What Is Product Management?

Like software architecture, product management has a variety of definitions. One that I've found useful is as follows :

Broadly speaking, the product manager has two responsibilities. First, the product manager is responsible for planning activities related to the product or product line. Thus, the product manager's job involves analyzing the market, including customers, competitors , and the external environment, and turning this information into marketing objectives and strategies for the product. Second, the product manager must get the organization to support the marketing programs recommended in the plan. [Lehmann and Winer, 2002]

My own definition is a bit simpler: Product management is the comprehensive set of activities required to create and sustain winning solutions. It is like software architecture in that it is also about "the big picture." In reality, though, the big picture of product management is an even bigger picture than that of software architecture. Product managers deal with everything from pricing the product to creating data sheets, from defining and educating the sales channel to monitoring the behavior of competitors. The job is no less difficult than that of an architect and in some ways is considerably harder.