The Product Manager's Handbook 4/E

The essential guide to seamless product management for today's fluid, unpredictable business world

Long considered the most useful and insightful guide of its kind, The Product Manager's Handbook, now in its 4th edition, gives you the edge in today's challenging business landscape. It features expanded coverage of product development processes, intelligence-gathering techniques, leadership and business competencies and life-cycle management.
This indispensable resource for those managing non-software offerings (capital goods, consumer products, medical equipment, services, etc.) provides tools to help product managers get started. And it can help experienced product managers by reminding them about the basics.

The Product Manager's Handbook shows you how to integrate your organization's disparate segments into a cooperative, results-focused unit that produces satisfying products―from initial design through the post-purchase experience. If your job is to create and commercialize products, it provides the information you need to:

• Balance breakthroughs and line extensions
• Create business cases―including competitive assessment, market requirements, and risk reduction
• Conduct gate reviews and beta testing and manage scope creep
• Get everything in order for a smooth product launch

For those who manage existing lines, this guide provides:

• Specific tips for each of the 4Rs of product life-cycle management
• Brand guidelines
• Approaches to customer message management
• Advice on working with sales and the channel

Clear, easy-to-read charts show you how to manage each crucial step from conception to completion, and practical checklists help you evaluate progress at every stage. Interviews with seasoned product management consultants and organizational managers as well as top-performing product managers provide you with dynamic, proven strategies for addressing potential problems in marketing, production, cross-cultural communication, and more.

The Product Manager's Handbook examines current market-leading companies, the latest research findings, and evolving customer perceptions to provide you with the tools you need to design, produce, and market winning products―and beat the competition at every turn.