The Best-in-Class Product Manager Part 3: The Process Pillar

Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.

  Product Management  

In the last installment of this series, I reiterated four key pillars a best-in-class product manager drives:

1. Policy – The governing corporate and regulatory rules a business system must align and adhere to
2. People – The skills and knowledge humans need to enable a business system
3. Process – The human activities required both with and without technology to enable a business system
4. Technology – The automation required to enable a business system

The article focused on aligning job descriptions to the new business system and the role the best-in-class product manager plays in ensuring the change is effectively managed. Next up is the process pillar.

To level-set, I’d like to define what is included when I use the term “process.” I see three primary components:

1. Manual processes – Processes performed entirely by humans without any technology support
2. Technology-assisted processes – Processes performed by humans with support from technology
3. Technology-exclusive processes – Processes performed entirely by technology without any human support

Technology is so often at the forefront of business systems implementations that it causes other pillars like process to have less focus. At the end of the day, technology is about doing things better, faster, and/or cheaper. It’s about taking a …

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