This post continues from the 2 previous posts Qualities of a Product Manager and Do Product Managers require Domain Experience?
There are 3 reasons that fewer people get the opportunity to be Product Managers though several are interested. First is a natural demand side limit. There are fewer Product Management professionals required by software companies when compared to development or quality engineering professionals.
In product companies like Microsoft (MSFT) and Adobe Systems (ADBE), large products e.g. Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat etc. typically have a team of 2-4 product managers each; looking at various feature sets and business issues related to the product. However, the Development teams for a specific version of Word, Explorer, Photoshop and Acrobat would be a minium of 20 people each.
The second reason is the requirement of a broad skill set which gets developed only after some work experience, as I mentioned in my first post in this series. A related issue is a perhaps an unintended lack of focus on Technology Product Management in MBA programs.
Although, most MBA programs offer, courses related to Product Management; few provide comprehensive modules covering the broad set of issues in Software/Hi-Tech Product Management.
The third reason is that several software companies are not well informed about the Product Management role and its importance. Normally smaller software companies let software developers build a product with top management giving directions. Later if the company grows the engineering driven culture stays. Feature creep and random development of features happens over several versions. The original nimble product gets bloated and unfocused. Then, suddenly a competitor comes out with a product that is perceived to have better marketing strategy, greater customer appeal, more focused feature set, a better developer network startegy, and more satisfied user base. Everyone shrieks out about the need for Product Management!
post 3 or 3
Are you planning to attend the Software Marketing Perspectives Conference and Expo (www.smpevent.com), held June 13-14 at the Santa Clara Convention Center? It focuses on high technology software product management issues, and has many sessions that focus on the real day-to-day issues facing product managers.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 21, 2006 9:29 AM | Permalink to Comment