The Heretech

And yet it moves

As you might have heard already, Forrester analysts such as Yours Truly have been asked to move our external blogs in-house. I've already been cross-posting at the official Forrester blog for product managers and product marketers, so just point your browser there and voila! the conversation will continue. The Forrester blogs are organized by analyst and team, which means that you can read entries by an individual analyst like me, or by the entire team serving the product manager/product marketer role.

As for The Heretech podcast, I'll be reconstituting it eventually, but at this point, I have no idea how that process will work. While I figure out the right approach, the podcast will be on hiatus. For your convenience, I've re-posted the announcements for all 35 episodes, to make sure that they all appear in the feed, and by extension, in iTunes. 

What does this change mean for the content? Very little. You might not see as many in-jokes about Jansenism or the filioque clause, but I'll still be saying the same things about the technology industry, product management, product marketing, Agile, and social media. A heretic's a heretic, no matter where he lives.

Next PM open house: Agile in tech companies

Since our first Forrester open house for product managers and product marketers was a success, we're going to start scheduling them regularly. Like, say, once a month.

The topic that has received the most votes in our topic survey is, How does Agile affect the company, outside the development team? Other leading topics include:

• What's the state of the art in requirements?
• How are other companies structuring their PM teams?
  
• How do companies make a successful transition to a new business model?
• How do other teams handle sales support?
• What are some strategies for handling the product roadmap?

We're leaving the survey open, so please, vote for the topics that most interest you.

Meanwhile, here are the details for the next session. This time, we'll make sure to leave a good chunk of time just for conversation with your peers and colleagues.

• WHEN: Thursday, December 3, from 4:00 to 5:30 PM.
• WHERE: 950 Tower Parkway, Foster City, CA. The Forrester office is on the 12th floor.
• WHY: Have an informal conversation with other PMs about a topic of mutual interest, with a Forrester analyst providing some supporting information from our research.

Later, I'll post a calendar with future dates and topics. Please pass the word to your friends and co-workers in the Bay Area. And if you're thinking of attending, please RSVP to Marsha Versen. The RSVP isn't mandatory, but it does give us an idea how many people may be attending.

[Cross-posted at The Forrester product management blog.]

Topics for future PM open house sessions

Last Thursday's inaugural "open house," an informal get-together in Forrester's Foster City, CA office , achieved what we had hoped: lively conversation on a topic of immediate interest for product managers and product marketers. We're definitely planning to do more of these events, so the critical question now is, What topics should we cover?

To the extent that the format drives the questions, here's what it means to do an open house:

• Somewhat unstructured conversation about the topic. (We'll continue to tune how much structure to impose.)
• Forrester analysts provide occasional data points and insights from our research to inform the discussion.
• Some time for attendees to talk with each other, outside the group discussion. (Something we didn't do last time, but definitely want to add to the next session.)

Here's a link to a Survey Monkey questionnaire where you can vote on some hot topics, or suggest other ones. There are always more topics that we might cover, so let your imagination run wild.

Reminder, open house on social PM is tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that the "open house" for product managers and product marketers is tomorrow at 4 PM PST at Forrester's office in Foster City, CA (click here for a map). As my earlier post explains, the intent is to kick off a series of informal conversations about topics of interest.

For this first open house, we'll be discussing how social media are changing the job descriptions, priorities, deliverables, and required skills for PMs. All are welcome, the event is free, just come on down.

PM open house at Forrester's Foster City office on 11/05

On Thursday, November 5th, from 4:00 to 5:30 PM, Forrester Research is hosting an informal discussion about product management and product marketing issues. This session is the first in what we hope will be a series of conversations about these topics, scheduled at Forrester’s Bay Area office in Foster City.

The topic for this kick-off session is how social media is changing the job description for product managers and product marketers. I'll lead the discussion on this topic, since I just did an all-day workshop about "social product management."

The operative word in that last sentence is discussion. If you want to be pummeled with PowerPoints, look elsewhere. We want to host discussions among product managers and product marketers. Our role is to provide insights from our research, and give you a chance to meet and speak with your peers.

We’re very interested in hearing what topics you’d like us to cover. Forrester’s analysts covering the tech industry can provide information on a variety of topics—from requirements to market development, from Agile to SMBs, from B2B marketing best practices to supporting the salesforce. However, we’re more interested in developing a series of informal conversations on the topics that matter most for you. Please send us your suggestions.

Please RSVP with Marsha Versen (mversen@forrester.com, 650.581.3851) if you are interested in attending. All are welcome to join us, but we’d appreciate the RSVP so that we know if we’re going to run into space restrictions. If you have questions about the event, don't hesitate to contact me (tgrant@forrester.com, 650.581.3846).

Forrester's Northern California office is at 950 Tower Lane, Suite 1200, Foster City, CA. (Click here for a map.) 

Workshop on social media for development teams

In October, I'm doing a workshop in the Foster City office about social media for product teams. How can social media fill in the gaps left by traditional requirements? Which social media outlets should you use to answer particular questions? What skills and investments are required? What's the tangible business benefit?

A big part of the workshop is hands-on experience with the questions your team faces. Bring an example of a burning question that the product team needs to answer (e.g., What's the impact of dropping this feature? Is our product a good fit for similar business problems in other markets?), and we'll explore how to use social media to find substantive, useful answers quickly.

For more details, click here. Also, in a couple of weeks, colleague Laura Ramos is doing a workshop, "Making B2B Marketing Work," that chock full of useful content.

[Cross-posted at The Forrester product management blog.]

Teleconference on Agile adoption next week

Next Monday, August 31, Forrester colleague Dave West and I will be presenting some of our preliminary results from our Agile adoption survey. (Which is still open, if you're interested in participating.) We'll be covering Agile adoption in both IT departments and technology industry companies, including the differences between the two.

Of course, everyone wants to know how many development teams have adopted Agile. My sneak peek for you is, "Substantially more than we had originally estimated." If you want to hear the full answer, here's the link for the teleconference.

[Cross-posted at The Forrester product management blog.]

Best practices for PM leaders

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had done some very interesting research on best practices for the people who run product management and product marketing organizations. Since we did the research for the Forrester Leadership Board (FLB) for that role, we couldn't share the final results beyond the FLB members themselves.

Good news: we have an excerpt available at this link (registration required to access it). We've anonymized the people we profiled, but their names and companies aren't the important details.

By choosing highly successful heads of PM teams, we got a glimpse into the future of PM. The thumbnail sketch of that picture: the profession is getting more clearly defined, because it is increasingly strategic. The PM role is making simultaneous progress as a profession, art, discipline, and the group with the broadest and deepest insight into the state of the overall business.

Big thanks to Steve Davidson for doing a lot of the work that made this excerpt possible. Steve is runs the FLB program for Technology Product Management (TPM) professionals.

[Cross-posted at The Forrester product management blog.]

Going to Agile 2009? Got a question?

Forrester colleague Dave West and I will both be at Agile 2009 later this month. If you, Dear Reader, are also attending, I'd be delighted to meet you in person. Drop me a line to let me know that you're attending, and maybe we can figure out how to connect in Chicago.

Chances are that you have questions about Agile, the state of PM in the tech industry, social media, or other topics that I cover. If you're a Forrester analyst, let's turn the conversation into an official inquiry! I always prefer to have conversations in person than over the phone, and Agile 2009 may be a good opportunity to do so.  Some sample topics from recent inquiries include:

• How does the rest of our company need to adjust to Agile adoption in the development team?
• How can we revamp our requirements process?
• How can we use social media to help capture and assess good ideas?
• How can we add product management discipline to our IT organization?
• What's a reasonable estimate for the size of the R&D organization (including QA and PM) in a SaaS company?
• Do tech companies apply product portfolio management discipline to Agile teams?
• What's the relationship, if any, among tools designed to help with requirements, portfolio management, and innovation?

Ask me anything

As a Forrester analyst, I talk directly to product managers, product marketers, product VPs, development managers, CEOs, you name it. Sometimes, I discover that people in these roles don't know the full range of research, data, and other services that Forrester provides to them as our clients. Therefore, I thought it would be worth a quick post about one of these services, inquiries.

Have a question? Set up a 30 minute inquiry and we'll do our best to answer it for you. Since my research covers a bundle of related topics--product management, product marketing, requirements, Agile, social media, product strategy, etc.--the questions sent my way usually fit into these categories. I also get no small number of questions that fall naturally into the penumbra of these topics, such as market development, innovation, standards, and tools. Here are some recent examples:

• What are the best practices for getting the most out of the PM team?
• How do technology companies organize and staff product demo teams?
• Where is Agile adoption today in the technology industry?
• Has anyone been successful in using social media as a source of innovation?
• How can we add a product management function in our services company?
• What's the adoption of SaaS-based public services?

You pick the format for the response, e-mail or phone call.

If I get a question that's not in my bailiwick, I'll help our Inquiries team steer the question to the right people. For example, Tim Harmon is usually best for SMB-related topics, while Jennifer Belissent covers international markets.

To arrange an inquiry, you can use your Forrester account to log into our web site and pose your question. (Every research document has a similar link to the inquiry request form.) Alternately, you can use the inquiry@forrester.com e-mail address to contact the Inquiry team.

So, fire away.

[Cross-posted at The Forrester product management blog.]