• WHAT IS PRODUCT LINE VELOCITY?
  • OUR BLOG
  • CONTACT US
  • 0Shopping Cart
The Adept Group
  • Moves & Pivots
  • About Us
    • Our Founder
    • Team Biographies
    • Clients
  • Services
    • Product Line Velocity Assessment
    • Process Flow Optimization
    • Responsive Roadmapping Ramp-Up
    • Rapid Product Development Portfolio Analysis
  • Online Workshops
    • Company Customized-Product Lines as Systems and their Velocity Workshop
    • Fundamentals of Product Line Systems
    • Management to Management Summit
  • Product Lines Systems
    • Why and How of Product Line Systems
    • Product Line System Oversight
    • Product Line Velocity Process Flow
  • Knowledge Sharing
    • What is a Product Line?
    • What is Product Line Management?
    • What is Product Line Velocity?
    • What is Responsive Roadmapping?
    • What is Product Line Strategy?
    • What is a Product Line System?
    • What is MGPP | Multi-generational Planning?
    • Product Line Velocity Process Flow
    • Blog
    • Product Line Strategy Book
    • Whitepapers
    • Glossary
  • Search
  • Menu

What is Product Line Management?

Product Line Management Job Description

The product line management job is to oversee products. More importantly, it’s to find, expand, and exploit product opportunities. And it’s to do this in a manner that increases gains and rewards to the company. The job emphasizes both near-term and long-term Profit and Loss responsibility for a product line.

As the title suggests, the job focuses on a whole product line. It’s not to oversee different products and development activities, with each operating independently. The job is to manage multiple products as a system in which the products boost each other’s performance.

The job purposely focuses work, decisions, and thought processes on the system’s forces and the interaction of system parts.

Product Line Management Title

The Product Line Management job evolved over the last few decades. Yet, many managers with whole product line responsibilities still carry the Product Manager title (that’s “product” in the singular sense.) This single-product nomenclature is an artifact of history, not a description of the job.

But it’s common to find companies that embrace the older single-product mindset and at the same time expect managers to oversee multiple products. These companies give managers responsibility for several products but not the authority to make product line moves and pivots. As a result, these product managers will stress creating, developing, and managing one product at a time, often without a coherent product line strategy. Or, they make up a strategy as they go along.

Single Versus Multi-Product Thinking

A significant disconnect between single-product and multiple product line management happens when a company’s leadership has yet to embrace a systems approach to product lines. And as a result, the company’s processes, methods, and tools can work against the systems approach needed to carry out good product line management. Setting up a product line management job without a supporting organization is fraught with conflict.

Product Line Systems View

Product line managers must have a systems view of their line. Their job is to orchestrate opportunities across the full set of products. And the job is to improve the line’s cash flow, increase total customer satisfaction, and beat the competition.

More on Product Line Management

Here are some resources to help you better understand Product Lines and their management.

  1. Responsive Roadmapping:  A proactive approach to help product line management
  2. Product Line Strategy: Creating a Vision and setting up the game plan to drive a Product Line’s performance
  3. Product Line System Parts: See a more complete discussion
  4. Multi-Generational Product Plan (MGPP) Vs. Product Line Strategy and Roadmap
  5. Trapped in a Single Product Mindset
  6. Other Sources
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
newsletter sign-up

Newsletter Sign Up

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

What is…

  1. a Product Line
  2. Product Line Management
  3. Product Lines as Systems
  4. Product Line Velocity
  5. Product Line Flow (Video)
  6. Multi-Generational Product Planning
  7. Product Line Strategy
  8. Responsive Roadmapping
  9. Understanding Product Line Pivots

 

Download Whitepapers

Download a White Paper

  • WHITEPAPER – Good Product Line Strategy MattersDecember 11, 2018 - 9:37 am

Follow us on LinkedIn

LinkedIn HERE

latest Blog Posts

  • Time-to-Market and Product Line VelocityVideo – Product Line Velocity vs. Time-to-MarketJanuary 21, 2021 - 8:46 am
  • Product Line Flow videoVideo – Product Line FlowNovember 30, 2020 - 1:02 pm
  • Product Line FlowProduct Line Flow and Maximizing Its VelocityNovember 30, 2020 - 10:57 am
  • The Dubious “Best Practice” MonikerNovember 12, 2020 - 5:19 pm


Contact Us

Copyright © 2021 The Adept Group Ltd. All Rights Reserved   |   Privacy Policy   |   Contact Us   |  
  • WHAT IS PRODUCT LINE VELOCITY?
  • OUR BLOG
  • CONTACT US
Scroll to top
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.