing. The stat that's down is how many report to the CEO (now 8% - was as high as 25% as recently as 3 years ago). Typically receives 50 emails per day, sends 25 (this number is down "sales is finding links on their own"). We are attending more internal meetings - as high as 2 days/week (equivalent). What do we do?

• 71% researching market needs
• 51% preparing business case
• 18% perform win/loss analysis (down historically)
• 82% monitoring dev projects
• 80% writing reqs
• 54% writing specs
• 44% writing promotional copy
• 41% approving promotional materials
• 9% working with press/analysts (down)
• 49% training sales or going on sales calls

You need to get in front of relevant press/analyst people and be able to explain what you do to them. If you aren't talking to them, you are letting them form their own conclusions.

PMs do lots of ad-hoc training, manage product road maps, manage alpha/beta programs, perform ongoing competitve analysis. Spend time defending pricing/packaging/licensing. Product Managers also tend to manage the release paper trail (whatever that is - regulatory compliance).

How do you know that you are doing a good job?

• Successful product
• Customer Acquisition
• Customer Retention (need to be careful about how you play this)
• Invited to participate in sales
• Invited to participate in engineering
• Invited to participate in investor, management, board meetings

Seven Habits:

• Know their products but they know their own limits
• Listen First - ask what they do before you explain what you do
• Ask why, not what
• Decisive - make calls, don't wait forever
• Responsive - get back to people, period
• Communicate frequently, concretely, and concisely
• Manage Passion

Get face to face with sales, customers, engineering, and management. Find out why you aren't being invited to meetings. Benchmark your own processes, and measure progress. Alyssa is also pumping classes and training from a variety of sources.

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