Aspirations – The Adam Sandler of Product Development
The Adam Sandler of Product Development
I like Adam Sandler movies. My first introduction to him was the Chanukah song on a camping trip in remote British Columbia in the late 1990s. My favorite movie of his is probably The Waterboy, or maybe The Wedding Singer. I stop and watch whenever I come across either of these while channel surfing. I have noticed that he has a recurring cast for these movies. I take it that he enjoys working with these people and finds ways to continue doing so.
I connect this to my career, I have been on a few what could be referred to as true teams, during my career. When the project is concluded, the team is disbanded, people are moved to different departments, and sometimes they leave the company. I want to find a way to get the literal and metaphorical band back together. The literal portion includes the folks I sang and played music back in the day (I’m looking at you, Eddie, Dave, Harold, and Chuck). Steve L., we never played music together, but we have had many chats on music and have threatened to play over the years.
Another part of this is that I like working. I am what some might call a workaholic. I do not see it that way; I go where my mind takes me. This can mean being out of circulation with my friends for extended periods. What better way to make a living than work with the people you love to be around and not neglect them due to a focus on an objective or some puzzle.
I posted this the other day, seemingly out of the blue. I have been talking about this for years. The bulk of my career has been learning how the pipeline of domains associated with product development. I was fortunate to start my post-engineering degree at a small industrial controls company. The size of the company only matters in that the engineers were required to wear many hats, not just software, not just embedded hardware, but also elements of manufacturing, as well as test and verification. The management had the skills and shared what they knew, albeit mostly hardware and manufacturing-centric.
Marketing
Effective product development requires more than just talented and creative engineering. We need to understand the customer and their behavior.
My MBA in Marketing was initiated by my connection with Rick Bertalan (Sasquatch, as he would sometimes be called). I am over 6 feet 1 inch tall, my wife said she was not accustomed to seeing me as short, Rick is quite a bit taller than that. I am sure he initiated the additional education and was encouraged by him. It did not harm that the company had arrangements that reduced the amount of money from my pocket to as small as possible. I am amazed that so few people accepted this offer from the company.
Understanding the customer, which is marketing input to the product development, is essential for setting the delivery targets for product development. Marketing is also about getting the final product to the customer – an overview below is a short overview of the P’s of Marketing, those marked in green are the core, and those in blue have been appended over time.
| P | Description |
| Product | What you offer to satisfy customer needs |
| Price | What customers pay and the strategy behind it |
| Place | Where and how the product is distributed |
| Promotion | How you communicate and persuade customers |
| People | Those involved in delivering the product/service |
| Process | Systems and procedures ensuring effective delivery |
| Physical Evidence | Tangible proof or environment supporting the product/service |
Table 1 The P’s of Marketing
Project Management
Marketing and engineering are part of the equation, but not entirely. If we cannot develop the product on schedule, at development costs, and effectively balance the tradeoffs, we will likely fail. Enter project management.
The point is not how we choose to manage the project. Find the project management approach that best fits the circumstances. The point is the coordination of effort, managing risks, controlling the scope, and much more. To learn more about the maximum project management model, consult the Project Management Institute.
The point is that to effectively develop a product, we will need a variety of perspectives and talent from a variety of domains. I like working with these people, and I have been working to create, as best as I can, an environment where this thrives. The work found at the store is with people with whom I have worked shoulder to shoulder and would gladly do so again.
Closing
I may not be as talented as Adam Sandler, but I am committed to continuing to find ways to collaborate with those I enjoy and develop my product development skills to add value to those I work with, ultimately benefiting those who hire us at Value Transformation LLC.
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