Can you reliably predict delivery dates? Do you know exactly what will be in every release? Have you ever seen a feature that was not in the requirements? Getting consensus on exactly what should be built is an ongoing challenge for many companies. However, the key to long-term success is understanding problems in the market and delivering solutions to solve those problems. As messenger of the market, product management's role should be to identify problems that are urgent and pervasive where customers are willing to pay. These problems should be communicated to development via a Market Requirements Document (MRD). It should then be Development's responsibility to determine how the problem will be solved in the product.

What you need is a common framework around which both development and product management teams can align. It should identify the roles and responsibilities for each group and provide artifacts (documents) that communicate exactly what is needed at each step in the process.

Since 1993, the Pragmatic Marketing Framework has provided a foundation for technology companies to achieve market-driven success. It defines the roles, responsibilities and tasks for Product Management and Development so each is focused on their particular strengths. It also provides many sample artifacts (document templates) including market requirements, positioning and buyer personas.