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Roles: Adding a Functional Architect to the Product Team
I work for a large software organization, where there are a team of product managers and a team called product definition who deal with various products. But the products they deal with are so complex and huge that each product can be divided into various sub products/tools. Each tool has a development team of 15-20 developers. Now we see there is a gap here. The product roadmaps, MRD written are not at the granular level of the tool/product which the developers are working with. We want to form a team of functional architects who would fill this gap. I want to know if any theory can support this approach or is there a better way to deal with this problem.
Steve Johnson and Stacey Weber from Pragmatic Marketing posted an excellent response and article on "how many products per product manager". This was focused on how to decide how many products should a product manager manage. Stacey points out that one approach is to look at the market segments rather than the products to do the organization and structure.
We have seen more and more companies use the concept of Product Line Manager or Product Portfolio Manager to manage the higher level, overall strategic platforms or groups of products (products/tools from your question), and then individual Product Managers who own 1-3 products each within the portfolio. The individual products may not require all of the artifacts that most products require, such as positioning or business case, as long as their products are contained with the portfolio positioning or business case.
The organization and titles for effective product management really depend on a number of variables, so if someone would tell you that there is ONE answer, then they are either not being truthful, or they're trying to sell you something <smile>.
Keeping the Product Managers at the higher level, and then assigning Architects to the requirements for the individual offerings would only be recommended if your MRD's are really more like what we call "technical specs." Ie, the MRD from the Product Manager defines the overall Market Problems to be solved; the key User Personas you are building for; the User Stories and Use Scenarios for the key Personas; and if appropriate, the Requirements. Also, the prioritization and overall themes and goals for the release(s). Then, the Architects can take that and build specs from it. However, if you are asking Architects to write MRD's that are Tuned In to your market, we would advice against this approach. Most Architects/Designers are more focused on the "how" to build products, and MRD's are primarily focused on the "what" needs to be built. Most Architects in our industry are more technical and don't typically think in these terms.
If you want a recommendation, either split the PM role into 3 people and functional roles: Strategy, Technical, and Outbound, and have the PM's own the MRD's for all the offering(s) (see The Product Management Triad); or, create the Product Line/Product Management structure.
Answered by John Milburn
