Decision-making in software product management: Identifying research directions from practice

Previous studies on software product management (SPM) domain have provided an extensive picture of the work of a software product manager. Still, little evidence exists about what principles should guide their decisions. A product manager’s decision-making has a certain level of subjectivity based on managerial intuition. However, sustainable software product development requires effective long-term decision-making practices. Requirements engineering, as well as release planning and roadmapping, are SPM areas with the highest level of evidence-based decision-making. Still, the clear understanding of evidencebased decision-making practices is missing. The paper provides an analysis of decision-making related to SPM, reveals a spectrum of attitudes and approaches and reports assumptions on whether SPM is based on intuition or if it is evidencebased.

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