Beyond the PMO: IT Turns to Product Lifecycle Management

Corporate IT groups have been talking for years about ROI and strategic alignment with business. But according to our conversations with a variety of IT organizations this year, something is still missing.

The Customer Satisfaction Gap

• We still hear about projects that don't meet user needs – so ROI goes unrealized, and the business goes unsupported.
• Internal satisfaction scores are low, and tight development schedules don't allow for fixes or enhancements on the next round of projects.
• IT groups are still viewed as "not responsive to the business." When IT dedicates more of its budget to existing applications, it risks being viewed as reactive, not strategic.
• LOB managers turn to outside vendors for solutions, further eroding IT's influence.

What's the solution?
Many IT groups are looking at Product Management as the discipline that puts portfolio management on the right level. IT embraced portfolio management to help choose the best projects to meet business needs and produce ROI. Product Management looks at product life cycles over the long run to help with realistic business-cycle planning.

While it may be tempting to think of Product Management as applying only to the products and services your organization sells, let's take a closer look at how it might help an IT group.

Get Closer to the Internal Customer
In companies where IT is key to how products or services are delivered, it's even more important to pair Technology Product Managers with business unit Product Managers. The foundation of Product Management practice is customer focus – detailed understanding of customer problems, needs and wants. This means getting IT's Technical Product Managers out into the business units they support, so IT can see first-hand where and how technology supports company strategy and operations.

Consider COTS
Technical Product Managers can also add value by ensuring that when IT resources are tapped, it's for projects that either reinforce the company's unique value-add in the marketplace, or create hard-to-duplicate advantages for the company. This may mean looking to commercial off-the-shelf solutions as the rule rather than the exception.

Map It
The alignment with company positioning and differentiation also allows IT to create technology roadmaps driven by business and market needs. Technology roadmaps are essential in long-term planning to identify how market needs and technology product life cycle needs will interact.

Focus on Adoption
A key point of failure for many IT projects continues to be user adoption. Good Product Management practice involves rolling out solutions with the needed communication, pilots, training, and follow-up programs to ensure successful adoption.

Keep Tabs
Good follow-up also requires someone who is responsible for monitoring application performance and satisfaction over months and years, not just a few weeks after deployment. That's traditionally the role of a Product Manager. The information flows back into the product life cycle and roadmap for consideration during portfolio review and planning.

Get Support to Make the Transition
Can Product Management practices help you? If so, how do you introduce them to your organization? As with any change, you'll need to set the vision, map out changes in organization, roles, and responsibilities, and then provide training and coaching in the new skills and behaviors you want.

Step 1
The first step is to apply our IT/Business Alignment Diagnostic Tool. It's a set of questions to help your IT department assess the potential benefits of Product Management practices.

Fill out this month's Hot Button Survey and you can request your own complimentary copy
of the Diagnostic Tool.  

Pivotal Product Management offers the support you need, from assessing the product management skills of your existing staff, through process development and skills training, and then coaching to reinforce the new way of doing things. Contact us at info@pivotalpm.com for more information about our services.