The Evolving Role of Product Manager - A Systematic Review
Profilo Orcid
Pubblicato online: 01 apr 2025
Pagine: 37 - 56
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fman-2025-0003
Parole chiave
© 2025 Nishant PARIKH, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Research Questions and Motivation (Source: Author’s own research)
| Research questions | Motivation |
|---|---|
| Software product management is a continuously evolving field, and more and more organizations are adopting the discipline. Keeping track of how a PM’s role is evolving is imperative | |
| Understanding how different organizational structures, product segments, development methodologies, and technological advancements shape the product manager’s role is essential for both practitioners and researchers. These factors influence day-to-day responsibilities, decision-making processes, and strategic focus, providing insights into how product managers can adapt their approaches to fit specific business environments and emerging trends. This question seeks to clarify these influences, offering a comprehensive view of how the PM role is evolving across diverse contexts |
Database Sources and Search Strings (Source: Author’s own research)
| No. | Source | Search string | Number of results |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Scholar | allintitle: (Role OR Roles OR Responsibility OR Responsibilities) AND ("Product Manager" OR "Product Managers" OR "Product Management") | 50 | |
| ACM Digital Library |
(role* OR responsibilit*) AND Product AND manage* | 5 | |
| EBSCOhost |
TI (role* OR responsibilit*) AND TI ("product manage*") | 30 | |
| IEEE Xplore | ("Document Title":product manage*) AND ("Document Title":role* OR "Document Title":responsibil*) | 10 | |
| ProQuest Central |
ti(role*) AND ti("product manage*") | 91 | |
| Springer Link | (role* OR responsibilit*) NEAR/1 "product manage*" | 147 | |
| ResearchGate | (role* OR responsibilit*) AND "product manager" | 19 | |
| Books | - | 4 | |
| 356 | |||
Final Study Selection (Source: Author’s own research)
| Source type | Author and year | Research Approach | Major focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empirical research | Roles of software product managers | ||
| Interviews | Role of a software product manager in various business environments | ||
| Interviews | Agile product manager activities | ||
| Interviews and Case studies | Ending the life of a software product | ||
| Empirical studies | Core software product management activities | ||
| Action research/literature review/case studies/expert review | SPM competency model and maturity matrix | ||
| Product Management Community Collaboration | Body of knowledge (ProdBOK®) | ||
| Research based | SPM body of knowledge (ISPMA BoK) | ||
| Industry-accepted SAFe practice | Agile Product Management | ||
| Primary research based | Product Manager’s boundary theory | ||
| Primary research based | SPM and Agile software development | ||
| Literature review | Product Manager | ||
| Primary research based | What makes a product manager? A dynamic capabilities view of product management | ||
| Empirical study | Boundary role spanning behavior, conflicts, and performance of industrial product managers |
Activity Mapping to Common Naming (Source: Author’s own research)
| No. | ISPMA naming | Different naming used by various sources | Explanation | Changed name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Market analysis | User research ( Product discovery (product ideation) ( Market Research ( |
ISPMA synthesizes well on all these concepts and comprises under the |
No change |
| 2 | - | Proposing solutions ( Idea evaluation (mock-up, working prototype) ( |
ISPMA consolidates solutioning with the Product Definition category. |
Identify solution |
| 3 | Customer insight | Interacts with the customer ( Gathering user feedback ( Requirements identification ( |
ISPMA naming fits well | No Change |
| 4 | Positioning and product definition | Strategic vision creation ( Product vision creation ( Product vision and strategy ( |
ISPMA naming fits well However, |
No change |
| 5 | Ecosystem management | Stakeholder management ( Engaging internal stakeholders ( Cross-functional Leadership ( |
PMs collaborate with them cross-functional teams, instead of managing them. Hence, rename the activity to cross-functional collaboration | Cross-functional collaboration |
| 6 | Sourcing | Make or buy decision ( Acquiring resources ( |
ISPMA naming and definition consolidates well on the resource planning and make versus buy decision regards to software components | No change |
| 7 | Financial management | Responsible for the profitability of the product ( Partnering and contracting (pricing) ( |
For simplicity, pricing is consolidated into the financial management category, and it is named as financial analysis | Financial analysis |
| 8 | Legal and intellectual property rights (IPR) management | Project compliance ( Partnering and contracting (service level agreements, intellectual property management) ( |
The legal, IPR, and compliance-related activities are consolidated into a single category as they are related | Legal and compliance management |
| 9 | Performance and risk management | Assessing risk ( Product monitoring and adjustments ( Post-launch evaluation and improvement ( |
Performance might be confusing with system performance; so, to be specific, product performance is used. Risk management applies to the entire product life cycle, so it is removed from the naming | Product performance management |
| 10 | Roadmapping | Prioritizing projects or tasks ( Gathers and prioritizes features ( Presents a prioritized product backlog ( Requirements prioritization ( Product roadmapping ( Strategic planning ( |
Universally accepted naming for a PM | No change |
| 11 | Release planning | Define goals ( Communicates business needs to the development team ( Decides release dates and content ( Release definition ( Release definition validation ( Participating in sprint planning and reviews ( Collaboration with product management on release planning ( |
Universally accepted naming for a PM | No change |
| 12 | Product requirements engineering | Analysis of requirements ( Requirements gathering ( Requirements organizing ( Managing the backlog ( |
ISPMA naming is generally accepted, but more traditional. |
Product requirements engineering or prioritized product backlog (in Agile) |
| 13 | Development execution | Cooperation with the development team ( Individuals follow-up ( Supporting team delivery ( Product development ( Scope change management ( |
Many sources have confused the generic product development versus what PM is responsible for. The development execution is a stage of product life cycle and not the Product Manager responsibility | Supporting the product engineering team |
| 14 | Detailed requirements engineering | Tactical planning ( Just-in-time (JIT) story elaboration and acceptance ( Product development and execution ( |
ISPMA naming looks universal, comprising all these activities. However, missing Agile-specific naming in or clause | Detailed requirements engineering or define user stories, acceptance criteria, and prioritized backlog (in Agile) |
| 15 | Quality management | Build validation ( |
Product verification | |
| 16 | Product launch | Launch preparation ( Training ( Product launch ( |
PMs are not responsible for product launch itself. However, they are responsible for orchestrating the launch | Orchestrate product launch |
| 17 | Channel preparation value communication service planning and preparation | Product support ( |
There were various activities related to the operations and support readiness, which are consolidated into a single category instead of having many | Operations readiness |
| 18 | - | Product end-of-life ( |
ISPMA framework did not define any category for end-of-life, so the new category is created | End-of-life plan |
Database Sources and Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria (Source: Author’s own research)
| No. | Source | Search criteria (inclusion/exclusion) | Number of results after applying the criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Scholar | Inclusion: any time (default selection); any type (default selection) |
27 | |
| ACM Digital Library | Inclusion: ACM full-text collection (default); all dates (default) | 5 | |
| EBSCOhost | Inclusion: full text (custom); all time (default) Exclusion: magazines, trade publications | 13 | |
| IEEE Xplore | Inclusion: all years (default) | 10 | |
| ProQuest Central | Inclusion: full text (custom) |
9 | |
| Springer Link | Inclusion: discipline: computer science Exclusion: preview-only content | 16 | |
| ResearchGate | Inclusion. full-texts only |
5 | |
| Books | Selection by credible authors | 4 | |
| 89 | |||