Article: Product Management
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Product Management
Contents |
Product development is the process of designing, building, operating, and maintaining a good or service. Software and Internet companies use a product development process to ensure that they are not just manufacturing a technology, but creating a product that people will want to buy and continue to use. To be sure, a base technology is at the heart of the product, but product development ensures that the customer’s voice is not lost in the rush to an exciting technology.
Product Life Cycle
A typical product (from a software perspective) goes through the following cycle:
- Product Initiation Phase
- Feasibility Phase
- Design and Plan Phase
- Development Phase
- Testing Phase
- Product Launch Phase
- Operation Phase
- Decommissioning Phase
Role of Product Manager
Product management as a discipline is about what the product should be. Product managers are advocates for the customer’s needs and desires. A large product might have numerous product managers working towards its success at a variety of levels, all the way from the junior product manager writing specifications about single feature sets to a product strategy director who has overall responsibility to executive management for the product direction. An interesting aspect of the role of a product manager is to serve as a communications "hub" for a publisher's software, coordinating the different and frequently conflicting wishes, needs and priorities of development, sales, marketing and customers.
Product managers are accountable to executive management for overall product direction, key decisions, product budget (and sometimes even the complete product P&L), ensuring that final product meets specifications, and evangelizing product to internal and external stakeholders. Product managers also have accountability to users for feature sets, navigation, quality, and overall experience.
Relevance to software business
Within Software companies, many a times product management is one of the core business functions. Its relevance from a software business perspective lies in the fact that in order to develop, sell and support a successful software product a business needs to understand its market, identify the opportunity, develop and market an appropriate piece of software.
Links
References
Alyssa S. Dver, Software Product Management Essentials, Anclote Press (2003).