Leading Product Management: How to Create a High-Performance Product Management Organization

Leading Product Management: How to Create a High-Performance Product Management Organization

In 2008, Steven Haines started a global shift toward the professionalization of product management with his groundbreaking books about product management. Starting with The Product Manager’s Desk Reference, The Product Manager’s Survival Guide, and Managing Product Management. Since then, more than 100,000 readers around the world have referred to Steven’s books to raise the bar on product management excellence. Leading Product Management is the 2nd edition (retitled) of Managing Product Management to encompass a broad array of practices needed to organize any company to focus on people, processes, and products. Haines opens the book with a primer on product management, but then gets to the heart of the matter with a chapter entitled “Reinventing the Wheel for the Last Time.” Why? Because when executives reorganize their companies, they fail to acknowledge the value of the function of product management. This leaves product managers wondering what they’re supposed to do, how they’re supposed to work, and with whom. He proposes a retrospective review of other reorgs and suggests ideas to set some stakes in the ground for the future. The main premise is to “get everyone into product management” with an organizational strategy for product management as well as strategies to manage the product manager talent pool. But how does any executive formulate these strategies? They must create a baseline assessment of their organization’s infrastructure as well as the capabilities of the product managers. Here's where Haines exposes his proprietary product management organizational diagnostic framework so that any executive team can either stand-up a new product management organization, or recalibrate a current product organization. As readers journey across the book, they’ll learn how to create product manager job descriptions, establish cross-functional product teams, and set-up a governance structure. To top things off, the final chapter offers a glimpse into the best practices required to manage the product portfolio. In the end, executives, chief product officers, and directors of product managers will greatly benefit from this new book, and the accompanying course: Implementing and Managing Product Management, offered through Sequent Learning Networks, Steven’s training and advisory company. Visit www.sequentlearning.com for product management training resources.