Meet Ronald Weinacht: The First Recipient of the SPM High-5 Certification Award
ISPMA has created the new SPM High-5 Certification Award, to recognize product managers who have received all five available ISPMA SPM Certificates. The first to be presented with the new award is Roland Weinacht from Linz, Austria. Roland is a product manager at S&T Smart Energy GmbH in Linz, whose core business is smart metering and which is part of the Austrian technology group S&T AG.
ISPMA Chairman Hans-Bernd Kittlaus (HBK) spoke with Roland Weinacht (RW) on the occasion of giving the SPM High-5 Certification Award to him.
HBK: Congratulations, Roland! You are the first to get our new SPM High-5 certification award. We are very happy. And thank you also for doing this interview.
RW: My pleasure.
HBK: Let’s start with the topic of motivation. What motivated you to strive for all five ISPMA certificates?
RW: My goal was and is to do a good job in product development and to move the products forward. The trainings were to help me in my transition from a more technical software engineer to a professional product manager. That was essentially my motivation. I graduated in Software Engineering in Hagenberg in Upper Austria in 2002. Hagenberg is a renowned school and always at the top of the industry rankings. I enjoyed a very good technical education there and also had the pleasure of completing my professional internship and diploma thesis at the European nuclear research center CERN. That’s where the famous particle accelerators are and where, in particular, the Internet was born.
HBK: Isn’t that in Switzerland?
RW: Yes, exactly, that’s in Geneva, or rather on the border between Switzerland and France. After that, I worked in the research department of the University of Applied Sciences and was partly involved in teaching, later I decided to go into industry. The development of software from a technological point of view has always fascinated me. It was also very exciting to see what developments have taken place since the end of my studies, especially in the direction of Agile, DevOps, Mobile, Cloud, AI, and so on. These topics provide opportunities that can be used very well in product development.
HBK: Absolutely.
RW: Developing software is a complex task and always an exciting challenge. But an even more exciting task is developing products that not only work perfectly from a technical point of view, but also really solve customer problems and also work economically. And that’s where I think a good education can help to increase the chances of success for the products and thus the economic success of one’s company. This was just as important a motivation for me.
The SPM Foundation Level was my start in Linz in June 2016. I already noticed that the content gave me a different perspective on software product development, which made me want to do more. I attended the Excellence modules in Copenhagen. Each Excellence module covers an essential and different aspect of the PM role and helps to understand the whole thing even better. Product Strategy and Product Planning are certainly core competencies and were therefore mandatory. The reason for Strategic Management was to better understand the workings and interrelationships at C-Level and Management Board, which ultimately have a very significant impact on product development and direction. Orchestration contributes to the success of the product in the sense that you have to coordinate everything well with the different people or departments and manage the challenge of leading without line responsibility. It was important for me to get a comprehensive view. I think this is also essential because the product and company context are subject to permanent change, which consequently also influences the activities of product management. A lot depends on where the product is in the product life cycle or in which phase the company is. There can be changes in the product portfolio, market dynamics and competitive behavior have an influence, as well as technological change, e.g. cloud strategies. You have to be on top of that all the time, and it can have important consequences for the products. It is a very versatile task, and there is no “one size fits all”; you never stop learning.
HBK: Would you say that the 5 ISPMA modules cover the job completely? Or have you identified anything that you are missing?
RW: The framework and the five modules offer very deep insight. But I think there’s always room for specialization. So the core, I think, is really well covered. You can always specialize further on the basis of that.
HBK: Yes, of course. For a topic like business case, you can do a two-day training alone.
RW: Yes, or Continuous Discovery, for example.
HBK: Of course, there is always the question of what makes sense as a standard training? In ISPMA, we have prioritized the topics and put together the modules on that basis. But of course, for individual topics you can always go much deeper. Looking at your experience, would you recommend the five modules to other product managers?
RW: Absolutely! If, like me, you come from a technical background and want to make or are about to make a transition into product management, then it is absolutely recommended because it simply conveys a different way of thinking than you know from technology. It’s really a huge benefit when you learn in the training sessions what is important in product development from a business perspective that you might not initially think about as a technician.
HBK: When you look at the structure of the ISPMA curriculum in terms of division into Foundation Level and then the four Excellence Level modules, but also in terms of time allocation for the different modules, did you find that appropriate? Would you expect more or less time for certain topics?
RW: I think it depends very much on what kind of product manager you are. There are different orientations, e.g. more from the product definition, technical product managers, or strategic, or more marketing-oriented.
HBK: I just meant my question for you personally.
RW: For me, it’s more about product definition, so it was a good fit. Product planning was the main component for me, followed by product strategy. For Strategic Management and Orchestration, two days each were fine.
HBK: How do you see the possibility of having an exchange with the other participants or the trainer in the training sessions?
RW: That was an important additional value for me. So it wasn’t just that we got the content, but that we also learned from practice how others are doing? What are the challenges that others are struggling with? Do I have challenges that others have been able to overcome? What were their strategies? I also think it’s important to learn from other product managers. And to be able to learn from their experience, but also to be able to contribute something yourself. What I also found very good was when you brought in your wealth of experience. That was always very, very valuable in the discussions and to the point. Really great!
HBK: Thank you! If you found that valuable, would you say you prefer physical face-to-face trainings over online trainings because of the exchange? Or do you see that fulfilled in online trainings as well?
RW: I have only attended face-to-face trainings and would prefer them. Online is not the same, although of course in the current Corona crisis it is better than no training at all. Online turns out to be more difficult in terms of contact with people and interaction, including social. I always liked it when we went out to dinner together in the evening and could exchange ideas. You can’t do that with online training.
HBK: How did you experience the certification exams?
RW: Fortunately, I passed all of them on the first try. The level of difficulty was reasonable. My personal impression was that Product Strategy and Product Planning were somewhat more challenging. In terms of the questions, I think all areas of knowledge were always well covered. Often scenarios were sketched out, where you then had to decide as a PM what the better option was. That could be quite tricky. There were hardly any questions that were not covered in the training. But with some prior knowledge and application of the training content, I was able to solve them.
Through the training days and through the exercises and discussions, the material was definitely better internalized compared to the case that one would take a certification exam only with paper preparation. From this point of view, the training was a good preparation for the exam. The preparation effort was significantly reduced by the training, but it was an advantage to repeat the material in the evening. The training materials were definitely sufficient for the exam, and the amount of material was also very good.
HBK: Did you feel pressed for time during the exams?
RW: Funnily enough, I felt a bit more pressure with the Foundation Level exam. Either because of the time pressure or because it was my first certification ever. Otherwise, it was fine. When you’re not a native speaker, you get a little more time. That helps, too. There was plenty of time on the Excellence Level exams. You can’t dawdle, but there was enough time.
HBK: Did you find it better to do the respective test on the last day following the training, or would you rather do it with a little more time in between to prepare?
RW: Taking the exam at a later time has the disadvantage that you have to look for a certification body and organize the date yourself. I much preferred that I could take the exam right after the training. This was also easier with the content of the discussions still in my head. But of course, this also has a “sporty” component, because you then have to fully know the material from the last day shortly afterward in the exam. Your tip was valuable to read the syllabus before the training.
HBK: Yes, that’s why I always recommend it. Now that you have completed these 5 ISPMA modules, you see further need as far as your personal training is concerned.
RW: That always depends very much on where you stand with your own products and what the focus is in your own company. The training courses have provided me with a very in-depth basis. Everything else is then really very individual and situational, where you can go deeper.
HBK: That’s where you would see a coaching approach rather than group training?
RW: Coaching is of course a different form of learning, more tailored and individual. That would certainly be the advantage, yes.
HBK: Thank you very much, Roland, for the great feedback!
RW: Thank you for developing this ISPMA curriculum! It has helped me a lot, and I don’t know anything like it.
