How many product managers do you need? What are their roles in the company? Is product management a support role for sales or marketing communications or development? I'm often asked to contrast product management, product marketing, program management and other titles in a high-tech company. All are poorly understood and are defined differently everywhere I go.

An ideal solution for many companies is the "product management triad."

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Some product managers have a natural affinity for working with development, others for sales and marketing communications, and others prefer to work on business issues. Finding these three orientations in one person is an almost impossible task. Instead, perhaps we should find three different people with these skills and have them work as a team.

Start with a business-oriented senior product manager for product strategy. Make this person a Product Line Manager (PLM) or director of product strategy. Now add a development-oriented Technical Product Manager (TPM) and a sales-oriented Product Marketing Manager (PMM). The latter two positions report to the Director or PLM.

One company had nine product managers and nine products, one product manager per product. Yet the sales people hated some of the product managers and loved others. The ones that the sales people loved were hated by developers. So we created three product lines with a Product Line Manager for each and then assigned a TPM and PMM to each product line.

Now for each product line, we have one person concentrating on product strategy and the business of the product line, while another works with development to build the best product, and another takes the product message to the channel by working with marketing communications and the sales forces.

Some companies attempt to put these three people in three different departments. They put the PLM into sales to do business development; they put the TPM in development and the PMM in marcom. This always fails. To work as a team, they must BE a team. Having the TPM and PMM report to the same person minimizes conflict and overlap, giving the team a common objective. And giving a new Director the chance to learn to be a good manager of two people before getting five or ten people to manage.

Product Management teams provide career paths from entry-level positions to Director, all within the product line. Here are some job descriptions to consider:

DIRECTOR, PRODUCT STRATEGY

The Director of Product Strategy has a business-orientation and is responsible for the development and implementation of the strategic plan for a specific product family. Maintains close relationship with the market (customers, evaluators, and potentials) for awareness of market needs and perspectives. This includes identification of appropriate markets and development of effective marketing strategies and tactics. This person is involved through all stages of a product family's lifecycle. Duties include:

• Seeking new market opportunities within the company's distinctive competence
• Initiating market research and sizing markets
• Documenting market problems (both existing customers and future customers)
• Analyzing product performance and sales success
• Documenting product profitability and operational metrics
• Creating and maintaining the business case
• Product pricing
• Determining buy/build/partner decisions
• Serve as the solution expert when dealing with thought leaders, analysts, and press
• Positioning the product for all markets and all buyers
• Documenting the ideal sales process
• Providing high-level market and cross-product requirements
• Maintaining the product family roadmap
• Approving final marketing and go-to-market plans

TECHNICAL PRODUCT MANAGER

The Technical Product Manager (TPM) is responsible for defining market requirements and packaging the features into product releases. The position involves close interaction with development leads, product architects, and key customers. A strong technical background is required. Job duties include gathering requirements from prospects, evaluators and customers, writing marketing requirements documents, and monitoring the implementation of a product project. The TPM is responsible for:

• Technology Assessment
• Competitive Analysis
• Win/Loss Analysis
• Monitoring industry innovations
• Defining user personas for individual products
• Product Contract with development teams
• Writing business requirements
• Monitoring the implementation of the product projects

PRODUCT MARKETING MANAGER

The product marketing manager provides product line support for program strategy, sales readiness and channel support. This position requires close interaction with marketing communications and sales management. Strong communication skills are a must. Duties include converting technical positioning into key market messages and launching the products into market. The PMM owns:

• Defining buyer personas and determining market messages
• Maintaining product launch plans
• Identifying best opportunities for lead generation
• Creating standard presentations and demo scripts
• Writing white papers and technical communiqu?
• Documenting competitive threats and related industry news
• Facilitating direct sales and channel training
• Supporting trade shows and other company-sponsored events
• Limited onsite channel support and phone assistance

Consider also a "product line" of your base technology or architecture with a Triad for issues that span product lines. The architecture triad can own acquisitions, third-party partnerships, and common tools needed across all product lines.

Does this model make sense for you? First take inventory of the skills of each of the product managers. Create an organization chart of one triad per product line with no names assigned. Now try to move the business-oriented staff (usually your senior product managers) to the PLM positions, development-oriented product managers to TPM and sales-oriented ones to PMM. Whatever holes remain in your org chart represent your new hiring profiles.

Steve Johnson is an expert in technology product management. He works for Pragmatic Marketing as an instructor for the top-rated courses Practical Product Management and Requirements That Work.  Steve is also a frequent presenter for various technology marketing forums throughout the United States and Europe, author of many articles on technology product management, and the writer of the Product Marketing blog.