Let's talk about the "backlog"!

Since the backlog is the prioritized list of necessary work, it’s pretty natural for some teams to assign its maintenance to the Product Manager. At first glance, that seems to make sense….but then, we begin diving in and realize that perhaps, there is a better way.

Take a look at your team’s backlog. Is it features? Or, even finer-grained tasks than that?

A Product Manager’s primary responsibility is to know the market – to discover urgent, pervasive problems that people are willing to pay to have solved.

We are generally not trained or necessarily skilled in the area of design.

A good Product Manager understands that good design is an integral part of a successful offering. We are, perhaps, capable of learning how to do design – and if necessary, we will give it our best shot.

Is that the best choice for our companies?

I want to buy products that surprise me with their simplicity and power – products that make me say, “Wow!” or “This is so obvious – why didn’t anyone do this before?”

In order to develop outstanding solutions, skilled designers must be focused on the problems we need to solve for the market. The designer should understand the problems that product management has identified. They must guide the design, closely working with development to ensure feasibility.

The designer should be in charge of the translation of market requirements into features. In an agile environment, that means that the designer must work with the Product Manager to understand the market requirements and their priority –and then lead the team to turning the problems into features and sprints that make sense. This must be done in close conjunction with the project manager, to ensure that the product that comes out the backend makes sense, and provides maximum impact in the target market segment.

People buy products that were designed by expert designers, not expert product managers!