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."

Some people have a natural affinity for 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. Make this person a Director, or a Product Line Manager (PLM). Now add a development-oriented Technical Product Manager (TPM) and a sales-oriented Product Marketing Manager (PMM). Have the TPM and the PMM report to the 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. The result is a complete coverage 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 marcom and the sales force.

Read more about The Product Management Triad.