Product or project management? Why property projects need someone responsible for the big picture

Project management and product management sound similar, but follow fundamentally different approaches. Project management organises the delivery of individual service packages – a work package, a milestone, an acceptance test. Product management bears the commercial responsibility for ensuring that, ultimately, there is genuine benefit for the people who actually use the end result – and that this benefit is long-lasting, not just at the handover date.

In the property sector, this distinction is rarely a purely academic question. It determines whether a building, a portfolio or a digital service actually works in the end – or whether, despite many successfully completed projects, nobody is satisfied.

Two ways of thinking, two outcomes

Project management asks: Has my trade been completed? Have the specifications been met? Has the handover certificate been signed? The focus is on individual features, work packages and interfaces – each with a clearly defined end point. Once the work has been handed over, responsibility usually ends there.

Product Management asks a different question: Does the end result actually benefit the people who use it? And will it still do so in a year’s time, or in five years’ time? The focus is on the bigger picture and on a commercial responsibility that does not end with handover, but continues throughout the entire product lifecycle.

The classic pattern in property development projects

Architects, main contractors, facility management, IT, consultants – a property project brings together many specialists, and each of them excels in their respective field. The problem does not arise from a lack of professional expertise, but from the structure itself: everyone delivers their own part of the project, but no one takes responsibility for how the parts fit together – for the system that will actually be used in the end.

That is precisely where the problem is postponed. It does not become apparent at the handover stage, but later on: when systems are supposed to communicate with one another, when security policies need to be implemented, when day-to-day operations begin and it suddenly becomes clear that something is to be operated that was never planned as a coherent system – but rather as the sum of individual projects, each of which was successful in its own right.

What this means for the various roles within the property sector

• Project developers: A project-based approach ends with the handover to the buyer or operator. A product-based approach asks how the building will perform in 20 years’ time – and makes decisions today that will ensure this is possible.
• Construction companies: A project-based approach means: once a trade has been completed, it is signed off. A product-based approach goes a step further and asks how well the end result can actually be utilised in day-to-day operations.
• Asset and fund managers: A product-oriented approach is often already built into their thinking here, as the focus is on the return over the entire holding period – not just on the individual purchase or transaction.
• Facility management and property management: A project-based approach means managing in accordance with the specifications. A product-based approach means keeping the actual user experience of tenants or staff in mind.
• Housing organisations: A project-based approach ends with completion or modernisation. A product-based approach asks whether the home will continue to meet residents’ needs for decades to come.

Why this is not an academic distinction

If no one bears overall commercial responsibility for the big picture, the problems do not arise from technology or a lack of expertise. They arise because there are too many interfaces and siloed solutions, for which, in the event of a problem, nobody is accountable – until, in the end, it is usually IT or facilities management that have to deal with the consequences, even though they have never been responsible for or planned the system as a whole.

The question that property companies should therefore be asking themselves is not: Is every individual trade well planned? But rather: Who takes responsibility for the big picture – before others are left to deal with the consequences?

What property companies can learn from product management

• A designated, end-to-end responsibility for the benefits of the outcome – in addition to traditional project management for the individual trades.
• Measuring success in terms of the actual benefits to users, not merely on the basis of the purchase of individual service packages.
• Responsibility that continues beyond the handover date – in line with the product life cycle in other sectors.

The name says it all

This is precisely where our approach at BEST 4 PROJECT comes in. We deliberately bring experience and ways of thinking from other sectors – including product management methodologies, such as those that have been established in the technology sector for years – into the property industry. Not to replace project management, but to complement it with precisely the perspective that is often lacking in traditional property projects: a consistent focus on the bigger picture and the actual benefits for the people who will ultimately work and live there.

The next step

Arrange a no-obligation initial consultation: Together, we’ll identify where product thinking is lacking in your current project – and how this can be changed with a manageable amount of effort.