Clarifying product management : A study of the sensemaking outcome in a management practice

Abstract: Today’s technological development has shed new light upon the management practiceproduct management and it is considered more important than ever to manage products.Moreover, organisations to a growing extent face external bodies that evaluate them andimpose organisational structures that they need to comply with. Product management isnevertheless characterised with ambiguity, broad definitions and various depictions. Ascattered research field together with practitioners struggle to define the area stress the needto clarify product management structuring. This thesis uses a sensemaking perspective and akaleidoscopic approach in order to capture product management structuring in a fragmentedarea. It means that we investigate what the sensemaking outcome of product management isand why organisational members make sense this way. This thesis has found that productmanagement is understood on two main levels and that the practice comprises bothconsistency and inconsistency on an inter-organisational level. Findings suggest that sharedidentity, strong commitment, cues, metaphors and expectations have influenced consistentunderstandings and crystallised the sensemaking outcome. In addition, product governanceinfluences product management and therefore the sensemaking outcome are inconsistent inseveral structuring elements. The thesis concludes that our contemporary productmanagement practice is comprised with general components that can be structured similarlybut also components that require a customised structuring due to the product governance trait.