If you follow me on Twitter (@jidoctor), you know I am passionate about three things: family, product management/product marketing and my baseball team.
Watching a baseball game is like understanding your buyers: what strategy they employ, how they signal each other, how they listen and interact with the coaching staff and especially – for us fans – why do we keep coming back even for more even though this particular team doesn’t solve any problems? In fact, in most years, they actually create more stress for me, one of their “buyers.”
A baseball season is like preparing for a new product launch – you get all the momentum from the company preparing for the big launch like the refreshing optimism of spring training camp.
The season starts out and your team is filled with optimism. You have the fans behind you (your market,) the players (dev and marketing and sales teams) are all playing nicely and working as a unit, and the management (management) is supporting the coach. But, challenges come up and some players are not performing as well as expected. Individually things seem fine, but the unit isn’t a team.
By mid-season, you’ve started to make judgments about how your team is doing - how your product is doing. Is it already meeting (or not meeting) the market needs (standings)? So, what do you need to do as the trading deadline approaches - you have time to make adjustments just like when you prepare customers for a beta. While you’re at it, are you beta testing your marketing launch materials? Are you trying out various messages in the customer’s language? Does the market believe you are solving problems? Are you improving your standing? Can you measure it?
Pretty soon, you’ll need your whole team behind you. It is critical to drum up the passion in the nation (yes, that is a reference to my team), but you will need everyone to come together when those final adjustments are made. Consider your adjustments to your messaging and launch plans are like the September call ups, trades, etc. in baseball. They need to come together now because once the playoffs start and your team is not in it (analyst roundup reviews,) the window may close and you may have lost opportunities. Retooling can take a complete off-season. How do the investors feel about that? The senior leadership team? Someone will be involved in the off-season trades and contract changes.
But, if you have planned your team well, brought them together as a unit, made the disparate roles act together as one, used the opportunities to (beta) test your product in the market, your message, your campaign; well, then you can hit the playoffs knowing that you’re positioned for the World Series. The better teams make it there often (like three times in seven years,) while some teams struggle and never see that championship trophy.
Looking from the outside in, doesn’t a quiet evening at the ballpark really put the whole job in perspective? Do you know what your trophy looks like?
Filed under: Business Culture, Buyers, Communication, Development, Management, Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized | Tagged: Communication, Development, Knowledge, Market, Product Management, Product Marketing, Requirements, Value
I am an Expos fan, does this analogy still apply?
Stewart
P.S. I adopted the Red Sox in 2004 after the Expos moved to DC. The Red Sox won the World Series 6 weeks later. Your welcome!
Stewart – we in the Nation take the support anywhere we can find it. And appreciate it all!
[...] a Game Does Not Mean You Lost the Series Almost two months ago I wrote a blog about the Playoffs approaching, and getting ready to get in the game. In that post, I mentioned how you had to have the team ready [...]