The Master Product Manager Part 8

When I was working as a technical product manager, I remember my manager telling me “You must expect that everyone will blame you for whatever is happening in the next 12 months and look to you for solutions”

6. Key Responsibility for Horizon 1:

When I first joined the laundry product line team in 2018, I was taught the first rule of product management for technical product managers. The next 12 month is the critical phase where everyone would be looking to you for support and leadership.

As a technical product manager, my responsibility was to ensure that all the commercial launches and new models are on time and that the last mile in new development for major projects and the full cycle for simple variant projects is on track.

Horizon 1 is usually defined to be from 12-36 months into the future, it is what we define as short term solutions where you expect to start developing the product immediately or you are already developing it. Horizon 2 is 3-7 years into the future and Horizon 3 is 7-10 years into the future.

In Horizon 1 (H1), the technical product manager is expected to do the following:-

• Lead the execution of the product roadmap in terms of product variants and simple line extensions: in this stage, the technical product manager leads the development of simple development projects which include minor changes to the product or extending the current product to other markets or customer segmenets. Intention is to grow the running business with minor investements in terms of assets and in terms of resources.

• Follow up on the cost & quality roadmaps: Cost Reduction is one of the most important devliverables for technical product managers in Horizon 1. This is taking into consideration the current cost structure, where the point where the cost structure will reach its maturity must be clear in terms of target. Any further reduction would either risk quality or the integrity of the system. The quality roadmap is very clear as this ensure that the product learnings can easily be adapted in any new launches in H1 or H2/3.

• Complexity Reduction of the current existing range: the current product range will have a certain level of complexity where there are either too many models or many overlapping models. Usually based on data cross different industries, 20% of the existing SKUs deliver 80% of the sales and profitability of the product line. Yet 80% of the SKUs contribute to 20% of the sales, and people usually don’t want to cancel for many reasons including mix offering or brand equity,…..etc. Let me tell you, you can easily cancel 50-60% of that 80% with minimum impact on sales, all you need is a strong brave product manager and Sales Director.

• Energy & Regulation Roadmap Update: Having products across different markets requires a rigorous process of compliance follow up. Yes, the product manager doesn;t follow up on the new standards but he/she is the connection link between the markets anc the compliance technical teams. Ensuring that the regulations are updated and that the product are in compliance across everything from performance, energy, safety and reliability is a core responability for the technical product manager in H1.

• Technology module integeration into the new products: New technology modules usually take several years for development espeically for the physical goods industries, but an existing technology integeration into a new product should take much less time. The technical product manager, has to ensure that the new modules can be easily integerated into the new projects.

• Democratization of the current technology into lower segments: After sometime, several of the key technologies that were restricted for high end products will need to be democratized into lower segments. The technical product manager has to ensure that these modules can be integerated into lower segment products and is compaitable from cost, performance, quality, customer acceptance level.

The technical product manager’s job is not easy in H1 because, usually there is a high pressure from the markets and management for fast execuetion espeically when there is a high market pressure.

One scentence that one techncial manager told me when we were pushing for H1 execution was “You should have planned this and not to pressure the team NOW”.

My Response was and will always be “Priorities change, Market condition Change, we always have a plan, yet we need to adapt to changing plans to the best of our ability”