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Building Products for the Enterprise

Building Products for the Enterprise

by Blair Reeves, Benjamin Gaines
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Release Date: March 2018
ISBN: 9781492024774
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Book Description

If you’re new to software product management or just want to learn more about it, there’s plenty of advice available—but most of it is geared toward consumer products. Creating high-quality software for the enterprise involves a much different set of challenges. In this practical book, two expert product managers provide straightforward guidance for people looking to join the thriving enterprise market.

Authors Blair Reeves and Benjamin Gaines explain critical differences between enterprise and consumer products, and deliver strategies for overcoming challenges when building for the enterprise. You’ll learn how to cultivate knowledge of your organization, the products you build, and the industry you serve.

Explore why:

  • Identifying customer vs user problems is an enterprise project manager’s main challenge
  • Effective collaboration requires in-depth knowledge of the organization
  • Analyzing data is key to understanding why users buy and retain your product
  • Having experience in the industry you’re building products for is valuable
  • Product longevity depends on knowing where the industry isheaded

Table of Contents

  1. Foreword
  2. Preface
    1. O’Reilly Safari
    2. How to Contact Us
    3. Acknowledgments
  3. 1. Why Product Management in the Enterprise Is Different
    1. Three Things that Make Enterprise Software Different
      1. The Business Model
      2. Product Specialization
      3. The Customer versus the User
    2. Are You Selling to Users First, or Customers?
    3. Summary
  4. 2. Who Are We Building For?
    1. It All Begins with Who and Why
    2. Customer Problems Versus User Problems
    3. From Customer Problems to a Product Vision
      1. Defining the Product Vision
      2. Measuring Success
      3. The Product Leadership Team
    4. Summary
  5. 3. Three Types of Knowledge for a Product Manager to Seek
    1. Three Categories of Knowledge
      1. Organizational Knowledge
      2. Product Knowledge
      3. Industry Knowledge
    2. It Starts with Communication
    3. Summary
  6. 4. Organizational Knowledge
    1. Development/Engineering
      1. Structuring Work with Your Development Manager
      2. What to Do When Things Don’t Go According to Plan
      3. Communicating with Development
    2. Design
      1. How to Involve Design
      2. Communicating with Designers
    3. Executives
      1. Communicating with Executives
    4. Marketing
      1. Product
      2. Customers
      3. Messaging
      4. Managing Content
      5. Communicating with Marketing
    5. Sales
      1. The Sales Organization
      2. How Product Managers Engage with Sales
      3. Processing Feedback from Sales
      4. Ways to Serve, and Influence, Sales
      5. Summer Camp for Sales: The Vendor Conference
      6. Dealing with Bad Behavior
      7. Communicating with Sales
    6. Summary
  7. 5. Product Knowledge
    1. Learning Your Product
    2. The Product Lifecycle
    3. Writing Stories and Requirements
    4. Building the Product Roadmap
      1. Aligning Roadmaps Between Teams
      2. The Role of Customer Input on the Roadmap
    5. Planning Process
    6. Measuring Success
    7. Planning the Product End-of-Life
    8. Summary
  8. 6. Building Better Products with Data
    1. Product Usage Data
    2. Sales and Finance Data
    3. Industry Data
    4. Testing
    5. Summary
  9. 7. Industry Knowledge
    1. The Basics of Your Market
    2. Learning Your Market
      1. Customer Meetings
      2. Getting Customer Meetings
    3. After the Customer Interview
    4. Challenging What You Know About Your Market
    5. Summary
  10. 8. The Product Managers
    1. Getting into Product Management
    2. How Do Enterprise Product Managers Spend Their Day?
    3. How to Know Whether You’re Still Growing
    4. For Managers: Building Your Team
    5. Managing Product Managers as People
    6. For the Product Manager: What’s Next?
    7. Last Thoughts
    8. Summary
  11. 9. Conclusion
  12. Index