A Software Product Management Audit looks at a company’s capability to actively manage its software products towards economic success. It provides the road-map for an optimization of the organization and relevant processes to ensure a competitive market position now and in the future.

What is software product management?

Software product management is the gearbox between the various functions in a software company. Solid software product management is a cornerstone in winning and maintaining a position as global market leader.

Software product management represents an enterprise or business unit in the strategy formulation as well as in its operational realization. Software product management includes work with requirements, release definitions, product release life-cycles, the creation and interpretation of product strategies, balancing long-term technology push with shorter-term market-pull, and assuring a winning business case by selecting the right requirements for realization at an appropriate price. Software product management coordinates all units within the company that are relevant for the success of the product in its lifetime.

The Software Product Management Audit

The Software Product Management Audit is a review of a company’s current software product management processes, documentation and interactions with the other organizational functions and its ability to build and maintain a competitive product position in the market.

The outcome of the Software Product Management Audit is a status report and an optimization action plan.

The Audit Report is presented at a 1-day workshop starting with reviewing the findings and options for optimization and concluded with the facilitation of an action planning process.

The Software Product Management Audit is based on a review of available documentation of processes, organization and deliverables plus a series of on-site interviews with stakeholders. The Software Product Management Audit follows the principles of the Maturity Model developed at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands (I.v.d.Weerd, W. Bekkers, S. Brinkkemper: Developing a Maturity Matrix for Software Product Management, Utrecht University Technical Report, 2009).

Client involvement and time line

The Software Product Management Audit requires the participation from current software product manager(s), executive management, R&D management, sales management, marketing management and service/consulting management. Each function must be available for a 2-hour interview.

The Software Product Management Audit can normally be performed within 4 calendar weeks.

At TBK Consult we have engaged Hans-Bernd Kittlaus, an internationally renowned expert on Software Product Management, to perform the audit. He has been working as a trainer and consultant for software organizations such as Lycos, Deutsche Telecom, Samsung and SimCorp. Hans-Bernd Kittlaus was previously head of Software Product Management and development units of IBM. He is a board member of ISPMA, and has published numerous articles and books, e.g. “Software Product Management and Pricing” (Springer, 2009).

More information on the Software Product Management Audit >> Fact Sheet

ISPMA Software Product Management Training & Certification

You may also be interested in the three day training for software product managers followed by an ISPMA certification. The next training takes place in Copenhagen in January 2014.

ISPMA Software Product Management training from Hans Peter Bech on Vimeo.