As we have seen, there is far more to building winning software products than simply packaging the application on a CD and adding an installation script. There are a host of additional factors, some technical, some commercial, that must come together to create a whole product solution that addresses the individual user and the user 's company business needs. Indeed, many of these related factors may contribute as much or more to commercial success as the features of the application itself. [1] By empowering a product manager (or product champion) to define and drive these additional factors, the software team can help assure that the whole product solution is properly defined, developed, positioned, and finally, delivered to the marketplace .
Although this means a very broad scope of responsibility and a lot of hard work for a product manager, the payoffs are just as substantial. When a product gets this kind of attention and support, success cannot be far behind. |