Adam Bullied posted an apparently naïve question on his blog, inviting readers to take simplistic views of agile product management as identical to traditional product management, or as a completely different animal. Lots of folks piled on, creating a patchwork of comments and opinions that don’t address the interesting question of how product manage has evolved under Agile. I’d reframe his question (“Are agile PMs Baloney?”) into something meatier: “Do radically different ways of building software radically change how software product managers do their job, and how does this change our thinking about delivering value to the market?”

Let’s get warmed up. Suppose I was an industrial designer working in the early 1950’s. My job? Creating new tools for machine shops. My tools? Pencil and paper. Clay and wood prototypes. My development process? Relatively slow. Feedback loops? Long. To compensate, I work as much experimentation into my process as I could, but, let’s face it: there was only so much experimentation that I could try.

Fast forward to today. I’m still an industrial designer making tools for machine shops. Except now I’m not using pencil and paper, I’m using a sophisticated CAD-CAM system. I might be using wood and clay, but chances are good that I’m printing my prototypes. My development process? Fast. Feedback loops? Short. My ability to experiment with alternatives, and to use experiments with customers, is so easy that I find myself naturally collaborating throughout my process.

Now, ask yourself: Has the job of the industrial designer changed?

Think about this before reading further. Has the job changed?

Of course it has! Our “jobs” are inextricably tied to the tools and infrastructure that we use to complete the same. Dramatic changes to the technologies of our tools and infrastructure creates equally dramatic changes in our jobs. In every industry.

• Few developers program in assembly language anymore. We have better tools for that. And these tools, have, in turn, changed the job of the developer.
• The “job” of setting the price of items has changed dramatically since the advent of sophisticated pricing systems.
• Even cooking has changed, as high-tech methods enable the creation of dramatically different kinds of food. (Cryogenic Ice Cream, anyone?)

Which leads us to the main point of this blog. Adam asserted that there is no such thing as an Agile Product Manager, because, well, the job of the product manager is still the same. A good PM has to identify market problems and solve them. Agile is just a different technology for doing that, right? And because of that, there really is no such thing as an “Agile” PM – they’re just a PM using a different technology, right?

Wrong. Naively wrong, at best, but, wrong nonetheless. 

However you choose to interpret the meaning of the word “job”, get clear on the following: It is a complex system. And complex systems have feedback loops. Which means…

1. Your “job” influences and is influenced by the technologies that you use to do the same.
2. Dramatic changes to these technologies will cause equally dramatic changes in your job.
3. Your “job” lives inside a larger, even more complex system. So, changes in how you behave shape this even larger system. (Think how markets change when release cycles change from 9 months to 3 months to 3 weeks).

If you find someone telling you that an Agile PM is just a regular PM doing Agile, smile knowlingly, pat them on the head, and walk away, because trying to explain complex, non-linear systems thinking to people who don’t think in terms of systems is just too darn hard, unless, of course, you’re billing by the hour.

And if you’re NOT experiencing dramatic changes in your product management job since you’ve adopted Agile then give us a call – chances are pretty good you’re not doing Agile right.

More at: http://www.enthiosys.com