Agile Product Management: Navigating the Complexities of Modern Development
Published: 2023-07-03 10:02:56

_Over the past several years, the profession of Product Manager has become more in demand than ever before. According to various estimates, there are more than 2 million tech companies/startups in the world, and this number is growing exponentially. To achieve success, each tech company obviously needs a highly qualified Product Manager - a specialist who is responsible for creating and managing a product throughout its whole lifecycle. _

**Nowadays, one of the most cutting-edge practices that a Product Manager can use is the Agile methodology. The modern product management consists of multiple primary stages:**

- Market analysis - studying the needs and demands of a certain market or market niche, as well as identifying the target audience and key competitors.
- Defining the product requirements - formulating requirements for your product and pointing out its desired design, functionality, and other crucial features. 
- Product design - developing the product concept, building its prototypes and testing them.
- Planning - determining the schedule, budget and resources for building your product.
- Development management - overseeing the development process, coordinating the development team and tracking the development progress.
- Testing - checking your product for compliance with the requirements set beforehand and fixing any emerging bugs.
- Release and support - delivering your product to the market and supporting it after successful sales.    
- Evaluating results - analyzing sales results and user feedback, adjusting your product and planning further actions.

It goes without saying that the Agile methodology makes a Product Manager’s life easier when dealing with the complexities of modern product development. But what does Agile lie in?  

Agile is a software development methodology that focuses on rapid and flexible product development with constant interaction with customers and users. Agile was initially created to assist development teams in building products that better meet both market needs and customer expectations.

The Agile approach uses an iterative development process that breaks a project into short phases called sprints. Each sprint is a small piece of work that the development team can complete in a few weeks or months. This allows the team to continually interact with customers, test the product and modify it based on the feedback received.

One of the key features and competitive advantages of the Agile approach is the use of agile product/project management techniques such as Scrum, Kanban or Lean. These methods enable a Product Manager to respond as quickly as possible to changing requirements and project conditions. Additionally, these advanced techniques make it possible for you to manage all the possible risks and ensure the continuous improvement of your product.   

Overall, the Agile approach helps development teams deliver high-quality products faster than ever and with fewer defects, which ultimately leads to customer satisfaction and project success.

**Now, I would like to highlight five basic principles of Agile that make this methodology stand out from the competition:**

- Working in small teams. Agile requires a Product Manager to set up small and flexible development teams so that they can promptly respond to any changes in the project or adapt to new market realities.
- Constant interaction with customers. When using the Agile approach, a Product Manager has to provide for a continuous communication between developers and customers. In this way, the team can gain a better understanding of user needs and tailor the product to meet the specific needs of each customer.
- Prioritization. If a Product Manager is committed to Agile, they have the full right to prioritize certain tasks over others in order to pay special attention to the core tasks of product development.    
- Flexible scheduling. Agile product roadmaps imply flexible planning and broader guiding principles, allowing the teams to be fully aware of each development phase and providing them with a possibility to change some initial plans on the fly.
- Constant testing. In order to ensure the highest possible product quality and the absence of design flaws, Product Managers conduct various product tests at each stage of product development.  
    
**As I have mentioned, Agile Product Management consists of multiple elements:**

- Scrum - a framework that helps organize the workflow of a development team. It is based on the idea that work should be broken down into small iterations (sprints), each of which should be completed in a certain period of time (usually one to four weeks).
- Kanban - a "Just in time" project management system. It allows you to track the product development progress and manage tasks properly to avoid delays and overloads.
- Lean - a philosophy that helps reduce production costs and improve product quality. Being based on the principle of “lean manufacturing”, it includes techniques such as kaizen (rapid improvement processes), 5S (the workplace organization methodology: Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) and quality circles (groups of colleagues who meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve work-related problems).
- Agile Project Management - a set of useful tools and techniques that includes tools for planning, progress tracking, communication and risk management.
 
**Agile Product Management Tools that you can use on a daily basis**

Agile offers a wide range of helpful tools that can significantly facilitate the product management process. Let’s have a look at the most common yet effective ones on the example of monday.com, the leading solution for Agile Product Management:

- Visual planning board, which helps you schedule upcoming releases and track the development progress; 
- Project priorities matrix, which helps you understand the importance and urgency of each product development stage; 
- Burndown chart, which identifies the work remaining and time left;
- User story map, which visualizes your product development process based on what the customer prefers to do.
- Apart from monday.com, you can utilize such Agile solutions as Atlassian JIRA, Wrike, ClickUp, craft.io, and many other online tools.    


**Agile or Waterfall**

Despite the fact that Waterfall has always been considered a traditional product management environment, Agile is growing in popularity literally day by day. And here is why:

Flexibility: Agile is obviously the most flexible approach available, when Waterfall requires Product Managers to outline their projects from start to finish beforehand. 
Feedback: Agile involves regular feedback from customers, when in Waterfall, the customer does not participate directly or indirectly in the product development process.
Rapid implementation: Agile allows new features and improvements to be implemented much faster than in Waterfall, which substantially increases the speed of product development.

However, Waterfall also has its advantages, such as more detailed planning, strong documentation and the predictable nature of product roadmaps, which can be useful for large projects with tight deadlines and budgets.

**Conclusion**

Hence, I believe that applying the Agile approach to Product Management is the perfect solution in today’s fast-paced world. We should be adaptable enough not to be misled by the constantly changing market conditions and customer demands. I have no doubt that the future belongs to the Agile approach, which considerably helps Product Managers to face the complexities of modern development with flexibility and adaptability.