If You Have Tension Between the Teams In Your Product Life Cycle (PLC) Process, Congratulations! You’re Probably Doing Something Right.

I’ve always been process-oriented since the very beginnings of my career. I can probably thank the Business Process Improvement training I had as an Internal Auditor. So, I’ve always approached my work from the perspective of how do I improve it.

With that said, I’ve paid a lot of attention to the Product Life Cycle process as a Product Marketer. And one observation I’ve seen in PLC processes that work is that a tension exists between teams. I’m talking a healthy tension. Let me explain.

The PLC process is a risk management process. It’s about tradeoffs. See my last post on this aspect. As such, managing risk is about making difficult choices at times. Each team brings a perspective to the table. Unfortunately, that perspective doesn’t have the customer’s interest at heart at all times across all teams. That’s not driven by nefarious reasons. For instance, Engineers, if left to their devices, just want to build things they see as cool. Sometimes Product Managers lose sight of the value they are supposed to be delivering to future customers and focus on just getting the product out the door as quickly as possible.

That’s why a tension needs to exist in the PLC. And this tension extends to Product Marketing. Product Managers need to be able and willing to push back on Engineering when they believe what is being developed isn’t in line with market needs. Product Managers, in effect, help to keep Engineering or Development teams focused on developing the right products and product features for the end-users of future customers. So when Engineering or Development may be going off the rails, it’s Product Management that needs to rein them in to provide guidance as well as negotiate trade-offs when appropriate.

However, this world relies on Product Managers always having a strong sense of the market and customer needs, and having the professional but firm relationship with Engineering and Development teams to push back when necessary. They serve as one area of checks and balances. However, this is not always the case.

This is where Product Marketing needs to asserts its partnership with Product Management. I say “partnership” because the Product Marketing function should never play just a supportive or subordinate role. Product Marketing has a valuable role to play in the PLC process as well. Product Marketing can serve as an additional checks and balances to ensure that what Product Management is driving towards actually has value in the marketplace and will be what customers and prospects want. And a Product Marketer who has a finger on the pulse of the market will be able to make a strong case for influencing what gets developed.

Of course, doing so will create a tension at times in the relationship between Product Management and Product Marketing. But this tension is healthy. Sometimes the tension may be uncomfortable. For instance, a Product Marketer should be willing to put a launch on hold if they feel a new offering doesn’t live up to current market requirements or the customer experience is likely to be poor. But the best Product Marketers are empowered and willing to do this, and ultimately, the result is a better offering brought to market.

And in the end, both sides will appreciate the others’ role in the process.

So, to sum up. There should be healthy tension between teams in the PLC process to ensure that the best offerings get brought to market. Teams that don’t experience this healthy tension in their PLC process may have either reached PLC nirvana. Or, if they’re honest, may need to relook at their processes, how well their new offerings actually hit the market with future customers and if their relationships are too cozy so that what needs to be said is not said.