Defining Product Management
Question: "Please define Product Management."Product management is an occupational domain which holds two professional disciplines: product planning and product marketing. This is because product functionality is built for the user via product planning and the product's value is presented to the buyer via product marketing. A somewhat more expanded interpretation would be to view product management as an occupational domain that is based on general management techniques which are focused on product planning and product marketing activities.
Product planning and product marketing are very different but due to the collaborative nature of these two disciplines, some companies erroneously perceive them as being one discipline, which they call product management. Done carefully, it is very possible to functionally divide the product management domain into product planning and product marketing, yet retain the required synergy between the two disciplines.
The product planning and product marketing disciplines respectively focus on the users' and buyers' needs. Therefore, the product management domain resides solely in the "Problem Space", and the engineering domain resides in the "Solution Space".
Accordingly, the Blackblot Product Manager's Toolkit® (PMTK) methodology's two foundation rules:
- Product management is comprised of product planning and product marketing.
- Product management resides solely in the problem space.
The two PMTK foundation rules are the guiding principles of product management.
For more information, please visit the narrated video presentation that explains the definition of product management according to the Blackblot PMTK Methodology™.