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What's Wrong with Product Management?

Over at the On Product Management blog, Saeed asks us to complete a brief survey on what the biggest problems are in technology product management.

I answered roughly as follows:

Q1. What do you see as the biggest problems facing the technology product management profession today?
  1. Too much tactical activity in the absence of sound strategy.
  2. The lack at most companies of a skilled interaction designer or user experience professional role.
Q2. What solutions would you suggest to address these problems?
  1. Educate executives about the importance of strategy and how to best determine it.
  2. Hire skilled interaction designers or user experience professionals.
Q3. Which of the following best describes your role/department?
Product Management

Comments

Unknown said…
I really enjoy reading your blog. i'm a business analyst and i started this week with a new client. we had a very long JAD session yesterday and i'm having a hard time distinguishing between requirements, objectives, and business rules.

could you clarify the difference between the three in a sentence or two?
Thu Feb 12, 09:48:00 AM 2009
Roger L. Cauvin said…
AJ, thanks for reading and for your question.

Depending on the context, an objective is a higher level goal that a business is trying to achieve. The business typically has various problems that are preventing it from achieving those goals.

A requirement is the least stringent condition that must exist to solve or avoid a problem that a prospective or existing customer faces. See this entry for details.

A business rule is something that governs a business' processes. It may give rise to requirements, or requirements may give rise to new or modified business rules. See this entry for more details.
Thu Feb 12, 10:15:00 AM 2009
happy said…
Product Management, whats missing is a simplified, agile Product Matrix. If a Product Matrix is single sourced, updated, processed to grow - maybe like a tree. Use trunks, branches and leaves and fruits - as ways of defining a product. Then I believe a lot of amazing, simple, verified group of products can be created, and managed into the new agile markets.
Tue Apr 28, 03:37:00 AM 2009
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