Basics of Management

At the very basic level, a manager is concerned about three 'w' questions:

1. What?
2. When?
3. Who?

That is, what would the company build? When would it build it? and who would build it.

Of course, these three 'w' questions can be buttressed by other ones such as 'Why' would a company build that it builds. Here I use the term build in a generic way. A company could build bridges, electronic systems, software solutions, or jet airplanes.

The why and what questions fall in the domain of product managers. Product managers decide why they want to take a step in the light of the market conditions, and they describe what it would look like in terms of product specifications or requirements.

The project managers, on the other hand, decide the when and who questions. Actually, the when question is negotiated among the product and the project teams. We can add another 'w' question after the who would build it clause: where would you build it?

With the increasing outsourcing movement and geographic aware strategy, the where question becomes an important one.