There's a New Layer in Town
There is a new layer of technology in play now -- the platform layer. Platforms give us amazing new potential to do things better. But they require a new core competence within your organization, a new type of management, in order to steer the development of those platforms. Developing, maintaining, and managing the product roadmap is the core responsibility of the product team in general, and of the product manager specifically.
You might ask, “Why do we suddenly need new staff on hand to steer our ship of technology? We’ve been using software applications for years. Our IT people handle that.”
But in fact, we’re not talking about software applications anymore, nor traditional IT. There is a new layer of technology in play now -- the platform layer.
So what is the difference between an application and a platform?
As you probably know from using applications on your phone or computer, an application is pre-built for a specific use. Listen to music. Scan your receipts. Edit your photos. Microsoft Word is an application. It does what it does. Pull it up, type up a document.
A platform, however, is a toolset that you can use to custom-build an application that fits you perfectly. It can do pretty much anything you want it to do, but you have to decide exactly what that is. It's kind of like a Lego set. You can build a house with it, or a boat, or a robot. You have to decide what you need, and then build it around those needs. Same goes for building your platforms around your organization’s unique processes.
Good examples of platforms in wide use these include a CMS (content management system) for a website such as WordPress or Drupal, or a CRM (constituent relationship management) database such as Salesforce.
These platforms give us amazing new potential to do things better, work more efficiently, be more in control of our communications, stop siloing information, get smarter analysis because all your data is in one place, and banish shadow systems that were a necessity before, removing constraints left and right.
But with this new power comes a new responsibility. It requires a new core competence within your organization, a new type of management, in order to steer the development of those platforms. Developing, maintaining, and managing the product roadmap is the core responsibility of the product team in general, and of the product manager specifically.
Why? Because, a thoughtful, carefully considered roadmap is what brings sanity to the wild west of technology opportunity. Development of your platform could go any which way, but chances are you have limits on your capacity and resources. Meanwhile you have a mixture of urgent fixes, exciting opportunities, and new experiments that all need their oxygen and focus.
Without a roadmap -- and the entire ecosystem that goes into generating it -- you’re stuck in reactive mode, and you risk going everywhere and nowhere. You can end up wasting your resources on relatively lower priorities, or overlooking big opportunities, or confusing and frustrating staff who are waiting on essential fixes to get their work done smarter and better.
There is a new layer in town. A powerful, exciting new layer. Now it’s time to get yourself some new sheriffs in town who are up to the task of managing it.
A Stripe in Your Org Chart
A technology accelerator team should be its own department -- its own stripe in the org chart. Critical problems get introduced when the team lives under a “service” oriented department like Operations, a specific purpose-oriented team such as Fundraising, Communications, or Programs, or gets mixed with I.T.…
A technology accelerator team should be its own department — its own stripe in the org chart. Critical problems get introduced when the team lives under a “service” oriented department like Operations, or a specific purpose-oriented team such as Fundraising, Communications, or Programs. And it must not be mixed with I.T., which is a separate area requiring separate skills and expertise.
That said, it’s common in many organizations to find technology platforms living under something like one of those other departments.
This is typically for understandable reasons. Most often, an organization’s investments in technology platforms such as web or CRM were driven by a single department getting fed up enough with the dysfunctional state of their technology systems that they decide they’re going to just fix it themselves. A Communications department finds itself in daily pain from their lackluster, outdated website, or a fundraising team is driven to utter exasperation by their lack of a coherent CRM to track relationships. So they muster the internal political will, secure a major budget allocation, find a development firm, and go through a painstaking process to build a new site, or adopt a new platform. They probably weren’t thrilled to be the ones doing it, and the results may be mixed, but afterwards at least it’s not as bad as it was before.
Then, understandably, that department intently guards that system going forward, protecting their territory against all who they fear might mess everything up again. They become the de facto owners and guardians. “You have no idea what we went through to even get this far,” they explain. “If you need something, you can ask us.”
But this fundamentally requires these departments to hold a core competency that is substantially outside their area of expertise. It’s too much to ask that a communications department be able to do web product management at the level a modern organization needs, or that a fundraising team include specialized CRM product management skillsets. Rather, if the organization is set up right, everyone should get to focus on their areas of expertise.
In addition, in today’s world, your technology platforms need to serve every department well, not just the one department that got frustrated enough to initiate that platform’s temporary renewal. A successful website must provide critical daily value and address high priority needs for departments across the organization. A CRM’s transformational potential lies in its ability to connect and track different areas across the organization’s work.
Planning, building, and continuously maintaining that level of strategic focus and technical quality is an extremely advanced undertaking! It simply can’t be done from within one specific ‘purpose-built’ department. And even when attempted at a much lower level of ambition, it pulls that department farther out of position, and makes it extremely difficult to do the critical work of prioritizing needs accurately across the organization.
Set up right, your Technology Accelerator Team is a make-everything-better team with a voracious appetite for improving everything around it. Allocating an independent department gives this team of crack improvers and problem-solvers the ability to bring their specialized, focused, strategic and tactical skillsets to bear working with teams across the organization, unencumbered by common structural limitations that otherwise hold them back. It allows them to fairly and strategically prioritize positive impacts across every part of the organization, and help transition your organization to a new level of technology proficiency.
This is Not Traditional I.T.
There is an important distinction between Products and traditional IT. The Product Team must not be pulled into IT roles, even if they seem to be more "tech savvy" than other people in the organization. Eyes will be taken off the ball, and crucial balls will be dropped...
There is an important distinction between Products and I.T.
Remember that the Product Team is responsible for technology systems and tools -- such as the CRM and website -- that could potentially go any direction. Thus they require a smart, informed roadmap to ensure their development matches the organization's priorities.
By contrast, in our view I.T. is a more of an operations function. It focuses on technology systems that may be complex, but generally don't require the creation of a roadmap. As an oversimplification, your IT systems either work or they don't.
Examples of internal I.T. functions include purchasing and setting up computers, networks and internet access, software and installation, email accounts administration (such as Google Apps for Work), password management, web domain registration and accounts, web hosting accounts, and all technology-related billing and payment.
The Product Team must not be pulled into I.T. roles, even if they seem to be more "tech savvy" than other people in the organization. Otherwise the I.T. workload will quickly overwhelm the product team's ability to do their primary jobs. Eyes will be taken off the ball, and crucial balls will be dropped. This defeats the entire purpose and mandate of the team!
Fortunately, a viable I.T. option for some organizations are external tech support providers, to whom you can outsource much of the basic I.T. support, such as issues involving computers, software, printers, networks, internet, and advanced tech support.
That way you keep your product team's eyes on the prize where it belongs.
Two Great Reasons Not to Combine Digital Products and IT Operations
Don’t combine IT and Digital Products. Don’t do it. They are not the same thing. They pull in different directions. Everyone loses. That said, we have seen enough times that this can be a hard separation to pull the trigger on. So here are a couple great reasons to help you marshal your courage and build your case.
Don’t combine IT and Digital Products. Don’t do it. They are not the same thing. They require different people. They pull in different directions. Everyone loses.
That said, we have seen enough times that this can be a hard separation to pull the trigger on. So here are a couple great reasons to help you marshal your courage and build your case:
They have different superpowers
They require different mindsets and skillsets (and therefore different people!)
1. They Have Different Superpowers
IT people make things work as they are supposed to work.
Product people are always thinking of new ways to make things better.
The IT superpower is technical proficiency.
The Product superpower is context.
On the digital products side, perhaps the greatest superpower of an excellent product manager is the ability to fully immerse themselves in the organization — to dig into organizational goals, needs, complexities and strategies, to open communication channels, to build trusted relationships, and to understand everything there is to know about what the organization is trying to accomplish as it relates to their product. It means gathering several metric tons of information and context. That level of context is the product manager’s superpower and guiding light, towards wise short and long term priorities and investments.
Traditional IT Operations also has plenty of complexity. However it generally does not require the same level of context. Certainly IT needs to understand what the organization is trying to accomplish, and many parameters relevant to the tool or service they are installing or implementing. What activities will we be using our computers for? What speed and redundancy of our internet connectivity do we need? What is the likely trajectory of our server storage needs? How are we going to deal with digital security threats?
But very likely, IT problems that arise do not require months of conversations and understanding to answer. They need technology specific expertise. But you don’t need to know every single thing about the organization’s strategy, programs, and key players in order to, say, get the internet working again, or select an appropriate email provider service or file sharing system, or to fix it when it goes down.
In fact, an external expert or service provider might very capably be able to solve most IT problems without knowing every detail about your organization‘s complex intersecting strategies, needs, and dynamics. If something operational is broken, it’s not ambiguous. It’s not doing what it’s supposed to do, and the solution is likely extremely similar for your organization as it would be for another organization using the same tool. It’s also not ambiguous when it’s fixed. “Call the Director, the system is back online!” and everyone goes to bed.
That is an entirely different profile than the work of digital products, where context and understanding are the superpower enabling the creation of an ever-evolving strategic and tactical roadmap — building a product that supports and superpowers everyone’s work, a little bit better every single day.
2. Different Mindsets and Skillsets Require Different People
Given this wholesale difference in approach and mandate, it should be no surprise that Digital Products and IT Operations require entirely different mindsets, skillsets, proficiencies, and personalities. If you’re trying to combine them under the same person or even the same team, you’re asking for one or the other to come up short. Generally, IT people have very little interest in digital products, and digital product people have very little interest in IT issues. They’re both typically very happy to hand off duties at the border.
When these duties are combined, both sides suffer, and priorities get dropped. The most common example of this we see is when the crucial long-term oriented strategic work of digital products gets crowded out by IT’s near-term fires with high urgency and importance, but of little concern to long-term strategic outcomes. “The printer isn’t working!” or “our computers have a virus!” are crises that tend to crowd out questions like “Is our website on a path to support the game-changing organizational plans we have for next year?”
When we’re hiring for digital product managers, more than a deeply technical profile we’re looking for strategic orientation and an exceptional level of communication and interpersonal skill along with an adequate level of technical literacy. Naturally, this is a skillset that cannot and must not be outsourced.
When it comes to IT operations, some organizations decide they need internal staff support, but others seem to feel well serviced by a solid external IT provider, a choice which we’re seeing with increasing frequency. Yes, you will still need to put a strategic internal brain on solving IT issues. But if you have a strong external IT partner, the strategic piece can often be provided by a strong manager of Operations, or the leader of the department with the specific need being addressed.
Great digital products, specifically, require a unique type of person, along with access to expert internal and external resources, and a whole lot of time and energy and thoughtfulness. Your organization’s success depends on getting the right people in those roles, and giving them the mandate and the room to run. Cram together this sacred responsibility with traditional IT operations work — with its very different set of priorities, responsibilities, and personality profile — at your peril. But give digital products its own space, and the right type of strategic and tactical magic-makers, and watch as your organization shifts into an entirely new technology orbit.
You Can't Outsource The Brains
There are some things you can -- and probably should -- outsource. What you can never outsource is the brains of your technology operation.
There are some things you can -- and probably should -- outsource. In most cases that could include high-skill execution tasks such as visual design and coding/development. In fact there are several significant advantages to outsourcing those roles.
But what you can never outsource is the brains of your technology operation.
Because the most important role your internal technology staff has is not actually technical. It’s strategic. It’s about understanding the strategic, programmatic, and operational priorities of your organization on one side of the equation, and on the other side masterfully conducting the symphony of forces that must be brought together to execute on those priorities.
Doing that successfully requires making countless decisions on a daily basis -- large, small, simple, and complex. It requires weighing options, balancing priorities vs. cost and capacity. It requires constant communication with colleagues and external resources. And it requires creating and constantly adjusting a clear, coherent product roadmap. It’s a massively complex production.
Can you imagine outsourcing that to a consultant? How would that possibly work?
The answer, of course, is that it wouldn’t. And it doesn’t. If you’re going to leverage technology’s potential to support and transform your organization, the brains of your technology landscape must live inside of your organization’s walls.
Dishwashers Don't Need Roadmaps
We use the analogy of a dishwasher to help explain technology that we see as belonging under the purview of traditional I.T., as opposed to digital products. Traditional I.T. products, we say, are like dishwashers....
We use the analogy of a dishwasher to help explain technology that we see as belonging under the purview of traditional I.T., as opposed to digital products. Traditional I.T. products, we say, are like dishwashers.
That’s no knock on traditional I.T., of course. Dishwashers are complicated enough underneath the hood that most of us don’t want to mess with the innerworkings. When the time comes to assemble or fix a dishwasher, you clearly want a specialist with skill and experience doing the work.
However, we also all know the basics of what a dishwasher is supposed to do. You have a few options to choose from, you add soap, you hit start. The dishwasher needs no roadmap for future development. For the rest of the dishwasher’s life it will perform the same functions it did on day one.
Generally speaking, the same can be said for traditional I.T. products such as hardware (like printers, laptops, routers), and for most consumer software as well. Sure, hardware may require occasional maintenance and upgrades, and require skilled expertise to get the most out of them. But a router is a router, it does what it does. Similarly, software like Microsoft Excel or Adobe Photoshop surely require training, skill and experience to be used effectively. But that said, they are what they are the moment you buy them.
By contrast, your website isn’t like that. Your database isn’t like that. They start out in one state, and if they have any hope of staying useful and relevant, they have to evolve constantly, from day one until day last. And complicating matters more, the possibilities for that evolution are endless. That’s why you need a roadmap for them, managed by a highly capable, strategic, detailed product manager.
And that’s why your digital products are out of place if they get lumped in with traditional I.T. by an undifferentiated categorization of “digital”. Traditional I.T. is a core backbone function, but it most often falls into Operations, and for good reason. Whereas your digital products are evolving, unique platforms that need to managed strategically to support and keep pace with your evolving needs. They each demand different skillsets to manage and steward, different lifecycles and levels of resources, and different types of access to leadership and strategy. Asking a single department to manage both is a fundamental misalignment, and a sure-fire recipe for underperformance.