Hey, happy Monday!
Finally I can announce it!
The Product Manager Alliance and with STRTGY I am among the board members demonstrating a commitment to supporting product culture in Italy and abroad.
Il Sole24Ore devoted a small space to us (also in the May 3 print version), and a website is already available online with a form you can fill out to express your interest in joining the association as an active member.
I will make sure that, as a community member and active reader of this newsletter, you have access to the benefits that an institutional association such as this can give its members.
If you think your company deserves a prominent place, from day one, in such an important project, contact me or forward this email to those who can.
In this Note I interviewed Luciano Castro, the president of the association, who will be present along with a guest from Silicon Valley at PMDAY22 (read to the bottom to find out who he is).
I am sure you will not want to miss it and miss the opportunity to meet us all in person in Rome next June 25.
I am leaving you a link for this that you can share with whomever you like and access a 15% discount on your ticket (valid for both online and physical event).
I look forward to meeting you in Rome or at one of our events!
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS
Antonio
● PRODUCT / Join the PMAll
The Product Manager Alliance is born
A: What is the best way to introduce yourself?
Luciano: I am the president of the Product Manager Alliance, the first association of product managers in Italy.
I am also an entrepreneur, author, speaker and Business Angel and head of a company that focuses on Product Management.
I have been working in the field for 20 years now, especially abroad, where the figure of the product manager has become crucial and is seen as the perfect mix between those who manage processes, those who make ideas real, and those who do the marketing to evolve the product.
In Italy, on the other hand, we are a bit behind culturally due to a question of mindset and also experience in delivering this type of service.
The difference can be seen strongly at this time in the ability of companies and public administrations-not to be excluded-to deliver services and products while maintaining their constant circuit of interaction, evolution and growth.
The companies and PAs that manage this process are also the ones that manage to stay in the market; the ones that don’t…unfortunately, don’t find their place.
When you manage to stay in the market, when you manage to perform to certain standards, it means that you have continued to iterate, learn and progressively improve your products with care, passion and expertise.
A: How does it work and what problems might a company have that has not yet introduced product management into its value creation methods?
Luciano: More than just having a product manager among the managers-which is absolutely right-you need to focus on mindset and methodology.
We need to be humble and understand how in essence no one has the glass ball and knows exactly how to grow. It is important to get out of the solipsism typical of all organizations and get back to understanding and listening to users, trying to base one’s decisions essentially on two actions.
The first: listen through surveys and interviews, all the information you can to gather news and data.
The second: analyze that data cyclically and with as many iterations as possible.
When you take this approach, you avoid being in the condition that 70 percent of startups are in when they are born, that is, not having market feet, or evolving the product in a direction that is not convenient, or not knowing how to market the product.
The difference between those who adopt a methodology and those who do not, lies in their ability to constantly adapt to the growth and needs of the market, which are fundamentally undulating and change very quickly.
Those who adopt this methodology are called product managers-precisely because they can adopt and execute it-and product managers.
A: What characteristics should a product manager have?
Luciano: The first is a passion for adaptation and innovation. He must be able to adapt, innovate and follow the reality around him consistently.
The second is the ability to maintain constant control and a let’s call it a big picture view of the surrounding environment, recognizing competitors, the state of the market, and so on.
The third is to have some creative skills, because in the end in the various stages-no matter how much we work on the data and analyze-it takes a little bit of creativity to make sure that we come up with solutions that work and are the most effective ones, not just the most efficient ones.
The association is a vibrant community representing product experts
A: This figure is emerging, and there is still a lot of confusion: many organizations don’t know they need it, and they don’t even know how to look for product managers. That’s why the Association was born, right?
Luciano: That’s exactly right, and not only at the Italian level, but also at the global level. This figure was born so quickly that it was defined in roles within the company before a job description was written.
So people started doing product management before the figure of the product manager was born. What is the consequence? There is a lot of confusion about the role of the product manager, and there is also confusion about which methodologies work and which don’t work. Not everything that is categorized as product management actually works, and not everything that product managers do is always useful or effective. That is why the Association was born.
The first purpose of the Association is to create a standard.
The second purpose of the Association is to make representation. Because right now the product manager category moves significant turnovers and is present within most scale-ups, hopefully within many start-ups, and maybe in the future within government as well, but it is not represented.
A: What does a company that participates and joins this Association created for product managers gain? What does it gain?
Luciano: Companies that sign up seek to incorporate internally the most effective processes to grow their products and consequently their companies.
To define what is right, what is correct, and what works, companies that join the Product Manager Alliance can access this kind of knowledge, have contacts with partner companies in our circuit, and constantly update and keep their product leaders in line.
They also come into contact with a vibrant community of people working in the industry. Right now we will be focused on Italy but then we will turn to the European market.
A: At Product Management Day, on June 25 you will be accompanied by a guest speaker who comes from Silicon Valley, one who has trained thousands of product managers who work in companies today and whom everyone takes as a reference point. Can you tell us something in advance?
Luciano: Yes, gladly. At PMDAY22 I will be present with Carlos González De Villaumbrosia, Founder & CEO of Product School.
He is someone who started his journey in 2014 and recently received a substantial investment round. With him we are going to talk mostly about delivery, which is how the creation and management part of a product can be grounded, which is critical and is probably the most complex phase of product management because it takes into account so many actors within the company.
A: Are there any resources you recommend we read before attending the event?
Luciano: On Carlos’ website, productschool.com, there are lots of interesting videos and readings to get closer to this world.
