Scott Jones

Update (5/11/09) — Here is my response to a friend on Facebook who observed that I appeared to have his “dream job”…

… ref: “…you have my dream job… ”

Product manager for a major software company *is* a dream job. You get to work in a very moral industry with talented, dedicated people. As a PM, you get to know all aspects of the business, from engineering to sales, accounting to contract law, operations to marketing. They give you the latest hardware and software to play with. You travel all over the world and get to meet with customers, partners, analysts and media on a regular basis; and you become known (if you do it right!) as a figurehead for your product and an expert in your field, with a quasi-celebrity status. It’s fun, satisfying, and pays very well.

It’s the best freakin’ job you can possibly have, Roy, and I pray that my time as a software PM is not over.…

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Update (3/17/06) — I’ll be damned if he didn’t get the job! Congratulations, Ramanath, Akamai’s newest Product Manager!!

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A former coworker of mine recently completed his MBA. Apparently I had inspired him to make a career change from software engineering to product management. Wow, cool. He asked me for some tips on what I would look for when interviewing a candidate for a PM position, and this is how I answered. It may not be the best advice or even remotely accurate for the IT industry at large. But it’s what I would look for.

First resource you should know about (if not already aware) is Pragmatic Marketing, www.pragmaticmarketing.com.

1 – I think the two most important things for a Product Manager are the abilities to be decisive and persuasive.

On decisive: There’s always a lot of discussion about process and making market-based decisions and so forth — that’s what Pragmatic is all about. But when it comes down to it, the company needs a PM who can make decisions and follow through with them. I saw way too much paralysis at (previous employer) because everyone was so preoccupied with that up front validation that people were too scared to just make some decision and start acting on it. Doing it wrong (and adjusting if needed) is better than not doing anything. Have some guts.

On persuasive: There are a lot of aspects of this, including the ability to inspire prospective customers in your presentations. But I’m referring mainly to working with the internal team. You will have a group of between a dozen and maybe a couple hundred people that must all do what you need them to do, yet not a single one of them is your direct report. You must figure out how to get what you need to be successful, from a dozen or more completely different groups, each of which has their own agenda. You must persuade them that your agenda is their agenda.

Now specifically on an interview, how would I ascertain whether a candidate has these qualities? Simple — are they confident, and do they persuade me that I should hire them. You cannot be too bold when going after a PM job that you want! When I was trying to get (my previous) PM job, I e-mailed everyone involved at least once a week, and called (the hiring director) at least once a week. I sent them reference after reference and write-ups like, “Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Hire Scott Jones” and “Hiring Scott Jones = Success for (Your Product)”. I was relentless, and I got it.

2 – I’m not so sure that brushing up on specific business topics is necessary. If you don’t have any practical experience, I personally wouldn’t give any weight whatsoever to the fact that you have an academic background in things like pricing. You have an MBA. That’s cool. Let that speak for itself. If there were some real-world projects you did while in school, call those out. But going back to the above, I would emphasize anything to do with leadership. No one needs a PM who just faithfully goes through the mechanics of a process, applying matrices and logic. Tech companies need PM’s who act as CEO’s of their businesses, who can lead and who are willing to take risks (and stand accountable if things go bad).

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Part of my philosophy of product management is that the PM is responsible for identifying market opportunities, evaluating the business cases and convincing senior management to select and properly resource the correct initiatives for company growth. Of course, that’s just the beginning — then we have to follow the initiatives through to delivery, nursemaid them through their lifecycles, and euthanize them gracefully when the time comes.

Some PMs get immersed in the product lifecycle after the initial business strategy decisions are made by someone else. I don’t say that as a criticism — depending on the organization and where they fall in it, that may be the scope of their role. But personally, I find the business strategy far more exciting than nuts n’ bolts of the execution. Tho even that part’s fun too.