Topic:

Where does/should strategy live in your company?

Synopsis:

Technology companies tend to break strategy into functional pieces: the CTO is responsible for a technology strategy, Marketing has a lead generation strategy and a customer/segmentation strategy, product managers each have a product strategy, Sales drives a channel/partner strategy.  Often there’s a disconnect between these groups and their various strategies.  This is even more frequent among software companies deploying agile development practices, since Engineering often sets up its own customer showcases and gathers some product requirements.

So what are the necessary elements to a company/business unit strategy, and who should participate?  Some companies create strategy departments, which risk losing touch with product groups.  Others form ad hoc teams pulled from various functions.  Rich will talk through some of the ingredients for good strategy, how to mix them together, and some organizational models for making it all work.

Speaker:

Rich Mironov is a software product strategist, thought leader in agile product management, and veteran of four high-tech startups. He consults and writes extensively about product management and the realities of technology companies.  His 25 years in Silicon Valley include technical product roles at Tandem and Sybase, marketing/product leadership at four start-ups, and consulting engagements with more than 40 tech companies.  He thinks pricing software is fun.

Rich is the author of “The Art of Product Management” and the popular “Product Bytes” newsletter.  He serves on the board of SVPMA, and co-chaired the Agile Product Management/Product Owner track at Agile 2009.  Rich has been on the faculty of UC Berkeley’s Center for Executive Education, with guest lectures at MIT's Sloan School, Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business and other MBA programs.  He has has an MBA from Stanford and a BS Physics from Yale.

Location:
DLA Piper
2000 University Ave.(University Circle)
East Palo Alto, CA 94303
Note: These are the tall buildings on the corner of University Avenue and Woodland Avenue on the west side of Hwy. 101. They are in the University Circle complex.
Directions

Agenda:
6:30 - 7:00 p.m. Registration / Networking / Refreshments
7:00 - 7:15 p.m. Announcements and Introductions
7:15 - 8:30 p.m. Presentation and Discussion
8:30 - 8:45 p.m. Wrap-up / Networking

Cost:
$15 at the door for non-SDForum members
No charge for SDForum members
No registration required

Marketing SIG