The Best-in-Class Product Manager Part 1: The Policy Pillar

In my recent series, I outlined 42 questions a product manager should ensure are answered across the following software development life cycle phases:

• Product Strategy – The reason a product exists, and its intended goals.
• Product Roadmapping – The broad timeline in which future product capabilities are slated for release.
• Initiative Planning – The definition of a project to deliver capabilities within a budget and schedule timeline.
• Solution Design – The people, processes, systems and policy designs required to deliver the required capabilities.
• Solution Development – The people, processes, systems, and policy capabilities developed and ready for testing, training, and deployment planning.
• Solution Readiness – All solution aspects are accepted and ready to be deployed.

The foundation of these 42 questions is based on a product manager functioning as something I call a business system steward, which at its core requires focus on four pillars:

1. Policy – The governing corporate and regulatory rules a business system must align and adhere to
2. People – The skills and knowledge humans need to enable a business system
3. Process – The human activities required both with and without technology to enable a business system
4. Technology – The automation required to enable a business system

In my experience, a best-in-class product manager ensures that all four pillars are at the forefront throughout the SDLC and that the resulting business system reflects alignment and, in some cases, tradeoffs among the pillars.
This four-part series will deep-dive into what I believe to be critical policy, people, process, and technology factors that separate best-in-class from average product managers. This first part focuses on policy.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 

---