Key Interactions Founders & Senior Managers Must Account For Between Product, Marketing, and More

Oh what a web we weave.?

It reminds me of the children's song 'the knee bone is connected to the... hip bone...'

Modern teams are becoming ever more interconnected, cross-functional, integrated, synergistic, aligned.?

This diagram shows key interactions that should be happening within the heart of R&D innovation and product rollout.?

If you don't have resources to span all of this, it means efforts need to be doubled up. As a Founder, you might take on ALL of those rolls, at least for a time.

Either way, here are some of the interactions at play:?

By browsing the diagram you'll note no line crosses the other.

This arrangement led to 'product marketing' being bang in the middle.

But product marketing isn't 'marketing products'. I wrote in detail about that in 2019 (see 3 Branches of Modern Marketing Strategy: Channel, Growth, and _______?).

In essence, product marketing is the communication go-between for the product team and the marketing team. They help bridge technical feature descriptions with external facing communications.?

Product Management must account for direct customer insight (qualitative customer) along with growth efforts, and interface with the 'product owner' (as defined by Scrum). Product Management overseas product commercial viability in light of competitor and market trends, and internal revenue requirements.?

The Product Owner on the other hand needs almost his entire attention lazer-focused on the product feature backlog. Continuously re-prioritizing and updating features for development based on his inputs (from product analysts, product marketing, product management, product design).?

Product Analysis is about product analytics (metrics at the product engagement level).?

Channel Marketing is of course where the rubber meets the roads. The marketing communications that are painstakingly crafted by copy, social, PR, ad, search, sales, and more.?

Mull it over in reflection of your own current organizational relationships.?

• Where do you have too much overlap that is muddying the waters and reducing efficiencies? For example, product owners (voice of customer) doubling as scrum masters (voice of team) lead to conflicts of interest and diluted efforts.?
• How might you clarify role definitions so regardless of who is doing what, you have objective success criteria for the team to rally around??

Many of you in senior positions (from CEOs to senior product managers etc) may be quite clear on all of this. What you may not be clear on is how well current interactions and relationships are doing across the board. Time for a nosey around perhaps...?

Remember:?

Ultimately, only the customer decides whether what you are building is valuable or not. Remain ultra customer-centric at each phase of R&D and business growth.

"Only the paranoid survive" Andrew Grove, CEO of INTEL