Topic: “Is Product Management Obsolete?” at SVPMA
Speaker: Rich Mironov
When: Weds, Aug 6, 2014
Where: JCC, Palo Alto
The emergence of Agile/Scrum, Lean Startup, LeanUX, business model canvasses and growth hacking have dramatically expanded our range of tools, methodologies and vocabularies. Paired with cloud-based development infrastructure, startups can move from concept to validation to product faster than ever.
New methodologies don’t specifically call out product managers, and their process focus doesn’t match traditional job descriptions. At first glance, it seems like “we’re doing Agile or Lean Startup, so don’t need product managers.” So is this role obsolete?
Our discussion tackled some thorny organizational and skills/tools issues:
- When a startup need its first product manager, and why
- How large companies are different from scaled-up startups, and the product challenges of big organizations
- The need for a single, consistent person to align technology, market inputs and business impact at the product level
Is Product Management Obsolete? from Rich Mironov PDF of slides here.