Product vs Project Management in GitLab

Problem to solve

Ensure GitLab supports organizations where they define, govern and manage the work in the form of Products not Projects.

Further details

Adoption of Agile and DevOps practices has led organizations to re-think how they organize and govern the work of their software delivery teams. There are numerous examples of organizations shifting from traditional “Project” management to a “Product” management mindset. Analysts like Gartner are writing about this shift, for example Gartner's “A Day in the Life of a Product Manager”

Strategic Planning Assumptions

*By 2020, three-quarters of digital business leaders will have "pivoted" from project to product portfolio management, up from the one-third that have already done so.

*By 2020, organizations that have embraced the product management model will outperform those that have not in terms of both customer satisfaction and business results.

Also from a separate Gartner Report Market Guide for Product Roadmapping Tools Published 7 August 2017

Strategic Planning Assumptions

  • By 2020, digital business leaders will have moved from project management to product portfolio management.
  • By 2022, over 50% of product managers will rely on product roadmapping tools to improve planning and communication with IT and business stakeholders.

It’s evident in the media for example from DevOps.com

One of the ways to remove the governance friction is a paradigm shift from projects as described above to products. It is vital to focus on value and business results along with employee and customer satisfaction. The key difference is that a product is funded for the long haul:

*A product team delivers ongoing value and the business can count on improvements to meet market demand.

*A product team does not form and disband depending on funding.

*A product team is focused on delivering value through the product and will naturally enhance and improve their processes.

And more recently from CIO Magazine

“To compete in the digital era, CIOs are pairing agile with a product management model that more closely aligns technology with specific business lines.”

There already are a few Product Management Tools:

And according to G2 Crowd, there is a mix Project Mgt w/ Product mgt in their comparisons: https://www.g2crowd.com/categories/product-management

Proposal

We should embrace the movement to Product Management and ensure GitLab supports organizations where they define, govern and manage the work in the form of Products, not Projects.

We already have many of the needed features to do Product Management

  • Ideas / voting
  • Backlogs
  • Epics and Roadmaps
  • Planning Features (issue boards)
  • Managing Releases
  • Monitoring - business value

For us, the gap between where we are and being able to support “Product Management” appears to be very close.

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

Success would be a release in GitLab where we establish best practices and the way to do DevOps Product Management

(If no way to measure success, link to an issue that will implement a way to measure this)

Links / references

Edited by 🤖 GitLab Bot 🤖