Thursday, February 23, 2006
The XP Customer
James Shore recently wrote about responsibility Product Manager for the success of the project. You can read his article here.
When you are company that sells a software product you have multiple customers in the XP sense. You have your Product Manager, the third party resellers and the actual users of the system.
The third party resellers want to see the flash, they want to see the features that show well in the demo's. The features may not be the ones that the end users will actually use, but they are the ones that will get the resellers to show your product.
The end users want features that make their jobs easier. They want the bugs fixed. They want a better product.
This is where your Product Manager is going to earn his keep. He has to juggle the best interests of your product. He must choose the features that will impress the resellers while ensuring that the product continues to satisfy the demains of current users while attracting new users.
To quote James:
So... get a good product manager. If your company won't commit the resources for this critical member of the team, maybe your product isn't valuable enough to be developing in the first place.
"Product Managers Are Critical To Success (James Shore)
¶ 8:45 PM
