The PM Vision

For those of you currently practicing agile product management, product ownership or both, there’s a great new episode of Joshua Duncan’s Start with the Customer Podcast that you should take some time to listen to.

Before I go any further, all of the episodes in Josh’s product marketing podcast are worth listening to!  That said, this one is particularly of interest to agilists, as it features two well-spoken and outspoken leaders in the field.  Scott Sehlhorst, who blogs at Tyner Blain, and Saeed Khan, who blogs at On Product Management, are both seasoned product managers who have both worked with agile engineering teams, and have also applied agile concepts and framework to the work of product management.  In this podcast, the difference between those two models of “agile product management” is explored, along with several other topics agile , including:

- Saeed’s reminder that “product management has always been agile!” – it’s development who are finally catching up.  Saeed also staunchly defends the need for product managers to continue to do the large segment of product management work that does not involve engineering–much of which is not accounted for in the typical definition and implementation of the “product owner” role.

- Scott’s reminder that while the tactical approach to solving a problem may change more frequently, the larger strategy–which he crisply defines as addressing a specific set of problems for a specific subset of customers, in a specific target market–doesn’t.

Thanks, guys, for the enlightening discussion!  Have a listen today.

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