Amanda Ralph, Head of Product at Kinetic Super, gave our 2nd keynote of the day – If only I’d had a tardis: Why you shouldn’t rely on time travel to manage your product financials
Amanda said product managers need to be comfortable with finance and in her product roles, she has always owned the P&L or was directly responsible for the numbers trending the right way.
The core role of the product manager is to create value for both the customer and the business – including financial value. In order to do this, you need to predict and measure. Being the voice of the customer is not enough.
#pcampmelb pic.twitter.com/1nWSNsKj15
— Mehrnoush S (@mfireworks) August 22, 2015
“If you just build and ship, how do you know if you’ve done your job, if you’ve created value?” @ralphytown #pcampmelb — Stephanie (@tephdee) August 22, 2015
Understanding your product’s financials will help you identify value as well as threats and problems. You’ll be able to see what you need to fix and which good things you can possibly push harder.
Your product’s financials will help highlight opportunities & trouble spots #pcampmelb
— Brainmates (@brainmates) August 22, 2015
There are many things you can measure:
- Revenue
- Costs – like costs to acquire, serve, retain
- Market share
- Channel Effectiveness
- See Amanda’s slides below for more
Metrics
Amanda also talked about metrics. When defining your metrics, make sure they are:
- Measurable
- Align to your product & business objectives
- Actionable
Always ask yourself – what is the business driver for that metric? Amanda expects her team to know where their product is according to 5 metrics.
The communication of metrics is also important. You can create a snapshot dashboard with the ability to drill down and use traffic light colors to indicate status. How frequently you communicate depends on what makes sense for your product. Later during Q&A, someone asked whether one metric (i.e. the ‘lean’ one metric to focus on) could suffice. Amanda does not believe 1 metric gives you what you need.
Knowing your financials will buy you stakeholder ‘capital’ and credibility @ralphytown #pcampmelb @DavidsonTechANZ pic.twitter.com/v14tFfT3DJ — Imogen Studders (@imogen_studders) August 22, 2015
Do you know your 5 headline metrics and how they are trending? – @ralphytown #pcampmelb #prodmgmt
— product anonymous (@product_anon) August 22, 2015
Make friends with Finance #pcampmelb #prodmgmt pic.twitter.com/5N3TMZkB9E — Rebecca Jackson (@_rebeccajackson) August 22, 2015
Value Driver Trees
Amanda recommends using value driver trees.
She said they’re really difficult to do but the great thing is they really make you think about the value you should focus on. Amanda recommended this this Slideshare from Chris Doran to learn more.
“Challenge the status quo: behavioral economics metrics may tell you much more than net promoter scores” @ralphytown #pcampmelb
— Stephanie (@tephdee) August 22, 2015
We want to thank Amanda for the great talk and for spending part of her birthday with us!