The download on product management

Product management functions have the potential to unlock the full value of software investments—but that’s not always the case, find senior partners Chandra Gnanasambandam and Jeremy Schneider and coauthors. After surveying 5,000 product managers from around the world who work on both internal and external software products in a range of industries, some 75 percent responded that product management best practices aren’t being adopted at their companies, that product management is a nascent function within their organization, or that it doesn’t exist at all.

At least three-quarters of product managers surveyed say their organizations' product management functions are subpar or nonexistent.

Image description:

A horizontal bar chart shows shares of product managers’ views of the current state of their role, by industry. Each horizontal bar represents a different industry. Only 25% of product managers surveyed said that they think product management is prominent in their industry and that best practices are adopted consistently.

Footnote 1: Question: What do you see as the state of product management in your organization? Data as of Nov 8, 2022.

Source: McKinsey Product Academy Fundamentals Survey

End of image description.

To read the article, see “What separates top product managers from the rest of the pack,” January 20, 2023.