The critical accountabilities for product management effectiveness

I've written previously about product managers in name only, PMINOS. I would like to elaborate on those thoughts, this time focusing more at the organizational level. As part of my consulting practice, I regularly engage with software product organizations that have allocated product-related accountabilities in a way that I consider suboptimal. These experiences prompted me to describe the accountabilities I consider critical for product management to have the influence they should on the product business and life cycle long-term. To have an impact that significantly increases the long-term chances of product success, software products should have a product management function that unites accountability for:

• understanding customers and markets ("external perspective")
• defining and ensuring execution of product strategy
• operational oversight of development work outputs

Although some may consider the first point obvious, some organizations explicitly divide inbound and outbound perspectives in such a way that product managers spend little or no time talking to external stakeholders. I believe it is impossible to develop adequate empathy for stakeholders without direct exposure. Regardless of how tight the collaboration is with other professionals who engage with external stakeholders, PM cannot develop necessary customer understanding by proxy.

The definition and execution of product strategy may also seem like an obvious accountability to many, especially those in smaller product organizations. However, it is not at all uncommon to find product management organizations that are so overwhelmed by tactical challenges that they fail to define a compelling, explicit product strategy, leaving others to infer what they can or enabling others to define it for them. In terms of defining a strategy, I use the OMG Business Motivation Model as a reference model. It's worth noting that a lack of understanding and empathy for external stakeholders results in a strategy that is, put mildly, unlikely to increase the chances of commercial success. The product roadmap is the most practical expression of vision and strategy to all stakeholders. If PM doesn't own the roadmap, I would content there is no way for them to have the impact they should.

Operational oversight of development work outputs is a perhaps an overly fancy way of saying that someone with a strategic, customer-focused perspective needs to continuously engage with engineering as products are being developed to ensure the final product (or incremental product, for that matter) reflects customer wishes and organizational vision and strategy. Communicating insights regarding customer or market needs and educating engineering on business motivation in no way guarantees that development will stay on track as they, in good faith, set about developing complex products. Effective product managers spend a significant amount of their time assessing the work product of development and facilitating corrections as necessary. Offloading all oversight to a product owner who reports to development is a mistake that will eventually compromise execution strategy.

So there you have it, from an organizational perspective, leadership committed to long-term market success must ensure that these accountabilities are united in a healthy, empowered product management function. Would you agree? Is product management properly enabled in your organization? You can find more information on my offerings, including software product management training, on my site.