and 4 skills the product manager must have.
by jody padar
from success to significance: the radical cpa guide
are you ready to take the plunge? as a radical cpa, you’re already used to dealing with change.
more on radicalism: product management meets strategy | father, son team up to capitalize on capacity | going deeper into product management | dean quiambao: ‘if you’re not disrupting, you’re not doing it right’ | josh zweig’s liveca offers new thinking from the ground up | how ‘agile’ applies to cpa firms
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but i’m here to tell you, your customers (and the market) are demanding that you not only deal with change, but master it. so how do you start?
make a leap of faith. and then deal with the consequences.
first you must make the conscious decision that you are going to start running your firm from a product management perspective.
once you make that decision you are going to confront many challenges.
you’re going to be overwhelmed.
you’re going to doubt yourself.
you’re going to be frustrated.
it’s all normal.
in fact, let’s get the three main challenges you’ll face right out of the way:
- you have organizational obstacles you don’t know how to overcome. you’re visualizing your seven other partners not buying into your changes and it makes you want to get into your bed.
- you get caught in the day-to-day and don’t have enough time to do the strategic planning needed.
- you feel that your prior experience of preparing tax returns, creating review points and billing time has not left you well prepared for this new role.
okay, so now that we’ve articulated those obstacles, don’t you feel better?
are you going to let it stop you? no!
now you’ve made the decision. you’re changing your firm to work from a practice management perspective to a product management perspective. so, what do you do first?
the game plan
first thing first, get your bearings. i believe (and i’ve been told) the hardest thing about being a radical cpa is that there has been no road map! everyone wants a checklist because that’s how we were raised in the old-school model. or they want the perfect firm in a box that they can copy. i’m here to tell you there is no turnkey solution. yes, we have processes. yes, we have best practices. but the world is changing too fast for a checklist. in fact, to be frank, there isn’t a checklist that exists. however, there are some essentials to help you get there. we have ideas, we have tried and true methodologies, and we have each other’s support to create a structure around navigating this complex business environment. the art of product management has been around for years. there are even online courses you can take to master this skill.
it starts with your vision, which i think most people already get. you know you must articulate your vision, your mission, your weaknesses, your strengths, your opportunities. most of you could do this within your own firms. every consultant reading this will hate me, but i strongly believe you can do this on your own if you set aside time and find someone on your team willing to spearhead it. you need someone to say, “ok, i’m going to work through this all the time, and this is going to be the way we manage innovation and change in our firm.”
i’m going to share with you what i’ve learned and what i’ve seen work for others like me. it’s not perfect, and it’s changing, but i truly believe if you start here you’ll end up closer to your desired outcome.
assess your organization. go ahead, take a good, long, hard look. before you can start developing anything, you must figure out how your organization is defined. is it defined by a chart, or are there unwritten rules as to who is in charge? for instance, there may be a managing partner in a firm, but there may be an unspoken understanding that it’s the managing partner’s office manager who makes all the decisions. who in your firm has strong interpersonal skills? what are your team’s strengths and weaknesses? have you done a swot analysis? we know that being a leader in a firm today is more than just technical knowledge.
the skill set below is for the person who is going to lead this endeavor. in small firms, this will likely be the partner in charge; in large firms it will be multiple people. i also recommend bringing on an outside person who is not a technical accounting professional, such as someone with general business background who understands the marketplace. it must be someone with a strong understanding of business, not just accounting or tax.
refer to the skill and qualifications list provided by monster.com, and consider the following skill sets and questions when you are conducting your internal assessment. who in your firm has the following skills?
- critical thinking. is there a person who can continually assimilate and evaluate business, market, financial and environmental data that leads to important conclusions? who on your team is brilliant at strategy? who really knows how to identify opportunities in new places?
- systemic thinking. who in your firm can make sense of challenging situations and develop simple interventions for transforming them? are they able to see the patterns that emerge quickly and then come up with creative solutions quickly? can they see the whole picture? who is the best at this on your team?
- problem-solving. who in your firm has a process for assessing any situation that may arise? are they asking the right questions? can they evaluate the environment, even as it changes? have they developed a logical analysis to determine the root cause of the problem? how do they engage others in the analysis and the identification of solutions? who comes to you with the solution – not another problem – and uses nontraditional thinking to get there?
- strategic thinking. who in your firm is developing strategies today in uncertain or ambiguous market environments? can they consider and evaluate various continuous inputs in situations to envision and create future solutions that drive business or product line options? do you have someone who comes to you with a technology product and tells you the full implementation, not just, “we should sell this”? who is the person in your firm who can see the future the strongest? who looks at something challenging and offers up a plan of action?
next step: mapping and documentation!
now that the assessment is complete, we are going to take all that research and those findings and document them. we’re then going to decide who our first potential product manager could be and see if they are up for the job.
is it by chance you?
if so, congratulations on your new role!
but before you pop that champagne bottle, you have work to do.
you must change your brain!
you’re a product manager now. you need to understand the characteristics of your new role. you need to see the landscape of the industries you serve and the technologies that will best suit them. this can be the hardest part; however, access to information has never been easier. do research. get on twitter (my favorite way to stay updated on news and trends). make sure you start to define and sift through all the information coming your way. welcome to your new job.