A Product Scorecard is a great way for you, the Product Manager to track a variety of financial and operational metrics important to achieving your financial goals.
Using information in the Product Scorecard you can stay on top of any problems that arise and make adjustments that keep your team on course.
Developing Your Product Scorecard
You’ll need to work with your finance team to identify metrics that matter to your product’s success. Once identified, these metrics must be translated into a scorecard format that lets you quantitatively monitor each step in the process.
The Product Scorecard is also a great tool for periodically reviewing progress with upper management. It gives you a clear view into the mechanism driving your product’s success or failure.
The Best Way to Set Up Your Product Scorecard
Developing metrics that can be automatically updated is key to creating a useful Scorecard. Of course, some metrics may be need to be calculated manually during the development stage. But, when you’re getting started on the development process, concentrate on the automated metrics first. By doing this, you’ll be able to get most of your Scorecard in place fairly quickly so you can immediately start tracking progress.
Beyond the Quantitative Side of the Product Manager’s Performance
The metrics are only half of the picture of how you are doing as a Product Manager. There’s also the qualitative side – How you achieve results. Most companies have multiple ways to judge your interpersonal effectiveness. These range from performance reviews and informal mentoring to one-on-one discussions with your supervisor. Management can also gain insights into your interpersonal skills by simply observing how other employees react to you.
It’s possible to succeed on the metric elements of product management and still fail as a product manager. Gaining an accurate view of how you relate to other employees is vital to your success. Proactively seek feedback at regular intervals. Remember, feedback is often more difficult to handle when difficulties have been brewing for a long time. By getting feedback regularly, you can make adjustments as needed.
In my next post I’ll discuss the external metrics of success and why they are so important to Product Managers.
Advancing the Profession of Product Management™
website I consulting I training I toolkits I books I blog I twitter