This page is part of the ForgeSDLC knowledge base — an AI-assisted, human-directed methodology for taking product work from concept to production. For the core operating model and vocabulary, see Forge SDLC overview and What is ForgeSDLC?.

Product management — body of knowledge

Document map

1. Vision and strategy

Problem space ownership

Product management begins with the problem space — understanding customer pain points, unmet needs, and market opportunities before committing to solutions. The PM owns the answer to: "Why does this product exist, and for whom?"

Vision levels

Strategy frameworks

2. Roadmap management

Roadmap types

Roadmap hygiene

• Review cadence: Revisit quarterly (strategy alignment) and per-iteration (scope adjustment).
• Input sources: Customer feedback, analytics (P5), sales/CS signals, competitive moves, technology shifts, regulatory changes.
• Stakeholder alignment: Share roadmap updates proactively; explain why items moved, not just what changed.
• Anti-pattern — the feature graveyard: Items that remain on the roadmap for 3+ quarters without progress should be explicitly killed or re-scoped. Stale items erode roadmap credibility.

Roadmap and Forge integration

In Forge SDLC, roadmap items decompose into the planning hierarchy:

Roadmap Theme
  └── Product Spark (PoC / MVP / Phase)
        └── Forge Iteration(s)
              └── Ore → Ingot → Spark → Charge

The PM (Product hat) owns the roadmap-to-Product-Spark decomposition. Engineering hat owns Ingot-to-Spark decomposition.

3. Prioritization frameworks

Prioritization principles

1. Outcomes over outputs. Prioritize toward the outcome you want to move, not toward the feature list.
2. Explicit trade-offs. Every "yes" is an implicit "no" to something else — make the trade-off visible.
3. Confidence-weighted. High-impact, low-confidence items need discovery before commitment, not a high-priority slot.
4. Reversibility matters. Low-reversibility decisions deserve more rigor; high-reversibility ones can move faster.
5. Re-prioritize on new evidence. Prioritization is continuous; a quarterly roadmap review that never changes is a red flag.

4. Market analysis

Market sizing

Market dynamics

Segmentation

Effective segmentation groups potential customers by observable characteristics that predict behavior:

5. Competitive intelligence

Competitive landscape mapping

Positioning map

Plot competitors on two axes that matter to your ICP (e.g. ease-of-use vs depth-of-functionality, price vs specialization). Identify white space — underserved quadrants.

Competitive analysis elements

Competitive intelligence cadence

6. Business model and pricing

Business model components

Pricing strategies

Packaging

Group features into tiers that match segments:

• Free / trial: Low barrier; captures leads; limited feature set.
• Standard: Core value; majority of customers.
• Professional / Team: Collaboration, integrations, volume.
• Enterprise: Security, compliance, SLA, custom.

7. Product-market fit

What product-market fit means

A product has achieved PMF when the market pulls the product — organic growth, high retention, low churn, and customers who would be "very disappointed" if the product disappeared.

PMF signals

Pre-PMF vs post-PMF product management

8. OKRs and success metrics

Objective and Key Result structure

Metric layers

Product health scorecard

Track a balanced set of metrics across dimensions:

9. Discovery cadence

Continuous discovery habits

Product discovery should be continuous, not episodic. Key practices (per Teresa Torres):

Dual-track integration

Discovery feeds delivery with validated Ore (Forge terminology). Delivery feeds discovery with usage data and customer feedback.

Experiment design

10. Stakeholder communication

Communication cadence

Communication principles

1. Lead with why. Explain the outcome the team is pursuing before listing what will be built.
2. Show trade-offs. When stakeholders ask "why not X?", share the prioritization rationale, not just "it's not on the roadmap."
3. Update proactively. Stakeholders should not be surprised by changes; communicate shifts before they ask.
4. Separate commitment from aspiration. Clearly label what is committed vs what is being explored.

11. Relationship to adjacent disciplines

Related reading

Keep project-specific product management artifacts (vision, roadmap, OKRs, metrics) in docs/product/, not in this file.