Episode 18: Dear Melissa - Answering Questions About PM Time Management
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about how to use their time wisely, whether they’re trying to support their sales team with a complex product, getting the most out of a customer advisory board, or finding time for discovery work on a Scrum-focused team.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
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Q: I'm constantly helping our sales team run demo calls and our account managers onboard and set up new customers. What can I do to empower my team so I can focus on improving our product instead? Have you ever used a dedicated team member to fill this space as a product specialist role? [1:38]
A: What I found out is that it doesn't really matter how many instructions or step by step videos you show people if your product is not intuitive. The first thing I would do in your shoes is look at the UX of your product… The thing about great onboarding is that it should not use a tutorial. If I were you, I'd first stop and say “what makes it so hard for people to get onboarded in my product? What makes it so hard for the sales team to demo this product? Why don't they understand it?” [2:44]
Q: What am I signing up for when setting up a customer advisory board? What should I do to launch it smoothly and get the most out of it? What risks am I facing? Is this stupid idea? [9:31]
A: It’s a great idea. When I'm setting up a customer advisory board I would try to figure out what's the purpose. What am I trying to learn from them? Am I getting feedback on a product? I think feedback on a product is okay to have for a customer advisory board, but I think you can do more with them… Set the purpose and clearly communicate that intent…. The second thing I would do is make sure that you have a good representation of the types of customers you want to go after, and the types of customers that you are servicing. [10:02]
Q: Is there a way to make product discovery a process and make time for it, like what scrum does for delivery? [16:28]
A: First thing’s first, scrum is not your job as a product manager. There’s nothing about discovery in scrum because that’s not scrum’s role… This is the number one thing I see junior product managers get wrong; they think that everything has to fit within the bounds of scrum, and that's not true. You’re going to have to create a discovery process. The key thing is that you will need to pull your team into this. You're not distracting them from their job; their job is to actually help you come up with what the right thing is to build. [17:06]
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