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D Matthew Landry

AMA: Cisco Meraki, Sr Dir Product Management, Networking and Security, Matt Landry on Enterprise Product Management

February 23 @ 10:00AM PST
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Cisco Meraki, Sr Dir Product Management, Networking and Security, Matt Landry on Enterprise Product Management
Top Questions
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 23
Honestly, the first product manager for a company is probably not ready to establish a prioritization framework. The first PM probably needs to focus on customer discovery, market discovery, MVP intuition, and experimentation. Until you have established product-market fit with enthusiastic custom......Read More
2560 Views
1 request
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 22
Taking for granted a baseline of solid product management fundamentals and team simpatico, I feel the following play an outsize role in determining success in the enterprise: * Skeptical curiosity * Strong opinions, weakly held * Speaking and presentation skills, in front of senior execs & au......Read More
1442 Views
3 requests
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 22
Rule of thumb: don't build before they buy. If this whale wants something specific, they should put skin the game, either through a services/customization contract or a purchase contract contingent on a feature delivery. Of course, there's a lot of nuance to a situation like this.  Maybe there'......Read More
1090 Views
1 request
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 22
 In the broadest sense, the role of the product manager doesn't change. The customer profile changes, the buying patterns change, and the routes to market change. The core PM responsibilities don't necessarily change. However, many of those customer changes have an impact on how the PM does thei......Read More
787 Views
1 request
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 23
 Entry-level product managers for an enterprise product line tend to come in from two paths: technical background, and business background. Those with a stronger technical background might come from another part of the business, such as technical marketing or solution/sales engineering. They mak......Read More
1163 Views
3 requests
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 22
Tactically, product managers can set the patterns that define successful customer accounts (e.g., via beta testing, early wins, clearly described use cases, &c.), engage with key customers to form lasting business relationships, and amplify the key customer problems. This is why customers love t......Read More
942 Views
1 request
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 23
 The impact that a product manager has depends much more on the type of product team and its role in the company than on the product's market (B2B, B2C, SMB, mid-market, enterprise, &c). Even for a miniscule aspect of a product, the PM has an opportunity for tremendous impact when they have resp......Read More
1086 Views
1 request
How does product management differ when you are working to create a custom infrastructure platform?
Where do you draw a line between having technical skills and having product mgmt skills?
D Matthew Landry
D Matthew Landry
Cisco VP Product Management, Cisco WirelessFebruary 23
"Custom infrastructure platform" is nearly an oxymoron. :-) Anyway, it doesn't sound like a product; products are offered for sale to a market. A "custom infrastructure platform" is very likely an internal project. It will have organizational stakeholders, clearly defined objectives (be very cau......Read More
666 Views
1 request