Company-Wide Philosophy
Each day I work at a small start-up, I really have a stronger notion towards making sure everyone can put on their product management “hats” in different, and unique, situations.
Because the entire organization is driving towards getting products / services to market, and everyone wants them to be as successful as possible, it’s important that certain product management activities get shared with different people in the company.
For example, say you are working with 5-10 clients in parallel and a client comes forward with an enhancement request. Would you arrange a call with your product analyst? Probably not. You want to be in a scenario where your account team knows how to gather requirements the way your development team likes to get them. Beyond that, they should also be knowledgeable about the process of taking those requirements through to release.
Requirements gathering may be a broad example but the concept can also apply to positioning, documentation, and in essence, driving products forward, which should be a major goal for everyone. The whole business should want to make sure what is being sold continues to move ahead, be innovative, and easy to communicate.
