Software product management

Software product management is the process of managing software that is built and implemented as a product, taking into account life-cycle considerations and generally with a wide audience. It is the discipline and business process which governs a product from its inception to the market or customer delivery and service in order to generate biggest possible value to the business [1]. This is in contrast to software that is delivered in an ad-hoc manner, typically to a limited clientele, e.g. service.

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Software products

A software product is typically a single application or suite of applications built by a software company to be used by *many* customers, businesses or consumers. The mass-market notion differs from custom software built for the use of a single customer by consulting firms like IBM Global Services or Accenture.

Examples of business software products include the Oracle 10g database by Oracle Corporation, SAP R/3 ERP software by SAP AG, QuickBooks by Intuit, etc.

Examples of consumer software products include Microsoft Office by Microsoft, TurboTax by Intuit. Since the late 1990s, many software products have been offered as a service, so that the customers - businesses or end consumers - run the same application without installing the software on their computers. Examples include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software by Salesforce.com, consumer shopping comparison software by Shopping.com, various web search tools offered by Google, Yahoo!, and the auction marketplace by eBay. Even though these applications are not packaged in media that can be touched and felt, they are software products nonetheless, and require the same product management rigor as packaged software do. In fact, they do require more rigor since the product manager must now be concerned with operational concerns such as service availability and third-party relations.

The need for software product management

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. Hence the need for product management as a core business function in software companies [2].

Hardware companies may also have a need for software product management, because software is part of the delivery: for example when providing operating systems or software embedded in a device.

The role of software product manager

The product manager leads and manages one or several products from the inception to the phase-out in order to maximize business value. He is working with marketing, sales, engineering, finance, quality, manufacturing and installation to make his products a business success. He has the business responsibility beyond the single project. He determines what to make and how to make it and is accountable for the business success within an entire portfolio. He approves roadmap and content and determines what and how to innovate. He is responsible for the entire value chain of a product following the life cycle and asks: What do we keep, what do we involve, what do we stop?

Here is a short list of topics how software product managers can deliver better results[1]:

Content of software product management

Software product management covers all steps from inception of a product to its end of life. It consists of five major phases in the product life-cycle, namely:

Within these five phases it deals with the following aspects of a software product within a software and/or hardware company:

The above tasks are not sequential, but can co-exist. For Product Managers to be efficient in the above tasks, they have to have both engineering and marketing skills. Hence, frequently, Silicon Valley firms prefer engineers who are also MBAs to do software product management.

Prioritization

A key aspect of Product Management is the correct prioritization of enhancements. Here's a method that works well (borrowed and adapted from Joel Spolsky):

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Christof Ebert (2009). "Software Product Management" in: Crosstalk, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 15-19, Jan. 2009.
  2. ^ Christof Ebert (2007). "The Impacts of Software Product Management" in: The Journal of Systems and Software. ISSN: 01641212, Volume 80, Issue 6, pp. 850-861, June 2007

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