Who are we?

We are a community of product managers, driven by the belief that there is a better way to build a world-class product management organization. In this blog, we write about software product management issues and keep a schedule of free product management webinars.

We also have a variety of contributors among this community of product managers. Coming from various industries and backgrounds, and representing several product management associations, they are like-minded product management professionals with something to say. We're always open to ideas for discussion, posts or opinions on product management. Feel free to email us with your suggestion—or submit your own blog entry and send it to us.

Your bloggers include:

Robin Lowry, VP Product Management
Ryma Technology Solutions

Robin is a co-founder of Ryma Technology Solutions, and brings more than 10 years of experience in product management and product marketing in the software industry, including positions at Surefire Commerce, Micro Tempus, Logos and Interleaf. At Ryma, she is responsible for the strategic and tactical management of the FeaturePlan product line, as well as the coordination of all product related activities. Robin has extensive experience in building high performance product teams in new and emerging markets. Robin is a trained Pragmatic Marketing Product Manager and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Peter Ganza, Director
Solutions Engineering
Ryma Technology Solutions

Peter has more than 10 years of experience in the technology industry. Before joining Ryma, he helped consumers to large enterprises ensure the security and availability of their information with a variety of strategic, product management and technical roles at Symantec Corporation. He was a founding member of Symantec's Competitive Product Management Team, and made contributions to the organization worldwide for over 6 years. At Ryma, he is responsible for the overall direction of the Professional Services Group. Peter is a trained Pragmatic Marketing Product Manager, and studied Computer Foundations from Sheridan College in Toronto, Canada.

Stewart Rogers, Product Manager
Professional Services Group (PSG)
Ryma Technology Solutions

Stewart has more than 8 years of experience in the technology industry. Prior to Ryma, he was at Filogix in Corporate Development and Strategy, responsible for leading two new product development initiatives from idea to prototype to business case. Before that, he was a Product Manager at i2 Technologies, where he led cross-functional teams to launch existing enhancements and new product features, resulting in multi-million dollar annual revenues. At Ryma, he is a Product Manager for the Professional Services Group. Stewart is a trained Pragmatic Marketing Product Manager, and holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from Acadia University in Wolfville, Canada.

Byron Workman, Product Manager
Professional Services Group (PSG)
Ryma Technology Solutions

Byron Workman has five years of experience in deployment of product management applications. At Ryma he is responsible for conducting process gap analyses, integrating process frameworks, developing custom process diagrams expressed in BPMN, developing implementation roadmaps, developing integrated application data models, and delivering role-based training.
Previously Byron worked at Telelogic in both presales and postsales organizations, supporting their product management software application “FocalPoint”, and at Accept Software in presales supporting their application “Accept360”.
Byron has received Sumatran training in the software evaluation and implementation methodology of Progressive Elaboration, PDMA Best-Practices, StageGate, and the 280 Group Framework along with a BA in Computer Information Systems.

Derick Workman, Product Manager
Professional Services Group (PSG)
Ryma Technology Solutions

Derick Workman has 6 years experience in process consulting and implementation of product management best-practices, software and hardware design, and systems engineering. At Ryma he is responsible for demonstrating and implementing FeaturePlan, conducting process gap analyses, and developing custom solutions. He creates and delivers role-based training to companies growing their product management capabilities.
Previously Derick worked at Telelogic in presales, supporting their product management software application “Focal Point”. He also has supported IRQA, a software design application, and SEER SEM, a cost estimation application.
Derick has received Pragmatic Marketing, Progressive Elaboration, StageGate, and PDMA certification training. He majored in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering.

Rob Farish, Solutions Engineer
Ryma Technology Solutions

Rob has more than 14 years experience in the IT industry, primarily focused in the area of Enterprise Application Development and Requirements Management. Prior to joining Ryma he worked at Telelogic and Compuware helping various organizations Design, Build and Implement complex Enterprise Software Solutions. He has experience in many different roles throughout the Application Lifecycle which gives him a unique perspective on the Development Process. At Ryma Rob helps companies take market information and turn it into product requirements, allowing them to build products that are better aligned with their customer's needs. He is responsible for demonstrating and implementing Ryma's FeaturePlan product, conducting process gap analyses, and developing custom solutions. He also creates and delivers role-based training to companies to help them grow their product management capabilities.

Robert Holt, Solutions Engineer
Ryma Technology Solutions

Bob comes to Ryma with over twenty years of product and software development management experience. Prior to joining Ryma, Bob spent several years as the Director of Product Management for AppForge, Inc., a leading supplier of mobile software solutions. Before this work in the mobile industry, Bob was the Director of application development frameworks at Autodesk, Inc. In this role he was Instrumental in creating a development team to support a new generation of object-oriented application programming interfaces to AutoCAD, and in the introduction of significant architectural changes to the base product. Bob's undergraduate and graduate degrees, both in Computer Science, are from Washington University and U.C. Berkeley respectively.

Bob Schmonsees, Founder of the Value Mapping Consortium and R. J. Schmonsees & Associates.

Bob Schmonsees (bob@valuemapping.net) is the founder of the Value Mapping Consortium (www.valuemapping.net), and a leading authority on marketing and sales alignment and effectiveness. He has over 30 years experience as a successful high-tech marketing and sales executive and CEO, and has been featured in several national publications periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Selling Power, B-to-B, and Sales & Marketing Management. Bob's book "Escaping the Black Hole: Minimizing the Damage from the Marketing / Sales Disconnect" is getting rave reviews and is quickly becoming the definitive work on B-to-B marketing and sales alignment and effectiveness.

In the 1980s Bob helped kick start the CRM movement as the CEO of one of the first commercially available contact management software companies, and in 1995 he created the sales enablement market by delivering first commercially available sales coaching system for complex products and services. He has twice been named as one the 100 people that matter in Knowledge Management, and is one of the few people ever to have been granted a patent on a marketing and sales process.

Bob was also ranked as the number one wheel chair tennis player in the world over 40 in the late 1980's. In recent years he helped develop a single rider golf cart with a mechanical swivel seat that enables disabled golfers to play from a seated position. He currently shoots in the high 80's, and has recorded a hole-in-one!