Why? Wherefore? What for?
The following article "Product Management Problems and solutions" is the 1st part of an excerpt from the book "Powerful Communication for Product Managers". For a better understanding, afterwards we recommend to read the continuation Part 2 „What is Product Management in the Company?“.
Current situation. The problem.
Again and again product managers and heads of product management tell me that the reputation of product management is in need of optimization in their company and that you see this as one of your biggest product management problems. Colleagues often think that their situation and their company make them an isolated case.
At this point I can usually reassure my colleagues, because experience over the years has shown that the topic of reputation, the often lacking standing of product management, is very widespread and more typical than the exception.
But why is that? Can that be changed? And if so, how can you change the current situation?
Yes, you can change this situation at any time. But first of all, there are several building blocks that product management has to change in its way of working and communicating in order to succeed.
Since we are dealing with the challenges of product management communication at this point, for the working methods and product management tasks I refer to the Open Product Management Workflow™, which is a diagram and a market-oriented step-by-step method for developing and managing innovative products.
The Workflow shows us with whom we have contact as product managers in the individual phases of the product development, to whom we pass on information and with whom we need to communicate.
Open Product Management Workflow™
- Course: Strategic Product Management
- Course: Technical Product Management
- Course: Successful Go-to-Market
The causes of product management problems
What are the reasons for the communication situation described at the beginning?
Each department in the company has its own specific terminology and has developed its own departmental language over time. There are also departmental requirements that have to be met.
This is exactly where we very often find one of the biggest product management problems. Product managers don't understand the language of the specialist departments, nor do they know the requirements that adjacent departments have to meet. But this is the key to success.
„The secret of success is to understand each other's point of view.“
Henry Ford
Read the continuation: 2. part Product Management in the Company
About the author
Frank Lemser is a trainer and founder of proProduktmanagement.
He has been a market-driven evangelist since the beginning of the 2000s and since then has also been methodically involved with product management. He has developed the Open Product Management Workflow™, numerous tools for product managers, written and published books free of charge and was involved in the development of the Product Management Dashboard for JIRA. His personal goal is to solve many everyday and work problems for product managers, to professionalize and simplify the work for product managers.
