Note: I am pleased to announced that I am a nominee for the 2006 Excellence in Product Management award for Thought Leadership given by the AIPMM. I will be at the AIPMM conference this April 19-21 (see www.aipmm.com) and hope to see some of you there.

When Product Managers push to accomplish their goals for a product – more sales, more customers, more profit – they must struggle to identify and overcome the obstacles and limitations of their individual product, team, and company. Each company’s weaknesses are unique, and require careful focus and willpower to overcome them with a solution whose uniqueness matches the problem.

But problems that are unique to a company are relatively easy to spot and solve compared with weaknesses that are common to an entire industry, such as the software industry. Industry-wide problems create a situation where there are few people to turn to who even see beyond the blind spots, let alone can point to models for a solution.

In the previous issue, I wrote about what I consider the software industry’s greatest weak spot, namely creating product requirements for software development. In this issue, I’ll tackle another major shortcoming, which is none other than planning software development.

As a Product Manager, chances are you find yourself working with a software development function that is challenged when it comes to planning. And so much of the success of reliable development of competitive capabilities depends upon good planning.

Read on below for a discussion of how to better understand the planning of software development — and how to overcome some common hurdles.