Software companies often have a separate Product Manager role or department. This person or group is responsible for setting strategic product direction, determining the feature set to be included in specific product releases, naming of versions, setting the highest level of schedule requirements, and determining the target market segments or customer groups the product is aimed at. Each company organizes responsibilities a bit differently. There are overlaps with designers (both are concerned with product feature sets and target customers). There are overlaps with project managers (both are concerned with schedules and the features to be included in specific releases). There are overlaps with marketing (both are interested in presenting the right product to the right market segment). The difference that I see is that a product manager has a tight business focus rather than technical or informational or design-oriented. A strong product manager with good connections helps shape a competitive product in the marketplace. Weak or non-existing product managers lets designers/developers/marketeers go nuts and build things that nobody really wants.
All the above is IMHO - I haven't ever been a product manager, but have worked with some good ones. PMs and friends on the list please correct or clarify if you can. Thanks, hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:11:57, ELISABETH HUBERT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In response to Michael what exactly do you refer to when you say the > product management side? > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
