DevOps and Product Management
Question: "How does DevOps relate to product management?"
DevOps is a collective term that describes practices geared at efficiently building and deploying software products.
Indirect benefits of DevOps include fostering a collaborative and more streamlined relationship between development and operations and generating internal feedback to improve the product.
Blackblot has identified four distinct Schools of Thought in Product Management:
- Generalization approach (product manager does everything, aka CEO of the Product).
- Technology approach (product manager is part of product development and subservient to the development method).
- Business approach (product manager is focused on the business aspects of the product, primarily money).
- Methodology approach (product management is governed by foundation rules, as in PMTK).
Under the Generalization approach (product manager does everything, aka CEO of the Product), DevOps is probably something that the product manager needs to be aware of.
DevOps is integral to the job with the Technology approach (product manager is part of product development, and subservient to the development method).
The Business approach (product manager is focused on the business aspects of the product, primarily money) will disregard DevOps since the thinking is geared mainly towards business.
PMTK represents the Methodology approach (product management is governed by foundation rules). According to the second foundation rule of the Blackblot PMTK Methodology™, DevOps resides in the solution space and therefore is in no way part of product management.