Five Strategies to Transform Your Product Management Team

Welcome, Housekeeping & Webinar Series Overview

Rina Alexin | 00:00:00–00:03:10
Hello everyone, welcome and good morning.
My name is Rina Alexin and I am the CEO of Productside.

I’m joined today by Roger Snyder, VP of Marketing, and we are very excited to present the first installment of our Product Leadership Webinar Series.

In a few minutes, Roger will be leading you through the five steps to optimize and transform your product management teams and organizations. But before we get started, let’s go over just a few housekeeping items.

After this webinar, please stay connected and engaged with your peers.
You can do that by joining our LinkedIn group today.

Use this group as a forum to:

• Connect and share best practices
• Talk about your current issues and challenges
• Get updates when we release great new content

At Productside, we love interacting with our community.
During this webinar, we encourage you to:

• Post questions
• Add comments
• Give us feedback

You can use the chat box located on the right of your screen and type in questions at any time. We will leave time for Q&A at the end of the webinar.

We’d also like to answer the most popular question we receive, which is:
“Can I watch this webinar later?”

The answer, of course, is yes. All attendees will receive a link to the recorded webinar after the recording has ended.

So thank you again for joining us today.

On the agenda for today’s webcast:

1. First, I’ll take a minute and introduce what Productside is all about
2. Then we’ll go over what you can expect from our Product Leadership Webinar Series
3. After that, I’ll turn things over to Roger, who will walk you through the five strategies to transform your product management team

Rina Alexin | 00:03:10–00:06:30
So, at Productside, our mission is to empower product managers to do great product management and become product leaders.

We do that with our methodology and framework, the Optimal Product Process.
The Optimal Product Process, or OPP as we call it, was designed by senior product leaders with a combined 150 years of hands-on experience.

It is a powerful framework that:

• Works for products in any industry
• Applies at any stage of the product lifecycle
• Supports any development methodology

The Optimal Product Process is just one pillar of how Productside helps transform product teams around the world.

After this webinar, continue your learning and make sure to download the Optimal Product Process eBook in our free resources.

We are truly excited to launch our new webinar series this morning.
We’ve put a lot of thought into the topics we’ll be covering over the next few months.

As good product managers, we started by speaking with your peers to uncover their priorities. What we heard was:

• A desire to grow as product leaders
• A strong need to improve their product teams

Our Product Leadership Series will cover critical topics across several themes.

Today, we’ll be talking about how to transform teams and optimize them to produce great products.

Look out for future webinars that will cover topics around:

• Professional development
• Team development
• How to navigate and produce positive — and more importantly, long-lasting — change

Our ultimate goal, which is our mission at Productside, is to help you and your team build great products that delight customers.

So that’s a little bit about us. And now I’m going to turn it over to Roger.

Speaker Introduction & What Transformation Really Means

Rina Alexin | 00:06:30–00:08:10
As I mentioned, Roger is our VP of Marketing and also a principal consultant and trainer.

Roger has over 25 years of experience in high tech and product management.
Before joining Productside, Roger led product teams for over 15 years, serving as Senior Director or VP of Product Management at multiple firms, including:

• Openwave
• Immersion
• Microsoft

As a consultant and trainer, Roger has worked with companies in a multitude of industries, including:

• Consumer products
• Technology
• SaaS
• Mobile
• Health
• Insurance
• Professional services

He has used his expertise to help companies improve:

• Product strategy
• Product development
• Whole product considerations
• Competitive and market research
• Roadmapping and portfolio decisions

Roger is a member of AIPMM, a Certified Product Manager, and an Agile Certified Product Manager and Product Owner.

He has a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Roger, take it away.

Roger Snyder | 00:08:10–00:12:30
Thank you very much, Rina.

So today we’re going to start this journey of figuring out how you transform your product management team.

We’re going to start by understanding:

• What it means to optimize product management, and
• Then walk through the five steps to transform your team

And then, as Rina mentioned, we’ll save some time at the end for questions.

But first, let’s talk a little bit about who we have in the audience today.

It’s great to see so many people have logged in.
We looked at our audience demographics and noticed that:

• Over 30% of our attendees are Vice Presidents or Directors of Product Management
• Another 35% are Product Managers or Product Marketing Managers
• And then we have quite a mix of other folks who are interested in becoming enabled to lead in product management

So, we’ve got a fantastic mix of leaders and practitioners here today.

All right, let’s talk about transformation.

First off, we start with a definition from McKinsey & Company.
Their definition is a good one in that it talks about trying to implement ways to make significant, step-change, more sustainable boosts in business results.

Not some sort of fad.
Not just a quick fix.
But something we would truly call transformation.

From our perspective, in the product management context, that means:

Optimizing your product management team so they can deliver the best products possible that achieve great business results.

What “Optimized” Product Management Looks Like

Roger Snyder | 00:12:30–00:16:30
So what do we mean by optimized?

Some of you may have seen this slide before. It comes from our experiences over more than 20 years working with many different companies.

We’ve seen a direct relationship between:

• How well organized and well structured the product management team is, and
• How well the company is able to realize profits and — very importantly — customer satisfaction

While you are currently attending this webinar, we recommend you take a quick mental look at this rubric and ask yourself:

“Where are we today with our team?”

Our goal is to get your team to that point where it is optimized.

That’s the state where:

• Your product processes are clear and repeatable
• Everybody on the team — and not just the product management team — understands the roles they play

This includes:

• Your core product team
• The folks you’re working with to develop products
• Your marketing team
• Your sales team

Everybody understands:

• Their roles
• Their responsibilities
• And how decisions get made

Ultimately, our goal is to help product managers become product leaders.

That requires that:

• They are fully trained
• They know all of the skills they need to put into action every day
• They are actually able to create company value

There’s a flip side as well:
The company has to value the role of product management.

Roger Snyder | 00:16:30–00:19:30
If you are able to get your product management team optimized, these are some of the benefits you’re going to see:

• Your company becomes more strategic in the way it thinks about its products
• You experience fewer wasted development resources
• You’re able to move your team and your career forward
• You maximize revenues and profits
• And ultimately, you’re doing that by building better products

That’s the ultimate goal of creating an optimized product management team and going through this whole transformation process.

Now, what I’d like to do, Rina, is conduct a little poll and see, in our audience, how many have a specific strategy for optimizing product management at their company.

Poll Results & Why Most Teams Aren’t Fully Optimized

Rina Alexin | 00:19:30–00:22:00
Great. We’ve now launched the poll.

Please select one of the following to answer the question:

“Do you have a specific strategy for optimizing product management at your company?”

• Yes
• No
• Kind of

We’re waiting for responses to come in.
We’re seeing a couple of “No,” a couple of “Kind of.”
We’ll be closing the poll shortly; I see some more votes coming in.

It’s exciting to see this happening in real time.

Rina Alexin | 00:22:00–00:24:00
All right, thank you so much for voting.
I’m going to close the poll and share results.

What we see here is:

• Most have voted either “No” or “Kind of” — so you’re somewhere in between.

The category “Kind of” is where I was expecting the largest number to be:
There’s some sense that they’ve tried to optimize product management, but there’s not a really strong sense of a concrete strategy.

Now, it’s encouraging that 10% said “Yes”.
That’s better than it was even five years ago.

But the number of “No” responses is certainly very high as well.

Roger Snyder | 00:24:00–00:26:00
And that’s good context for us. It really explains why people are tuning into this webinar.

So let’s talk a little bit about how we help you get fully optimized.

We’ve conducted a number of different studies over the years, and what we have found is that when you optimize your product management team, you’re able to realize:

• Skill increases of about 11% on average

But more interestingly, some of the weakest skills — the areas where product managers struggle the most, like:

• Pricing
• End-of-life decisions

Those skills can improve by as much as 43%.

So, you see significant improvements when you work on strengthening your team’s skills.

We’ve also seen — both from direct client responses and from a survey we conducted back in 2017 — that profits can increase from 5% to 34% when you optimize product management.

That makes sense, right?

If you’re not spending time and money building products that nobody really wants, your profitability goes up.

ROI of Optimizing Product Management

Roger Snyder | 00:26:00–00:30:20
What we’re showing here is an ROI calculator that we developed some time ago.

You’ll see a link at the bottom of the slide, and Rina will paste that link into the chat box for you as well.

This calculator is a simple spreadsheet, and we also have an online version on our website. It allows you to enter a few assumptions about your organization and see what kind of return you could expect from investing in improving your product management function.

We break that return down into two primary areas:

• Increased profits, and
• Cost savings

We used a very conservative assumption here — just a 5% increase in profits — and even with that conservative number, the return on investment is extremely compelling.

For a company of even moderate size, the cost of training and process improvement is quite small relative to the benefits you can realize.

In this example, we see a return of over 900%.

That’s not because we’re using aggressive assumptions — it’s because product management touches everything. When product management improves, the entire organization benefits.

So I strongly encourage you to follow that link and try the ROI calculator yourself using your own assumptions.

Roger Snyder | 00:30:20–00:35:30
Now let’s start diving into the actual steps you can take to transform your product management team.

Here are the five steps, at a high level:

1. Assess and set goals
2. Create a long-term plan
3. Optimize your people
4. Optimize process and tools
5. Manage holistic organizational change

We’ll go through each of these step by step.

Before we do that, I want you to keep one framework in mind throughout this discussion, and that is:

People, Process, and Tools

Every product management transformation touches all three of these.
If you ignore one of them, the transformation will struggle.

Step 1: Assess Where You Are & Set Clear Goals

Roger Snyder | 00:35:30–00:39:20
Step one is to assess and set your goals.

Before you can improve anything, you need to understand:

• Where you are today
• What is working well
• What is not working well

And you need to assess this across people, process, and tools.

You also need to establish baselines.
Without baselines, you won’t know whether you’re actually improving.

One way to do this is to compare yourself against industry data. We’ll talk a bit later about our Product Management Skills Benchmark Study, which gives you some useful reference points.

Once you understand where you are, you need to set clear goals.

Now, I want to pause here for a moment and talk about goal-setting, because it turns out it really matters how you set goals.

Roger Snyder | 00:39:20–00:43:10
I did some research into whether setting goals actually changes outcomes, and I came across a study from Dominican University of California.

They conducted a four-week study and divided participants into five groups:

• Group one simply thought about their goals
• Group two wrote their goals down
• Group three wrote goals down and wrote action steps
• Group four did all of that and told a friend
• Group five did all of the above and sent weekly progress updates to that friend

Here’s what they found:

• Only 43% of the people who just thought about their goals achieved them
• 76% of the people who wrote goals, defined actions, and reported progress weekly achieved their goals

That’s a massive difference.

This applies directly to product management transformation.
You can’t just say, “We want to get better at product management.”

You need to:

• Write goals down
• Define actions
• Establish accountability
• Review progress regularly

Roger Snyder | 00:43:10–00:45:30
Now, the cadence matters.

For some organizations, weekly check-ins are appropriate.
For others, monthly reviews make more sense.

The key is to calibrate this based on:

• Your organization’s maturity
• Your culture
• The pace of change you’re trying to drive

The point is not bureaucracy — the point is accountability.

Assessing Product Management Health

Roger Snyder | 00:45:30–00:49:10
As you’re setting goals, you also need to decide:

• What metrics matter
• How you will measure progress
• How often you will measure it

This will look different for a startup versus a Fortune 500 company, so you need to tailor it to your context.

One tool you can use to help with assessment is our Product Management Organizational Health Checklist.

We’re currently updating this checklist, but it’s designed to help you evaluate:

• People
• Process
• Tools

Specifically through a product management lens.

When the updated version is released, we’ll share it in a future blog post.

Roger Snyder | 00:49:10–00:55:30
You can also supplement this with your own internal KPIs.

Talk to:

• Your product managers
• Your leadership team
• Your cross-functional partners

Ask questions like:

• What are product managers being evaluated on today?
• Do those evaluation criteria align with what you want product managers to be doing?

Often, you’ll find misalignment there, and that misalignment can actively undermine your transformation efforts.

Step 2: Create a Long-Term Transformation Plan

Roger Snyder | 00:55:30–00:59:30
Step two is to create a long-term plan.

This is critical.

You need to set expectations with your executive team that this is not a one-time event.

Every time I’ve led a product management transformation, I’ve told the CEO:

“This is a two- to three-year journey.”

There will be bumps along the way.
There will be adjustments.
Things will not work perfectly the first time.

That’s normal.

We often talk about CANI — Constant And Never-ending Improvement.

This mindset is essential.
You don’t transform product management by flipping a switch.

Roger Snyder | 00:59:30–01:04:30
As you build your optimization plan, we’ve found it useful to think in two phases.

Phase One focuses on foundations:

• Clarifying roles and responsibilities
• Standardizing decision-making
• Establishing foundational training
• Introducing consistent tools and templates

Phase Two builds on that foundation:

• Advanced skills development
• Stronger cross-functional collaboration
• Product leadership development
• Community building within product teams

One important point here:
Your tools and templates must match your industry and risk profile.

A medical device company needs more rigor than a mobile app startup.
Both can be excellent — but they cannot use the same level of process.

Step 3: Optimizing Your People

Roger Snyder | 01:04:30–01:07:40
Step three is optimizing your people.

This is where training, coaching, and career development really come into play.

One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is that training is most effective when it’s aligned with your business cycles.

For example, many companies begin strategic planning in the fall.
If you know that’s coming, it makes sense to invest in training earlier in the year — perhaps in the summer — so your product managers are better prepared to participate in those strategic conversations.

That way, training isn’t just theoretical.
Product managers can immediately apply what they’ve learned.

Roger Snyder | 01:07:40–01:10:20
Coaching is another critical element here.

Mentoring often happens internally — that’s something leaders naturally do.
Coaching, on the other hand, often benefits from an outside perspective.

An external coach can:

• Reinforce best practices
• Help identify blind spots
• Provide objective guidance

We’ve seen tremendous value when organizations pair formal training with ongoing coaching.

Roger Snyder | 01:10:20–01:15:30
Now let’s talk about skills development.

We generally divide product management skills into two categories:

• Foundational skills
• Advanced skills

Foundational skills include things like:

• Understanding customer needs
• Writing strong requirements
• Roadmapping
• Business case development

Advanced skills include:

• Pricing strategy
• Portfolio management
• Product lifecycle optimization
• Organizational influence and leadership

We’re not going to go through every skill here, but I strongly encourage you to review our Product Management Skills Benchmark Study.

That study breaks skills down into 15 distinct areas and helps you understand where your team may have gaps.

Poll: Product Management Training

Rina Alexin | 01:15:30–01:17:00
At this point, we’d like to pause and ask a question of the audience.

We’ve just launched a poll asking:

Has your team had any formal product management training?

The options are:

• No
• No, but we plan to
• Yes

Please take a moment to respond.

Roger Snyder | 01:17:00–01:20:10
While responses are coming in, I want to emphasize something Rina mentioned earlier.

Training isn’t just about skill development — it’s also about engagement.

People want to know:

• What’s in it for me?
• How does this help my career?

When training is clearly connected to career growth, adoption and impact are much stronger.

Rina Alexin | 01:20:10–01:22:00
Alright, we’re going to close the poll and share the results.

Rina Alexin | 01:22:00–01:25:30
What we’re seeing is a fairly even split.

About half of the audience has received formal product management training, and about half has not — with a portion planning to do so.

This actually mirrors what we’ve seen in broader industry data.

Industry Benchmarks & the Impact of Training

Roger Snyder | 01:25:30–01:29:30
These results align closely with our industry benchmark study.

In that study, we found that fewer than 50% of product managers have received formal product management training.

The good news is that this number has improved significantly compared to 10 or 15 years ago — but there’s still a lot of room for growth.

Roger Snyder | 01:29:30–01:33:00
So why does training matter so much?

According to the Association for Talent Development:

• Companies that offer comprehensive training programs have 218% higher income per employee
• Companies that invest more in training see 24% higher profit margins

Training isn’t a cost — it’s an investment.

And the returns are substantial.

Roger Snyder | 01:33:00–01:35:30
There’s also a retention impact.

Studies show that 40% of employees who receive poor training leave within the first year.

If you don’t set people up for success, they get frustrated — and they leave.

Strong training programs help people feel confident, valued, and invested in their future.

Step 4: Optimizing Process and Tools

Roger Snyder | 01:35:30–01:39:10
Step four is optimizing your process and tools.

This often happens in parallel with training because, as people learn new best practices, they naturally begin to recognize gaps in existing processes.

Our research shows that two-thirds of companies have poorly defined product management processes.

When processes aren’t clear or repeatable, product managers struggle to know:

• What questions they’re expected to answer
• When decisions are actually being made
• Who owns which outcomes

Roger Snyder | 01:39:10–01:43:30
One common symptom is inconsistency.

If a product manager goes into a gate review and the expectations are different every time, it’s nearly impossible to be effective.

Clear, repeatable processes allow product managers to focus on insight and decision quality, not guesswork.

Roger Snyder | 01:43:30–01:48:00
Optimizing process means three things:

• Defining the product lifecycle clearly
• Establishing consistent decision points
• Making expectations explicit across the organization

This doesn’t mean bureaucracy — it means clarity.

Symptoms of Ineffective Product Management Processes

Roger Snyder | 01:48:00–01:52:20
Let’s talk about some warning signs that your product management process may not be working.

One major symptom is misalignment with company strategy.

If product goals don’t clearly align with corporate or business unit strategy — or if sales and executives are saying different things — that’s a strong indicator of process breakdown.

Roger Snyder | 01:52:20–01:55:30
Another red flag is decisions that don’t stick.

If you find yourself revisiting the same decisions repeatedly, it could be due to:

• Insufficient data
• Too many decision-makers
• Lack of clarity around ownership

Decision-by-committee slows everything down and erodes trust.

Roger Snyder | 01:55:30–02:00:00
Other common symptoms include:

• Products that don’t address real customer needs
• Development teams operating on inertia instead of insight
• Roadmaps that change constantly with no clear rationale

These issues usually point back to weak strategic context and unclear processes.

Decision Clarity, Governance, and Tools

Roger Snyder | 02:00:00–02:05:10
One of the most effective ways to improve decision-making is by clarifying roles and responsibilities.

When everyone knows:

• Who is driving the decision
• Who provides input
• Who approves

You dramatically reduce friction and rework.

Roger Snyder | 02:05:10–02:08:30
We often recommend tools like DAISY charts or RACI frameworks to map decision ownership.

The goal is simple:

• One clear driver
• As few approvers as possible

The driver doesn’t decide alone — they synthesize options and recommend a path forward.

Roger Snyder | 02:08:30–02:12:00
Tools matter too.

Templates, documentation standards, and centralized repositories ensure that:

• Information is easy to find
• Decisions are traceable
• Teams stay aligned

Ask product managers to show you their business cases.

If they all look different, your process isn’t standardized yet.

Step 5: Holistic Change Management

Roger Snyder | 02:12:00–02:16:10
The fifth and final step is holistic change management.

This is where many transformation efforts fail, because teams focus only on product management without considering the broader organization.

Optimizing product management requires changes across:

• Engineering
• Marketing
• Sales
• Executive leadership

Roger Snyder | 02:16:10–02:20:40
You need cross-functional alignment.

That means identifying dependencies, deliverables, and expectations across teams.

You’re going to ask other teams to change how they work, so it’s critical to clearly communicate what they get in return.

Better product plans.
Faster decision-making.
Stronger business outcomes.

Roger Snyder | 02:20:40–02:25:30
Measurement and adjustment are key.

You must continuously track progress and course-correct when needed.

And most importantly, you need executive sponsorship.

At least one executive champion must actively support the transformation, especially when challenges arise.

Why Most Transformations Fail

Roger Snyder | 02:25:30–02:29:40
Let’s look at what research tells us.

McKinsey & Company conducted a large-scale study on organizational change.

They found that 70% of transformations fail.

That’s a staggering number.

Roger Snyder | 02:29:40–02:33:20
One of the biggest reasons for failure is a non-holistic approach.

Only about 10% of transformations succeed when organizations fail to consider the full system — people, process, tools, culture, and leadership.

This reinforces why step five is so critical.

Roger Snyder | 02:33:20–02:38:00
Change takes time.

It requires patience, persistence, and reinforcement.

Organizations that succeed are the ones that treat transformation as a journey, not a one-time initiative.

Common Barriers to Product Management Transformation

Roger Snyder | 02:38:00–02:42:30
There are several common barriers we see repeatedly.

One is when product managers aren’t bringing enough data to the table.

Without strong customer insights and competitive analysis, it’s hard to demonstrate value and influence decisions.

Roger Snyder | 02:42:30–02:46:40
Another barrier is organizational silos.

In larger companies, product managers often struggle to access customers because sales or other teams control those relationships.

Breaking down those walls requires trust and consistent collaboration.

Roger Snyder | 02:46:40–02:52:00
Culture is also a major factor.

“We’ve always done it this way” is a powerful force.

People may fear losing influence as product management becomes more effective.

The key is to show that when product management succeeds, everyone succeeds.

Best Practices for Driving Lasting Change

Roger Snyder | 02:52:00–02:56:10
One of the most effective best practices is building trust cross-functionally.

You must clearly communicate what’s in it for each team — engineering, marketing, sales, and leadership.

People support change when they understand how it benefits them.

Roger Snyder | 02:56:10–03:00:40
Communication cannot be a one-time effort.

You need a consistent cadence of updates that reinforce:

• Why the change matters
• What progress has been made
• What comes next

This helps maintain momentum and confidence throughout the organization.

Roger Snyder | 03:00:40–03:05:00
When transformation feels slow or difficult, remember that meaningful change always takes time.

The organizations that succeed are the ones that stay committed even when progress feels incremental.

Final Recap: The Five Strategies

Roger Snyder | 03:05:00–03:08:20
Let’s recap the five strategies to transform your product management team.

First, assess and set clear goals.
Understand where you are today and define what success looks like.

Roger Snyder | 03:08:20–03:11:40
Second, build a long-term plan.

Transformation doesn’t happen overnight.
Set realistic expectations and commit to continuous improvement.

Roger Snyder | 03:11:40–03:14:20
Third, optimize your people.

Invest in training, coaching, and career development so product managers can grow into product leaders.

Roger Snyder | 03:14:20–03:17:10
Fourth, optimize process and tools.

Clear, repeatable processes and the right tools reduce friction and improve decision-making.

Roger Snyder | 03:17:10–03:20:30
And finally, embrace holistic change management.

Transformation only succeeds when the entire organization moves together.

Audience Q&A

Rina Alexin | 03:20:30–03:22:10
We’re now going to move into the Q&A portion of the webinar.

Please continue posting your questions in the chat.

Roger Snyder | 03:22:10–03:27:00
One common question we hear is how product managers can focus on improvement when they’re constantly putting out fires.

This often happens when product managers step in to cover gaps elsewhere in the organization.

The solution is to clarify roles and responsibilities and gradually transition low-value work to the appropriate teams.

Roger Snyder | 03:27:00–03:32:10
Another frequent question is how to ensure decisions stick.

The key is aligning decisions to company goals and backing them with data.

One-on-one conversations before group decision meetings can also help address concerns early.

Roger Snyder | 03:32:10–03:38:00
Cultural resistance is real.

When people say, “We’ve always done it this way,” look for examples where the old approach failed and frame change as an opportunity for shared success.

Closing Remarks & Next Steps

Rina Alexin | 03:38:00–03:41:20
Thank you so much for joining us today.

We truly appreciate your engagement and thoughtful questions.

Roger Snyder | 03:41:20–03:45:00
This concludes the first installment of our Product Leadership Webinar Series.

You’ll receive a recording of today’s session by email.

We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming webinars as we continue exploring how to build stronger product teams and leaders.