product management and cooking similarities

Product Management and Cooking 08/30/2013

Photo Credits : Google Image Search

Suresh Krishna Madhuvarsu > www.sureshkrishna.com> www.linkedin.com/in/sureshmadhuvarsu

Yes, there are lots of similarities between product management and cooking

Cooking has Product Strategy, Product Design and Product Development aspects that every chef takes care of (consciously or unconsciously)!

A product manager deals with product strategy, product design and product development to accomplish his product vision.

Product StrategyProduct Strategy

Who am I making this food for? How many?

What kind of food do my guests like?

Do I have enough time to prepare?

Can I (or my team) do it? Am I paid (financially /

emotionally) enough to take on this job?

What should I make?

What is the opportunity? Market size?

Should we get into this market?

What are user needs?

Can we do it? Make/buy decision Can we compete? Who are the users?

CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

Product DesignProduct Design

How should I make? What do my guests

like and don’t like? What food looks

good, tastes good and is healthy?

How to present the food?

What are the functional use cases?

How to provide the best user experience?

Are there any industry standards to comply?

Is the product feasible?

CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

Product DevelopmentProduct Development

What are the ingredients?

What utensils should I use?

How should I split the work with my sue chef?

Do I have infrastructure to cook?

How much time do I have?

What technology should we use?

Can we provide all the requested functionality?

What is the development methodology?

What is the timeline for the product release?

Effort and resources?

CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

While product managers produce MRDs, BRDs, PRDs and FRDs to represent their understanding of the problem space, top chefs usually keep strategy and design in their minds.

The fundamental questions that a chef and a product manager asks are same. What, Why, Who and How

At the end, both chef and product manager are happy to see their products providing value.