Advancing to Agile From the Traditional Product Management Approach

The Premise

Products can assist businesses in increasing their profit, sales, and efficiency. Companies have been inventing and promoting things for decades just to make people’s life an easy journey. Products have helped businesses to expand outside their own country's borders. Given the significance of such goods and products, firms are spending extensively on product management operations. 

Every stage of a product's lifetime is guided by the product management function. It anticipates everything from development to positioning and pricing by concentrating on the product and its consumers first and foremost. It is a job inside a product development team that effectively performs the product life cycle.

Relationship Between Agile Product Management and Product Managers

The role of product managers is critical in the development of new products and user experiences. They sit at the crossroads between engineering and user experience teams, acting as the glue that ties the unified product vision of both groups together. Above all, product managers define the product strategy and demonstrate how it will affect both the consumer and the company's goals.

In this case, the product owner is the one who leads the project without the assistance of other individuals with different functions, such as a project manager or a product marketer. Agile adheres to a single tenet: change is the only constant. It uses an iterative strategy to adapt to changing technology and consumer needs. 

In today's fast-changing corporate environment, Agile product management has dramatically decreased time in the areas of planned software delivery, measuring progress through the use of metrics, and combining business needs with customer demands. It adheres to a concept of iterative development and gradual support centered on critical developments.

As previously said, Agile product management does not involve a large number of decision-makers or critical stakeholders in the operation of a project, but rather a single product owner who leads the project. The owner is already a member of the Scrum team (which includes a product owner, the scrum head, and the rest of the development team). It also comprises highly competent engineers, designers, and testers) who work closely with the Scrum master and the entire team on a daily basis.

Previously, extensive market research, product development planning, and analysis were performed upfront. A minimal upfront effort is required with Agile product management to reach a clear purpose that states how and what a product will look like and perform in terms of functionality.

Product tweaks and revisions are a continual activity in this environment. There is no such thing as a "defining product" or a specification phase. Based on client input and experience, the product continues to evolve to its maximum potential and capability. This raises the likelihood of producing a high-quality product.

Conventional Product Management Approach and the Big Difference

Conventional product management falls short when dealing with a large number of moving pieces. Managing a portfolio of goods, each at a distinct point of the product life cycle, necessitates a focus on:

• Cross-functional resource sharing
• Prioritizing the delivery of value
• Keeping the consumer needs in mind
• Getting the desired business results

A full contrast of traditional versus Agile product management is provided below.

1. Focus

While the traditional product management approach helps minimize the upfront risk to maximize control, Agile, on the other hand, works towards providing quick delivery within short iterations.

2. Planning and Analysis

The Agile approach to product management is segregated over iterations, unlike the conventional approach which is heavily burdened with the planning and analysis phase.

3. Authority to Approve

The authority to approve product management under the traditional approach lies with the sponsor, while the same lies with the product owner when it comes to the Agile approach.

4. Applicable Situation

With the conventional approach of product management, you have to bear a high level of complexity and high failure cost, but with well-defined requirements set before possible implementation. And, with the Agile approach, although there’s a comparatively low failure cost, the requirements are not well defined.

5. Typical Model

The waterfall model is the typical model that is followed by the conventional product management approach, while for Agile product management, the iterative model is the best.

6. Level of Detailing

There’s usually a high level of detailing under the traditional product management approach, while the Agile approach possesses a low level of detail.

7. Communication

The communication that takes place in the traditional approach of product management is formal, documented, as well as periodic. On the other hand, the Agile approach follows a more flexible way including informal, verbal, and frequent communication. 

8. Emphasis on Requirements Prioritization

The traditional product management approach has a low emphasis on requirements prioritization, while Agile product management has a comparatively high level of emphasis on prioritizing requirements.

9. Task Planning

The task planning under the conventional approach is like first identifying the tasks and then dividing them, while under the Agile approach, the process starts with first identifying the deliverables and then identifying the tasks.

10. Planning, Analysis, Solution

The planning and analysis in the traditional approach are actuated in specific phases, and the solution is defined before the implementation takes place. When we talk about the Agile approach, it could be said that the planning and analysis are actuated iteratively, while the solution is also defined in iterations. 

As opposed to the traditional product management strategy, which involves the client only at the beginning of the development process, Agile software development allows consumers to participate at every stage. This saves money since changes may be made right away. 

Many mistakes and needless expenses would have occurred in traditional software development by the time the project was completed. Agile product management devotes less effort to planning and prioritizing in the beginning. 

Agile procedures are iterative, with product features broken into short sprints. As a result, Agile product management is more adapted to new technological domains. Because of its versatility, it not only allows for better team cooperation but also opens the path for better results.

Conclusion

So, it’s high time that you break through the shackles of the traditional product management approach by adopting Agile product management that helps reduce complexity. How? The Agile approach breaks down large projects that often last months to chart out a cycle for establishing requirements for the entire project, creating the full product post which does testing to identify a hundred defects in the product. Instead, smaller divisions and long-term useful pieces of the product are thought out, constructed, and tested in manageable weekly cycles. Time and cost are important fundamental limitations that the Agile product management scrum considers in order to maximize efficiency.