In my last blog on the Seven Pillars of Product Management, I mentioned some of the uses of the Seven Pillars. Today I'd like to take a closer look at how the Seven Pillars are used for deployment. But first:

Warning: THE SEVEN PILLARS DOESN'T CONTAIN ALL THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INNOVATION VALUE CHAIN.

The 37 activities within the Pragmatic Marketing Framework don’t make up a complete activity listing of the innovation value chain either. The Seven Pillars contain all the activities of the Product Management team, not the entire value chain. Yes, the activities of the Pragmatic Marketing Framework are included within the Seven Pillars, but are organized in context of deployment. There are thousands of approaches used to accomplish product management objectives, the Seven Pillars help select the right method for you out of all possibilities available. The mixes and combinations of these methods produce different results, much like nutrition and our bodies.

This is an important point, you should think of the Seven Pillars as food groups. As you incrementally increase your product management capability, you want to keep a balance of activities within each Pillar (or food group). I list these Pillars in the diagram below:

Organizations grow outward from the center as they increase product management capability. The trick is to maintain a balance of activities within each of Pillar throughout the deployment. It's true that in reality, we grow somewhat like an amoeba, throwing out pseudopods every which way. We struggle to keep these growth spurts synchronized and balanced.

Use the Seven Pillars as a mental model to self-assess your current capability. Are you currently performing activities within each of the Seven Pillars? Don't worry about imbalances between the Pillars yet. The focus shouldn't  be how much, just focus on whether or not you're doing something. It's natural to look like an amoeba at first, this is a sign of organic growth; we tend to grow in disciplines  that we're good at, not necessarily where its needed. If you're missing activity in one Pillar, say Opportunity Definition, then add activity here before increasing capability where you're already strong and aware of your weaknesses. You may say, "But we need help over here...!@#%"

Remember, just like your body, the activities of the Product Management Team act like a system. Without activities in each of the Pillars, you can't properly identify system constraints. The result is that you invest in fixing issues that in reality are just symptoms, not causes. We see a slight improvement, and then things balance out with very little sustained improvement.

With at least some activity in each of the Seven Pillars, you can establish performance baselines for each Pillar. You don't need to get down in the weeds of each activity. All the activities within each Pillar focus on the production of one product management primary asset. Monitor performance metrics for each of these assets. Each Pillar has a throughput value and overall latency for the asset it is producing. Also, monitor asset stockpiles, and asset turnover rates within those stockpiles.

Now you're in a position to manage the activities of the Seven Pillars as a system of systems, identify system constraints and diagnose a meaningful deployment strategy going forward. Your system's key constraint is where you want to focus your improvement efforts. This is where you'll get the largest return on your improvement investments.

By the way, this is one of my favorite topics, so I love to hear from you and get your thoughts. We've only touched the surface.