It seems no amount of process can overcome dysfunction. Perhaps the biggest challenge of developing tech products is respect among the team members. Or as we say in Requirements That Work, "friends build products."

Joel St-Denis writes in the Agile vs Waterfall debate: It was interesting to see that 2 of the companies in question had success in moving from a Waterfall to Agile methodology and both Product Management and Development had made the transition with success. On the other hand, 2 of the other companies had found challenges, and continued to struggle with the shorter sprints, or scrum approach, to Agile. The consensus seemed to be that there was a lack of respect between the PM and Dev groups in the companies which had issues, and this led to both departments pointing the finger at one another for delivery failures.

We commented on the role of product management in agile environments in Extreme Product Management with more specifics in how to deliver products people want to buy in an agile development environment.

Regardless of the development methodology, product managers should serve as conduits of market information. Too often we're attempting to control product development through rigorous requirements and a comprehensive Gantt chart. Instead we should influence with market information in the form of stories and personas.