Managing Product Management: Empowering Your Organization to Produce Competitive Products and Brands

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES AND DISCONNECTS

Several years ago, my firm worked with a midsize software and services company. Our project involved an organizational diagnostic, composed of competency assessments and interviews with 48 product managers and 9 managers of the product managers. We also interviewed the CEO and 12 of the leaders in other functions. Our findings revealed some challenges.

Although the majority of the population of product managers had “product manager” in their job title, most were generally referred to as “project managers.” In fact, more than three-quarters of those interviewed used “product manager” and “project manager” interchangeably. Ultimately, we found 32 different job titles among 48 staff members.

In one area, there ...