Summary and Outlook

Companies are usually founded in order to participate in the economy successfully in the long term. Therefore — in spite of all modernistic focus on the short term — it must be a key objective of any executive management to make the company's success sustainable. Based on this concept of sustainability, this book emphasizes the importance of disciplined software product management and pricing for the success of companies that have software products in their portfolio. The term “software product” is defined as a product whose primary ingredient is software. This definition holds for both vendors and corporate IT organizations.

In general, there is no single magic recipe for the definitions of responsibilities and the organization of software product management and pricing. These questions have to be answered dependent on the objectives of the company, the existing organizational structure and the company's culture. We argue that Software Product Management has the responsibility for the sustainable success of a product in the market. Success depends on allowing the software product managers to focus on the important items and not be overwhelmed by the urgent day-to-day necessities. Some care needs to be put into defining the right measurements. Holistically seen, software product management is a continuous activity, only parts have the characteristics of process or project. Product management encompasses the positioning of a product in a market over time including the potential establishment of a product platform or family, the representation of the product in all corporate planning and decision processes and the management and coordination of all parties within and outside of the company that are relevant for the sustainable success of the product, in particular Development, Sales and Marketing. The most important process in the responsibility of the product manager is the requirements management process. Specific tool support for software product management is only available for requirements management, but office and business intelligence tools are also helpful.