Roles & Responsibilities

In the world of agile software development, the product manager vs product owner confusion is hardly new. This problem has existed as long as software and product managers have been around. It merely has a new name. If you define their responsibilities in a way that mirrors the business of the customer, the confusion is all but gone. […]

Some days it feels like Agile frameworks are dictating how product management is done. At a minimum, they seem to be dominating the product management narrative in the software industry. If that’s true, it’s not good for your products and it’s not good for your organization. On the other hand, when product management and Agile are 100% complementary, the end result is solutions that make customers better at whatever they do.   […]

When it comes to hiring the right product manager, there’s no foolproof technique. Treat it like you’re shopping for a product. You have a set of needs. There are obstacles to meeting those needs, and you’re going to shop for a person who can best remove those obstacles. The situational interview will quickly separate the contenders from the pretenders. […]

Product usability is the new currency for differentiation. That makes the role of the functional product designer, a.k.a. business analyst, subject matter expert (SME) or agile product owner more critical than it has ever been. Yet many organizations still insist on combining it with the product manager role.  If you want high-value products with superior usability, here are three good reasons for making the functional product designer a separate role. […]