Two perspectives on one subject: B2B customers want standard software products which ideally fulfill all their specific requirements. How can vendors provide such products without losing their standard character? And how can customer IT organisations ensure that they select and implement products that fulfill their requirements and interests in the best possible way?
McKinsey has proven that the quality of product management is one of the four factors that have the highest impact on the business results of your company. In my blog post you can find links to McKinsey’s articles.
With our trainings you can improve your product management capabilities and therefore your numbers.
ISPMA has launched its new module SPM for Startups that is intended for people involved in software product management in startups as well as those building new software products in mature businesses in a startup mode. These can be founders, software product managers and other roles. It comes with ISPMA certification.
There are also new versions and releases of the SPM Framework and the modules
• “SPM – The Foundation”,
• “Excellence in Product Strategy” and
• “Excellence in Product Planning”.
In total, these are the biggest, but still evolutionary changes in the history of ISPMA. Hans-Bernd Kittlaus was a member of the working groups which developed these new modules. We offer all these training courses on the latest release level.
ISPMA’s SPM Framework V.2
SPM Foundation Level 2.0 Update Training
“Four years after the SPM Foundation Level training, some of my team members and myself attended the Foundation Level V.2.0 Update Training online. It provided a wealth of most interesting new contents plus a welcome refresh. Though we all would have preferred Hans-Bernd to be with us in Athens again, he managed to create a very open atmosphere with lots of interactive discussion and exchange that added quite a bit of value to the training.”
Thodoris Psilopoulos, Director of Product Management, Qualco, Greece
SPM Foundation Level 2.0 Update Training
“The new contents fits nicely into the framework and addresses important SPM tasks. Topics like Financial Management and Product Planning Approaches point to techniques that can be used for successful implementation. Most interesting was the discussion of software having a significant impact on our environment which is why the company’s sustainability criteria need to be considered in addition to legal or regulatory compliance requirements. This interactive Update Training also served as a refresher and helped me broaden my perspective and directed me to topics that I need to work on.”
Martin Dünser, Product Manager Software Application, Zünd System Technologies AG, Switzerland
✓ Improve your PM skills with our trainings and coaching, and thereby your career perspective
✓ For all industries with software-intensive products
✓ Optimize your product management in a company-specific way
What is product management?
Product management consists of product strategy, planning and product-related orchestration of the functional areas of the company. The objective is the product’s sustainable economic success across its life cycle, i.e. from the initial new product development focused on innovation and product-market fit through market introduction and evolutionary continuous development, the growth and maturity phases to end-of-life. The product management role requires a high degree of management competence and orchestration across organizational structures, often without a hierarchical management position, i.e. leadership without authority. Software product management is not only utilized by software product vendors, but also by vendors of software-intensive products and services in other industries and in corporate IT organizations. There are different names for the role beside software product manager: solution manager, program manager, IT product manager, offering manager, or product owner.
Software is special
Since software is very special and different from physical components, product management must take these characteristics into account. The combination of high complexity and frequency of change as well as the need for value-based pricing have a significant impact on the work of software product management.
What makes a good product manager?
The requirements for a product manager are high. A combination of technical and domain knowledge is needed as well as business sense, i.e. the ability to understand and influence the economic as well as the technical and domain aspects of the product, its customers and its market. For the orchestration of the functional areas of the organization, being a team player, able to communicate and able to deal with conflict are big advantages. Leadership without authority is required.
In our consulting projects and trainings on software product management as well as in ISPMA (International Software Product Management Association) we frequently work with successful and experienced product managers who share their experiences, tips and tricks with us; also with researchers who involve us in their projects and discuss their results with us. So we are able to expand our own expertise. Our customers and training participants benefit from this. And it is reflected in our publications.
We can help with:
- Trainings and workshops based on ISPMA (International Software Product Management Association)
- SPM Audit
- Consulting Services
combining best industry practices with more than 25 years of hands-on experience. Our CEO Hans-Bernd Kittlaus is internationally recognized as thought leader on SPM with a high number of publications and invited presentations.
“Being new to the Software Product Manager role, the training was enlightening in many ways: Hans-Bernd Kittlaus managed to not only give a comprehensive overview of the various activities and responsibilities of an SPM, he also provided detailed insights into Product Strategy and Product Planning – always enriched with helpful advice and entertaining stories. Our product will for sure strongly benefit from my learnings during this training. Thank you for the great experience – highly recommendable.”
Matthias Schlegel, Product Manager Automated Driving, Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany
“I participated in the SPM training in Bangalore together with two of my colleagues from Pune, India. We are working on establishing and fine-tuning Cognizant’s product business in the Life Sciences area. This ISPMA-based training has helped us immensely in understanding the product business and is helping me navigate through the internal system while we transition from a service business to a product business. The contents of the training was highly comprehensive and structured and contained lots of practical advice from the trainer, Hans-Bernd Kittlaus, based on his extensive experience in the industry. We now have better understanding and ideas that we can implement to improve our current operating model for our product- based business.”
Avinash Gaba, Platform Owner, Analytics and Information Management – Life Sciences, Cognizant, India
“As the head of product management for SAP Exchange Media and former director of product management for the SAP Business Suite on HANA, I have a number of years of experience in software product management. Nevertheless, I found a lot of value in the Excellence Level trainings on Product Planning and Orchestration. ISPMA’s well-structured approach in combination with Hans-Bernd Kittlaus’ broad industry experience laid a state-of-the-art foundation and provided relevant in-depth information. Moreover, it gave me great impulses and opportunities to reflect and improve my own frameworks and practices in my product management team. There was enough room for lively discussions. The inspiring exercises were sufficiently complex, but still easily understandable and even entertaining. I can fully recommend these trainings.”
Stefan Wenzel, Head of Product Management, SAP Exchange Media, Germany
This book gives the most comprehensive overview on Software Product Management (SPM) for beginners as well as best practices, methodology and in-depth discussions for experienced product managers. This includes product strategy, product planning, participation in strategic management activities and orchestration of the functional units of the company. The book is based on the results of the International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) which is led by a group of SPM experts from industry and research with the goal to foster software product management excellence across industries. This book can be used as textbook for ISPMA-based education and as guide for anybody interested in SPM as one of the most exciting and challenging disciplines in the business of software. This is Edition 2 and corresponds to version 2 of ISPMA’s Body of Knowledge, with lots of new and changed contents.
The author: Hans-Bernd Kittlaus is the Chairman of ISPMA and owner and managing director of InnoTivum Consulting, Germany.
InnoTivum provides training, consulting and coaching for software-related organizations in all industries in the areas of product management for software (-intensive) products, pricing, strategy, organizational structure, roles and processes.
Software Product Management Summit
Hans-Bernd Kittlaus is a member of the conference team for the next SPM Summit:
May 2-4, 2023 Frankfurt, Germany (hybrid event, incl. later availability of recordings)
Get information here.
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The Update is published every month with links to valuable articles and other information for all product people.