AI Advisor | Author “From Data To Profit” | Course Instructor (Data & AI Strategy, Product Management, Leadership)
Jira is a project, not product, management app. Agile, SAFe, and Prince 2 are project, not product, management frameworks. Project = timelines. Product = value. User stories are a confession that a product manager doesn’t understand the need or solution but wants the technical team to build it anyway. Most are creative writing assignments. Technical teams don’t need more people creating Jiras and reminding them when tasks are due. They need product managers to explain why the tasks are valuable in the first place. Technical teams need customer or user workflows to build a complete solution. Workflows provide context about inputs, constraints, tasks, decisions, and outputs. We should map model metrics to customer and business metrics so technical teams know when a solution is ready for production. Each workflow step needs decision-outcome and output-outcome benchmarks. Product managers define how each change to a workflow creates value. “A model that makes {functional change definitions and metrics} to a {customer or user workflow map}, with {reliability requirements and metrics}, creates {value range} for {customer segment(s)}.” Agile, SAFe, Prince, etc., don’t help technical teams deliver value or iterate their way to a better understanding of the customer. That’s a product manager’s job, but they are rarely given the tools, training, and mandate to succeed. Product managers become another layer of project management without value-focused frameworks. #ProductManagement #DataScience #DataEngineering
Varun Gaur
1w
You raise an excellent distinction between project and product management—timelines versus value—and highlight the crucial role workflows play in delivering meaningful solutions. Product managers who prioritize clarity around why tasks matter and how each change impacts user workflows truly enable technical teams to build with purpose. It’s clear that beyond methodologies like Agile or SAFe, product managers need frameworks and tools designed to visualize, map, and communicate value—not just tasks. That’s where an integrated approach to workflow visualization and strategic execution can bridge the gap. When product managers can connect user workflows to outcomes and metrics, they unlock real clarity for their teams. Instead of just managing projects, they can lead with purpose and deliver value. I have personally researched in product management workflows when I started building Planbow
Faisal Ahmed
1w
The gap between product and developer is widening day by day. Naw a days these tools are becoming more important to management to assure that people are working against story points rather than adding real value to the product. Today developers/engineers rarely challenge product team/manager since the responsibility has been transferred to product team, also the product team often does not know the engineering limit and it drives everybody to a certain failure.
A handy way to create the workflows is to have a deep understanding of the organizational structure, then it becomes an exercise of understanding teams responsibilities and KPIs and how that connects to the bigger picture. Along with keeping track of the changing landscape. An extremely taxing exercise but creates a rich knowledge base that guides and supports development for the future.
Pratul Gupta
1w
Vin Vashishta I’ve been a developer for 15 years (some of it spent as a "Jira monkey") and a product manager for 13. I largely agree with this post, though I have a few quibbles. Overall, I concur: Jira, Agile, and project management are not the same as product management. Two key questions must be addressed: (a) Does the product manager understand how their product creates value? (b) Can they effectively communicate that value to the development team? If the answer to (a) is no, no artifact, tool, or process will bridge that gap. Regarding (b), process-heavy workflows and remote teams often increase dependency on processes and artifacts, which can create communication gaps. Providing the right context for requirements is what makes user stories effective. For product managers seeking to make their user stories more effective, User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton is an excellent resource. (Bonus: the "cake fail" humor in the book makes it a fun read for everyone, including kids.)
Great post! I completely agree that product management is about delivering value to customers, not just managing timelines. As a data scientist, I believe that data can be a powerful tool for product managers to understand customer needs and behaviors. By analyzing customer data, product managers can identify pain points and opportunities for improvement in the customer workflow.
There is a tendency to try to close underlying problems with the help of all new processes in Jira and frameworks
At Iteraite , We give PMs exactly those tools, powered by AI to save time on writing and have a quick feedback on everything
BK Lau
1w
"User stories are a confession...." Apt description of Agile, Scrum, etc
Growth Strategy | Digital & Data-Driven Transformation | Supply Chain Innovation | Ecosystem Collaboration | Business Resilience
1wThis isn’t a project versus product manager argument. Product managers come first—they define why something needs to be done, creating the qualified backlog. Anything without a clear why belongs on the product manager’s vision board, not the backlog. Once the why is clear, the next step is prioritization: in what order should features be delivered? User stories are value increments that the product manager asks the team to deliver. Product managers don’t need to be technology experts. They rely on the team (with a project manager or Scrum Master) to commit to timelines and deliver the user stories. While technical teams dislike being chased on task due dates, this is often necessary to ensure progress over perfection. Technical teams must also ask for what they need to succeed. A common challenge is failing to request support or resources proactively. Ultimately, the product manager’s role is to explain why each task matters, enabling the team to deliver value effectively.