KM Product Management

What would it mean to take a ‘product management’ approach in KM?

Product Management as an approach is applied not only to the kinds of material ‘things’ we’re used to calling ‘products’ in our real lives, but also to services that users and customers consume. And in knowledge management we certainly do provide ‘products’ of both kinds:

Knowledge content products: specific content, content collections, access to external content, and so on.

Knowledge services: These may be embodied in software and/or process and examples might include search, training, end-user support, community support and tools, an innovation process, project-related services such as lessons learned, and so on.

At the core, the essential feature of a product management approach in KM would be to see these kinds of lines as ‘products’ in the first place. A lot flows from that – seeing them as products rather than only as deliverables or each as its own kind of thing. Once you have that idea in mind you inevitably start to think about customers and end-consumers of the products, and about the features and benefits that they enjoy and the positive impacts they make, those that they would most like to see added, and also those that don’t seem to matter to them at all as well. You then start to think about KM offerings in these terms it becomes natural to start to prioritise the features and benefits that you will maintain, add, develop or deprecate; and to think about a roadmap of future ‘releases’ to include each new package.

Like many such things, this kind of approach can start quite simply and develop in sophistication as time goes by and according to what seems most valuable (the product management of the product management product). It helps organise a busy portfolio and also helps communicate with and engage users – as well as providing the answer as to why some particular part of the KM offerings “doesn’t do / doesn’t include” X – the answer being maybe it will do in a future release if that’s the business and user priority. Meanwhile, take a look at all the goodies that are coming up …