Division of Labor – Product Management
Question: "There is always some contention between Product Management and the other organizational departments, particularly with Development. How can we foster healthy interpersonal relationship across various departments in an organization?"
Good interpersonal interaction within a company is achieved only by ensuring that roles and responsibilities are profoundly clear, understood by everyone, and are consistent. Division of labor, known responsibilities and clear ownership is a must.
Furthermore, it must be clear to everybody that the roles in Product Management are not responsible for technology nor for product quality. This is because product management resides completely in the problem space, not in the solution space. The roles in the solution space are responsible for the product's quality: the Product Architect is responsible for the product's marketing quality and the Product Developer is responsible for the technological quality.
- Marketing Quality – market's perception of the degree at which the company or product can consistently meet or exceed customers' expectations.
- Technological Quality – highest MTBF (mean time between failures) and lowest MTTR (mean time to repair).
For more information, please see the Blackblot Product Management Team Model and the Blackblot Product Definition Team Model. Also see the "Product Management Team" and the "Product Definition Team" chapters in the "Product Manager's Toolkit" book.
