Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

by Melissa Perri

Most companies I’ve worked with have a few core meetings to evaluate progress and to make strategic decisions from a product level: Quarterly business reviews Product initiative reviews Release reviews During quarterly business review meetings, the senior leadership team, made up of the executives and the highest level of the organization, should be discussing progress toward the strategic intents and outcomes of a financial nature. This includes reviewing revenue for the quarter, churn of customers, and costs associated with development or operations. The chief product officer (CPO) and their VPs of product are responsible for communicating how the outcomes of product initiatives have furthered strategic intents, like Karen did at Marquetly. New strategic intents can be introduced in this meeting, as older ones are coming to completion. It is not a place to prioritize new product initiatives or to go into detail on them. That is what the product initiative review is for. The product initiative review is another quarterly meeting that can be staggered with the quarterly business review on off months. This meeting is for the product development side of the house — CPO, CTO, design leaders, the VPs of product, and the product managers. Here we review the progress of the options against the product initiatives and adjust our strategy accordingly. This is the place for product managers to talk about the results of preliminary experimentation, research, or first releases, as th...