Happy New Year. If we were publishing this blog in any other early January, we’d end that statement with an exclamation point. But this is 2023 — and as we all know, the world is heading into tough economic times. Given how much difficulty organizations around the world are going to be facing this year, it just doesn’t feel like an exclamation-point moment.

The 2023 State of Product Management Report has arrived! Our inaugural product survey is a tell-all expose that uncovers the true challenges, pain points and success factors of 500 product professionals from around the world. We asked participants to open up, both about what moves the needle for their product teams, and also about what holds them back. We then collated all of those insights into one report-shaped new years’ gift package for the wider product community!

The Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe, might sound like a contradiction in terms. The agile methodology for software development is designed to help companies operate nimbly — without being slowed down by processes or constrained by a rigid plan — so that they can deliver value to customers more quickly and efficiently. But what happens when a small, agile company grows into a large enterprise?

Product roadmapping is awesome. That’s a fact, and it’s not up for debate. Also, saying that is a super sophisticated way to start a blog post. Roadmapping gives you a chance to visualize your product strategy, see how all the important pieces fit together, and tap into the knowledge of the stakeholders you share it with — who might spot a strategic oversight or timeline conflict that you missed.

A properly developed and shared product roadmap can add massive value to an organization — and provide a big boost to the product’s chances for success. When built and shared the right way, a roadmap can align key participants across the company around a shared set of goals and plans. It can build stakeholder enthusiasm for the product. And it can help ensure everyone is steering in the same strategic direction. But roadmapping is a challenging process.

If you’re like most Product Managers, chances are you’re spending far too much time tending to your product roadmaps. We’re not referring here to roadmapping in the strategic sense: reviewing your product roadmap, weighing priorities, making adjustments to timelines, updating strategic goals, discussing capacity levels with your teams, etc. That’s time well spent and there are no shortcuts for the decision-making that is exclusively yours.

One reason product management is such a difficult profession is that you are responsible for the success of your products, but you don’t have authority over most of the people whose help you need to bring about that success. So it all comes down to your persuasion skills. To illustrate some of the challenges Product Managers face in persuading coworkers and decision-makers, try this hypothetical.

First, congratulations. You’re investigating strategies to advance your career in product management, which means you’ve already found one of the most fulfilling and sought-after professions. Research cited by Career Karma found that the average product management professional rates their job satisfaction level at 3.7 out of 5 stars — “highly satisfied.” And Product Management made LinkedIn’s 2022 list of the Top 25 roles showing the most growth in demand.

Given how much value product teams can contribute to a company’s bottom line—in terms of making smarter decisions about what to build, and keeping the organization aligned around a shared set of strategic goals—finding the right product management software is a critical step in the path to company success. But which solution should organizations choose for their product teams?

With the phrase “product-led growth” popping up so often in business conversations these days, you’d think we would all have a shared understanding of what the concept means. But I’ve heard and read the product-led approach described differently many times. That’s unfortunate, and here’s why. I’m seeing a lot of product teams get overwhelmed and lost in the details of the product-led growth (PLG) approach.