Assignment # 05
Spring 2011
Spring 2011
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Assignment:
Q.No.1
Download the article “Bridging the gap between software product management
And software project management” from the following link:
http://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/CS615/Downloads/Bridging%20the%20gap%20between%20software%20product%20management%20and%20software%20project%20management.pdf
Or login to your LMS and go to “Downloads” tag to download it.
After reading the articles you have to give answer to the following question:
Q.No.1 Based on the discussion in the given paper explain the relationship between project management and product management.
Note: write answer in your own words, copied from the given article or from friend will be awarded zero.
Bridging the gap between software product management
and software project management
Christina Manteli
Department of Information and
Computing Sciences
PO Box 80.089, 3508TB Utrecht,
The Netherlands
manteli@cs.uu.nl
Inge van de Weerd
Department of Information and
Computing Sciences
PO Box 80.089, 3508TB Utrecht,
The Netherlands
i.vandeweerd@cs.uu.nl
Sjaak Brinkkemper
Department of Information and
Computing Sciences
PO Box 80.089, 3508TB Utrecht,
The Netherlands
s.brinkkemper@cs.uu.nl
ABSTRACT
This paper presents an empirical research to the relations and
dependencies between the fields of software product management
and software project management in product software companies.
By carrying out interviews and an online survey, we answer
several current business issues on the leadership roles of product
and project managers within the organizational structure, and
provide a definition of software products and software projects
based on their dependencies.
Keywords
Software product management, software project management,
software development, product software
1. INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH
APPROACH
Quite few attempts have been made so far [e.g. 1, 2, 3] to distinct
between software product management and software project
management. Within software product companies, both fields play
a vital role in the organization and coordination of their activities
and processes [4, 5]. The related activities and processes do not
only deal with the development of the software product but also
with the overall organization of the company's market strategy,
the product portfolio management, the launch preparation of the
product as well as the customers’ support and communication
efforts before and after sales [6, 7, 8, 9].
The success of product management and project management
activities is dependent on the way companies organize and
coordinate software product management and software project
management together [10]. Therefore, the main research question
focuses on: What is the relationship between software product
management and software project management within the context
of an independent software vendor? The initial purpose is to
formalize that relationship with the construction of a theoretical
framework.
The research conducted is a theory-oriented research and it
consists of two main parts; a theory-building (or exploratory)
research and a theory testing research [11]. The theory building
methodology is qualitative in nature and is based on a literature
review of previous researches as well as on six semi-structured
interviews among six Dutch software product companies. During
the theory testing, a quantitative analysis is performed upon data
that have been gathered through an online survey among 39
respondents. The respondents were mainly project and product
managers as well as product management experts.
Combining the interviews and the survey, the research uses a
data triangulation approach, which refers to the data evaluation
through multiple sources of information [11]. This also addresses
the problems of construct validity since the multiple sources of
evidence provide essential measures of the same problem domain
[12].
2. THEORY BUILDING AND THEORY
TESTING
During the theory building part, the building blocks of the
research are constructed. First, the definition of the scope of a
software product and a software project will enable a more
concrete examination of the relationships between these two
terms. In order to examine the relationship between product
managers and project managers, several aspects that influence
their collaboration should be taken into consideration.
A software management framework that includes the
aforementioned concepts is presented in Figure 1. To define the
scope of the concepts, we broke down the overall aims (or
requirements) of the product and the project into a number of
smaller, more closely defined goals [13]. In addition, the role-
specific characteristics and role positioning of product managers
and product managers are added.
2.1 Results
First, the participants were asked to indicate the degree of
influence between the independent variables (time, quality, and
cost) to the dependent variables (market success, customer
satisfaction, and business goals). The overall means are
summarized in Table 1. We can see that the respondents agree that
quality has a higher influence on the market success of a software
product and its customer satisfaction than time and budget
(p=0.00). These factors can also be described as the external
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Conference’10, Month 1–2, 2010, City, State, Country.
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aspects of the software product and in general there seems to be a
tendency in software product companies, to attribute more value
on the delivered quality
Table 1. Software product and software project results
Market Success
Time Quality Cost
3.77 4.18 3.88
Customer Satisfaction
Time Quality Cost
3.49 4.59 3.05
Business Goals
Time Quality Cost
3.79 3.56 3.72
Looking at the role-specific qualifications of product managers
and project managers, we found several significant relations. First,
the skills orientation of product and project managers within a
software product company is related not only to the qualifications
that characterize each one of the two roles but also to the
communication between them. Based on the results of both the
interviews and the online survey, there is a tendency for product
managers to be more business oriented (focusing on managerial
skills, communications and leadership qualifications) and for
project managers to be more technical oriented (having a more in
depth knowledge of software engineering and software
programming).
Secondly, the results have also shown that the greater the gap
between business and technical skills of the two roles, the less
successful the communication between them within the company.
This means that, despite the above skills orientation, both roles
need to understand each other in order to communicate and work
together in the most efficient way. Consequently, hat both product
and project managers need to possess both business and technical
skills.
In addition, the survey results showed that product managers are
involved with significantly higher levels of decision-making
(Strategic) whereas the project managers are more into the every
day, and short-term decisions (Operational). Working together,
both product and project managers are involved into the tactical
decisions which concern a more mid-level spectrum of the
organizational goals. This pattern seems to be perceived as a
successful solution, which enables a better collaboration between
product and project managers.
Finally, the departmental positioning and the hierarchical
relationship were examined not only as an organizational matter
but also as a factor that can influence the relationship between
product and project managers. It was suggested that the further
apart the two roles are positioned, that is, the more levels in
between both horizontally and vertically in the organizational
structure, the greater the communication gap between them.
Figure 1. Software Management Conceptual Model
3. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER
RESEARCH
We answered the research question stated in Section 1 by
decomposing it into two sub-problems: the relationship between
product and projects and the relationship between product
managers and project managers. In our survey, we identified
several significant relations. However, we think a complementary
and more detailed examination on the way product companies
organize the internal and external activities that link their product
management and project management processes is necessary.
4. REFERENCES
[1] Clements, P. C., Jones, L. G., Northrop, L. M., and
McGregor, J. D. 2005. Project Management in a Software
Product Line Organization. IEEE Softw. 22, 5 (Sep. 2005),
54-62. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MS.2005.133
[2] Barney, S., Aurum, A., and Wohlin, C. 2008. A product
management challenge: Creating software product value
through requirements selection. J. Syst. Archit. 54, 6 (Jun.
2008), 576-593. DOI=
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sysarc.2007.12.004
[3] Ebert, C. 2009. Software Product Management. Crosstalk,
22, 1 (Jan. 2009), 15-19.
[4] Komssi, M., Kauppinen, M., Heiskari, J., and Ropponen, M.
2009. Transforming a Software Product Company into a
Service Business: Case Study at F-Secure. In Proceedings of
the 2009 33rd Annual IEEE international Computer
Software and Applications Conference - Volume 01 (July 20
- 24, 2009). COMPSAC. IEEE Computer Society,
Washington, DC, 61-66. DOI=
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/COMPSAC.2009.18
[5] Ebert, C. 2007. The impacts of software product
management. J. Syst. Softw. 80, 6 (Jun. 2007), 850-861.
DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2006.09.017
[6] van de Weerd, I., Brinkkemper, S., Nieuwenhuis, R.,
Versendaal, J., and Bijlsma, L. 2006. Towards a Reference
Framework for Software Product Management. In
Proceedings of the 14th IEEE international Requirements Engineering Conference (September 11 - 15, 2006). RE.
IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, 319-322.
DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/RE.2006.66
[7] Weerd, I. van de, Brinkkemper, S., Versendaal, J.
(forthcoming). Incremental method evolution in global
software product management: A retrospective case study.
/Accepted for publication in the Journal of Information &
Software Technology
[8] Haines, S. 2009. The Product Manager's Desk Reference.
McGraw Hill, New York.
[9] Kerzner, H. 2001. Project Management: A systems approach
to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. John Wiley & Sons
Inc.
[10] Gorchels, L. 2000. The Product Manager's Handbook: The
Complete Product Management Resource. McGraw Hill
(2000)
[11] Dul. J., Hak, T. 2007. Case Study Methodology in Business
Research. Elsevier Ltd.
[12] Yin, R. 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods.
SAGE Publications.
[13] PMBOK Guide: A guide to the project management body of
knowledge. 2006. Newtown Square, PA. Project
Management Institute.
[14] Manteli, C., Weerd, I. van de, Brinkkemper, S. 2010. An
empirical research to the relationships between software
product management and software project management.
Technical report UU-CS-2010-004. Utrecht University.
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Solution IDEA Expand it in your own words
Software project refer to development of software product. On the other hand project and product closely related to each other. Product and project management are highly related to each other. Project Managers involved day to day decision making while product managers interact in high levels of decision making. Software product management can be considered a relative young field, not only the academic environment where there is a considerable gap in researches on the particular topic, but also in the business field where software companies feel uncertain on the way software product management should be organized. Software product includes processes and activities that are concerned mostly with market trends, customer needs and internal company affairs, such as road mapping, business value etc. The project manager may want to keep scope as small as possible so that the projects is deliver on time and under budget. Product managers are business oriented while project managers are more technical.
Solution IDEA Expand it in your own words
Software project refer to development of software product. On the other hand project and product closely related to each other. Product and project management are highly related to each other. Project Managers involved day to day decision making while product managers interact in high levels of decision making. Software product management can be considered a relative young field, not only the academic environment where there is a considerable gap in researches on the particular topic, but also in the business field where software companies feel uncertain on the way software product management should be organized. Software product includes processes and activities that are concerned mostly with market trends, customer needs and internal company affairs, such as road mapping, business value etc. The project manager may want to keep scope as small as possible so that the projects is deliver on time and under budget. Product managers are business oriented while project managers are more technical.
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