Product Management is Transforming Software Teams in the Digital Age

As part of Solutions Review’s Premium Content Series—a collection of contributed articles written by industry experts in enterprise software categories—Maziar Adl, the co-founder and CTO of Gocious, explains how product management is transforming how software teams operate in a modern digital age.

Product management solutions rapidly accelerate business and product development and connect teams in the digital age. Software teams have begun to approach product management differently as they look to stay up-to-date and seek agile shifts as needed. If software teams keep current on the best product management practices, product development processes can completely transform. With the evolution of generative AI, there are possibilities for product managers to speed up work and get answers fast. 

Shifting the Way Software Teams Work Together 

Product management is making long-term, lasting changes in how software teams communicate and collaborate. Having an official product manager is no longer optional. It has become a prime role in the software development space. The product manager is now central within software teams, acting as the glue that holds the team together and keeps track of progress. This agile mindset allows products to remain on track and hit markets on time. 

Product management also allows software teams to accelerate growth. When product managers closely monitor a product, they know what is excelling and what is not. They can focus on reviewing consumer data and sentiment, guiding development to best-fit consumer needs and wants, and incorporating these data points to create the next generation of products to help connect with the end-user. This helps businesses improve faster and become more competitive. Product managers are the brains of the given product they are managing. 

Becoming Agile 

An agile mindset amongst software teams is critical to responding to roadblocks quickly and effectively. This mindset does not happen overnight—it requires teamwork, strong leadership, and the proper tools. Keeping the team constantly interconnected allows everyone to understand the product’s status. This way, when problems occur, team members can quickly work together to address the issues and produce resolutions in real-time. 

One of the biggest challenges in agile thinking is learning how to scale, especially in large organizations. If you have objectives to meet and receive feedback daily when building out software, there must be protocols in place for teams to change priorities. Finding ways to keep track of this information in a consolidated manner, like with product roadmaps, is vital to ensuring everyone has access to real-time alerts. The key to adopting this mindset is to give autonomy to teams, give the product manager oversight on holistic product and team communication, and ensure teams are cohesively working toward a focused brand objective.

How is Product Management in Hardware Inspiring Software Teams? 

As hardware and software teams grow, they develop different cadences and work styles. For example, vehicles have software and hardware teams throughout the production life cycle. These teams work in different periods, so product managers must find ways to bring the two groups together to understand how the product is coming to fruition. If the software is transforming at a rapid pace, the hardware needs to match. 

Product management processes in hardware are more stabilized and forward-thinking than in software because of the need for clear timetables and parts in hardware development. Vital to their operations, hardware product teams rely on road mapping software, allowing them to track progress and problems closely. Software teams must adapt and be looped into these processes or risk falling behind.  

Although challenging, these teams must be brought together to understand dependencies that can help product managers make better company-wide decisions. To become more agile, software teams must grasp hardware teams’ timelines and lead times, assisting organizations in saving time, money, and resources. Agile product management thinking in the software space is no longer a choice. Organizations must prioritize innovative approaches; otherwise, they risk being left behind and overtaken by competitors.