Agile actually has reached business. From the early software trials of Microsoft and IBM which eventually lead to the "agile manifesto", it is today applied across industries and organizational functions. Agile has become mainstream and is the tool for small and large organizations, as well as for collocated and globally distributed teams. Industry soon realized that critical systems need more than an agile manifesto. Industry-scale software development typically does not fit to the high constraints of early agile practices, such as extreme programming. Projects easily take several years and span teams around the globe. Global software engineering demands scalability of agile practices. Products increasingly are developed in virtual teams using agile set-up and gig economy practices. Agile in real industry environments needs scaling across sites, functions and hierarchies. The success of a product or service depends on its product management. No wonder that agile product management is demanded to synchronize backlogs towards roadmaps and to foster efficient portfolio management. What exactly are the ingredients of a successful agile product manager? This empirical field study provides results from almost thirty companies on agile product management in a global context. Industry best practices are presented to foster agile product management and thus the success of products in times of high competition and extreme flexibility towards ever-changing market needs.

Christof Ebert is managing director at Vector Consulting Services. He supports clients around the world to improve product strategy and product development and to manage organizational changes. He serves on industry advisory boards, is a professor at the University of Stuttgart and Sorbonne in Paris and author of the Wiley reference book “Global Software an IT”. He is working on a worldwide basis to improve product management and requirements engineering in order to have winning products.