Quick Tips

Building Trust and Credibility

Product Managers sometimes talk about their colleagues in Engineering as though they came from a different planet.  But even with goodwill and the best of intentions, effectively communicating between the two functions can be a challenge – especially while they’re working to develop a new product. Both functions depend upon each other to achieve success. Here are some tips from a recent PSN member roundtable meeting as shared by panelists Terri Parasida, Manager of Technical Product Management with Cardinal Health, Ken Kolenik Product Manager with Invivodata, and Al Biglan, Director of Software Engineering with Vocollect.

• Everyone’s unique. Different companies want different things of Product Managers.  Some want them to be very technical.  Some want you to be more market-focused.  Some companies specifically advertise for technical product managers as distinct from marketing product managers. Structure and personalities are different. As a result, the interface between marketing and engineering is different in every company.  Appreciate that one size just doesn’t fit all.
• Line ‘em up.  Get engineering, manufacturing, research, marketing and sales involved right from the beginning of a new product.  That gets everybody to buy-in.  And if they don’t buy in, at least you can understand why and work to resolve their issues.
• Set expectations.  Product Managers should sit down with their counterparts on the engineering side early on, review all the stages of the product development lifecycle and the expectations on both sides in order to better understand how to work together for mutual benefit.  Later, if changes have to be made, you will have the foundation to do it. 
• Match assumptions.  Without working closely together from the outset, there is a danger of having one person work under one set of assumptions and the other person working on a second set of assumptions, and then finding out too late that they didn’t match up and the product you’re building really doesn’t meet the company’s objectives.
• Show humility.  Particularly if you’re a new product manager or new to the company, approach Engineering with an open mind.  Tell them you’re here to learn from them.
• Beware of hubris.  Don’t pretend that you know more than you actually do; that’s a recipe for getting shot down. 
• Share knowledge.  Building trust requires frequent communication.  For example, reviewing marketing messages with engineering before and after presentations goes a long way toward establishing trust.  When you go on customer visits, write up trip reports and share them with engineering.
• Tell the truth.  People in engineering are typically very trustful, unless that trust has been violated.  Engineering has to trust Product Management’s claim that there really is a market or a customer or that some feature is really important. So if you say you’re going to launch a new product which will be the saving grace of the company, you had better be telling the truth; otherwise you’re setting yourself up for failed relationships later.
• Find their reasons.  Engineers often have well-founded reasons for staking out their positions.  Recognize that Engineering may have a legitimate point or have posed a good question you hadn’t considered. Don’t feel badly about having to say: I can’t give you an answer right now; I have talk to my advisory boards and find out what they think.  Trust goes hand-in-hand with credibility. However, taking too much time to respond could cause a lack of credibility.
• Share the vision.  It’s critically important to share the roadmap or vision with Engineering.  The engineering manager is responsible for making sure the right folks with the right capabilities are on board to meet the technical requirements of the roadmap.  But if that manager doesn’t see the vision, he or she won’t know what training or hiring to do.
• Initiate discussion.  You should be proactive about making sure that Engineering understands what’s happening in the market and whether the product is really selling so they can tie that information into what they’re doing.  As a product manager, you shouldn’t allow yourself to be put in the position of having the engineering team ask you what’s going on.  Sit down with them to determine how whatever is happening right now translates into the team’s day to day activities. 
• Update engineering about sales.  Give a monthly update to sales about how many contracts were signed.  Get quotes from customers about the product – what they liked and why they chose it.  When you provide marketing message theme to help the sales team prepare for selling, copy Engineering on those updates so they can share that information among themselves and become more excited about what you’re doing.
• Share bad news.  Let your team hear adverse news from you as well favorable news regarding markets, technology, schedules, money, and so forth.  Let them hear it from you first.  If there’s bad news that they hear from other sources, it undermines the Product Manager’s credibility as a trusted source.  Keep collecting feedback and maintain communication about results to engineering. 
• Respect engineering.  Don’t try to do the Engineering job.  You don’t tell them how to program, how to do build their prototypes.  Respect their knowledge.  You can’t dictate to them.
• Get artistic.  Cultivating good relations between Product Management and Engineering is an art, not a science.  It gets complicated.  It gets back to many of the old axioms: communications is critical, trust is critical.  Collaboration is critical.  Buy-in is critical.  It’s not rocket science.

Collaboration Between Product Management and Engineering Quick Tips Series:

• Part I of II: Building Trust and Credibility
• Part II of II: Planning and Estimating

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