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Product Design: Bridging the Gap Between Product Management & Development

Product Design is the bridge between Product Management and Product Development. By Sean VanTyne and Jessyca Wallace Frederick.

Vol 5 Iss 1Product Design is the bridge between Product Management and Product Development. Product Management quantifies theproblems, writes requirements, and validates the solution; Product Design analyzes the requirements, designs the solution, and writes specifications; and Product Developmentbuilds the solution, tests and fixes bugs, and writes documentation.

While Product Management is focused on the market and the customers’ business needs and Development isfocused on the customers’ technology needs, Product Design is focused on the customers’ end-user needs. Product Design focuses on the users’ experience and theirinteraction with the technology.

The customer is the person who decides whether or not to purchase the solution, while the user is the person who uses the solution. Forenterprise software, the customer is usually someone in upper or executive management interested in finding the best way to bring efficiency to their operation while the user istypically a company employee more interested in completing their daily assignments as easily and effectively as possible. The customer is looking at the overall workflowof their organization and how specific software solutions might improve it, while the users tend to emphasize the software’s ease-of-use.

For this reason, ProductManagement, Design, and Development work together to understand the market, customer, and users’ needs, and design and develop technology solutions that meet these needs.