Five questions with… Matthew Hannigan, Product Manager

We’ve been catching up with some of the CTI Digital team, asking them to explain what they do and why they do it.

Today, it’s the turn of Product Manager Matthew Hannigan, He tells us about his role, agency culture, and getting things done.

CTI: Hi Matty! What is the difference between a project manager and a product manager?

Matt Hannigan: That's a really good question. I started my career as a project manager and moved into product management. The real difference for me is that in product, we're delivering value, whereas in project we're usually just delivering a scope of work.

Project management is predefined, it's come over to you, you've got this big scope of work and it's about delivering exactly what is in that contract. Whereas, within product management, we obviously still have goals and things that we need to achieve, but it's more about learning what is really going to drive that success in the future.

So, there's a lot more time that we spend with the clients as part of product management to really understand their reasons why – ‘Why are we actually doing this project? Why now? What is it you're expecting to change out of it?’

Product management is really about getting under the skin of that business to really understand how we're going to drive it forward. A lot of the time, the ‘why?’ is ‘because we want to make more revenue.’ but it might be something a little bit deeper than that, for example they may want to acquire more customers from other channels. I wouldn't really get to know that detail [when I was] a project manager, because I would see the scope and deliver that. As a product manager, I get a lot more time to understand the actual reasons why we're delivering those projects.

What does it take to be a good product manager?

Matt Hannigan: To be a good product manager, I think you've got to really have a lot of trust with everybody that you're working with. We work with a lot of clients, both new and longstanding, and we've really got to work together to go back to basics.. and really understand why we're doing these things, and what the value is to you. To be able to do that, we take a step back and ask questions that people may not have thought of – that might mean asking silly questions in order to truly understand the nuts and bolts of a business. This process really helps us become part of that client business, just as the client becomes part of our business and part of our project.

Another thing that I think makes a really good product manager – and it sounds a little bit strange – is designing for your own absence. We do a lot of work where we start from scratch, we define what a client’s North Star is, what their key metrics are, and we have a prioritization framework that we use. However, if we're not taking the client along with us on that journey and really helping them understand why we're making those decisions, and if we don't document it all, then there may be issues when our engagement comes to an end. We might find that in around six weeks, if all of that information is left in my head and not documented and handed over, things start to fall apart. So, we really want to make sure that what we're delivering for the clients is something that they can use in the future, that they can really drive themselves, to create lasting value.

What's your favourite type of product or client to work on?

Matt Hannigan: My favourite type of product and type of client is the really technical projects. So, we deliver a lot of different services here at CTI, ranging from defining business strategy to doing UX audits to SEO and growth. But for me, personally, what I really enjoy most is when we've done that discovery work and we're getting into the development. I really enjoy the problem solving element of it.

I enjoy getting my myself and my head into the data to really ensure that the things that we are delivering are grounded in fact rather than assumption. That's just something that I've always enjoyed throughout my whole career – really getting into the nuts and bolts of the websites and products that we're developing.

What defines a good agency team and culture?

Matt Hannigan: This might sound a little bit funny again, but I think a good sign inside of an agency is how fast bad news travels. At CTI, we've got such an open team and an open culture, so bad news is surfaced early, when it is best tackled. That might mean somebody saying, “this is going to take me a little bit longer than I thought it would.” And that person knows that we can then forecast better, and communicate better with our clients. That transparency and trust that we're always trying to build with everybody that we work with – it creates a good culture and it bubbles up into our projects with our clients as well.

How do you cope with the demands of an agency environment?

Matt Hannigan: Agencies are very busy and there's obviously a lot of different priorities that we need to juggle. I always feel like every day, I go to ‘eat the frog’ – that was something that I learned a while ago about ensuring that we're doing appropriate time management. So, every day I come in and I do that single most important thing, that one thing on my job list straight away and get that out of the way. There's a lot of different meetings that happen in agencies, a lot of different ad hoc requests that come in, but if you've eaten that frog, you know your most important task is done that day and everything else just sort of falls into place.

But it's really about time management – ensuring that you've got ample focus time to really get your head into doing that job, and making time for yourself to do that as well. So, booking it out in your calendar, or pushing back on meetings, which is absolutely fine to do.

Connect with Matty on LinkedIn.