Last week there was a discussion on usefulness of Project Management in product development in this blog. Umasree Raghunath added a detailed comment on the topic. I thought it deserves to be highlighted as a separate guest blog. Here goes…
I would like to begin with a vital way of we perceiving the service industry today. To most of us working in the IT industry, the applications we build is also considered as Products. And hence Product Management and Project Management widely go hand in hand.
Project Management is a process of achieving the Product Management. For example, in a project of constructing a Bridge or a Dam, the end result is considered a Product … where the process of initiating till the product is made usable to larger masses, the process of managing the same is Project Management…
Shorter than a decade’s time, we will see the value of Project Management for bringing in better Products….be it consumer durables, machinery and infrastructure, service utilities or the big and broader projects including space projects and inter continental relationships …. In fact, Product Management is not confined to the building up the product and selling it in the market…. the entire gamaut of tasks includes project or phase wise planning ( Infrastructure, machinery, resources, government licenses, etc), design (architecture,layouts, designs), development ( manufacturing in product terminology), testing ( Quality Assurance and Quality control in product rating), Release Management ( Grading, standardization, packaging, shipping) and finally GO Live (in IT), Sales & Distribution (in Products scenario)…so to me the whole list of activities are almost the same, with few customizations here and there depending on the business need.
So it is even a wrong argument to raise that Product Management do not need Project Management, not Project Management is not applicable to Products…. in the larger global economy and the bilateral trade arena, from the retail, domestic markets to wholesales, global markets, companies would achieve success and profits only when it managed and handled well, and for this, defined way of management as specified in Project Management is any day a better way to handle business.
Am sure governments will save millions of dollars that are caused to project overruns…had they employed good project managers to handle them with proper risk and compliance planning and save resources and millions that can support other govenrmental initiatives for the developing Nations.
Any comments on this comment?
Related posts:
- Project Management in Product Companies Vs. Service Companies – Harikumar R
- Project management in Product companies – Krishna Shivaramakrishnan
- Is Communication a Challenge or a Blessing? – by Umasree Raghunath
- Does the role of Project Manager end with managing projects?…An Analysis by Umasree
- Does the role of Project Manager End with managing projects? The answer is “NO” – Umasree
