Producer in Development Project?

I have been noticing a trend of dissing the project management in product development side. Agile SW development, autonomous teams, continuous and iterative development, are the new norm. I even saw a picture of an presentation slide in the Twitter feed where SW development and project management was said to be a match made in hell! Argument was, SW is forever, but projects are temporary. I hope the image in the tweet was taken out of context…

Been working in SW product and project managerial tasks for last twenty years there has been big multi continental customer projects, smaller concept development cases and everything between. I’ve used water fall models and agile methods. All tasks had always had a start and an end, in way or another. For successful deliveries I’ve been following the rule of four questions: WHY, WHAT, WHEN and HOW.

Software truly is meant to be ”forever” and the development should follow the notion, but when you are making a release out of it, targeting to a market window (like Minimum Viable Product (MVP), crowdsourcing campaign or christmas sales), you tend to have a some kind of target. And that usually leads somebody in your team to be responsible of scope, schedule and costs to get to the release ready. I like to think that covers the WHEN and HOW part of the rule of four.

When entering the market you need to ensure that the product meet’s the users needs. You also need to follow the market trends and competition. In the early stage of process the development team needs to have some kind of user stories or requirements / use cases to get the big picture what they are aiming to. And closer to the release they get there is a need for use case acceptance in addition to technical acceptance.

In smaller companies these tasks are often handled by the CEO, were some of the bigger companies has dedicated Product Managers to do the task. These kind of tasks completes the WHY and WHAT part of rule of four.

Music industry

I have been looking lately into the music industry side from technical, artistic, management and business angles. It really don’t differ that much from product development environment. Startups have been said to be the next rock stars for a reason. To success you need the same the persistence and passion to brake through in every industry. You need to have skills and special something to be the unique You and you need to make yourself known to everybody.

Even though to make and record music has never being more easier and cheaper, making a good record asks for special talent. The artist is still the one that has made the song and the band is the team making all sound as a whole. Music producer brings the experience and knowhow of the recording process on the table. He is responsible that the process delivers. Not only artists working with big labels, but also indie bands and singer/songwriters rely on external music producer to make the best record to enter the market.

Usually there is agreed schedule when whole album needs to be ready for marketing and when singles can be ready for early promotion (btw, singles can play the MVP role to check how the band style will be received by the audience). There is also only certain amount of resources to be spent in the recording process. It is the producer who makes sure everybody stays in budget. Studio time and editing sessions can be expensive and time consuming. Producer also guides the artist through pre-production to keep the recording/editing/mixing process as fluent, clean and effective as possible.

Many times the producer can bring some artistic flavor in the process. He usually has first hand knowledge of the market, what are type of sounds and arrangements that works the best at the time.

So, in music industry there is one role that follows the rule of four: WHAT, WHY, WHEN and HOW. Music producer work for music(/record) companies, but you can also get music production as a service. It is beneficial to get guidance what kind of releases and how you want to make them during your long lasting music career.

Software development

How about SW industry? Would there still be benefit of ”outsider” view of your team when it is time to do a release. Someone to help to compile market insights, keeping the schedule, taking care of the budget and managing risks. Just for that releasing phase. So that the development team can keep focusing in continuos development that they do best.

Should SW industry have Software Producers in the organization? A role that is more than just project manager, or product manager, UX design or release manager. Could that even be purchased that as a service?

Would you?