Interview with SPM course teacher Hans-Bernd Kittlaus

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

My name is Hans-Bernd Kittlaus and I am the chairman of ISPMA e.V. (www.ispma.org) and a founding board member. Besides that, I am the founder, owner and general manager of InnoTivum Consulting (www.innotivum.com). Before, I was Director of SIZ GmbH (Computing Center of the German Savings Banks Organization, Germany) and Head of Software Product Management and Development units of IBM. My main focus area is software product management. I have been working as a trainer, coach and consultant for software organizations in a number of industries. I've trained hundreds of product managers in more than 80 SPM trainings including all five ISPMA-based training modules. I'm a frequent speaker at conferences and have published numerous books and articles, my latest being “Software Product Management: The ISPMA-Compliant Study Guide and Handbook” (with Samuel Fricker, Springer 2017). Besides that, I am Diplom-Informatiker (corresponds to M.S. in Computer Science) and certified as ISPMA Certified Software Product Manager, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), and PRINCE2 Practitioner. My wife and I live close to Bonn, Germany. I like to spend my spare time with jazz, wine, tennis, cycling and good books.  

What roles do the students of the SPM course typically fulfill within their organization?

Primarily product managers and product owners, but also managers of product units, developers and marketing people. They come primarily from software product companies, but also from other industries with software-intensive products, professional service organizations and corporate IT organizations.

As one of the creators of this SPM course which subjects/components had to be part of this course?

The SPM Foundation Level course is intended to give a full overview of all SPM tasks. This is best represented in ISPMA’s SPM Framework.

All the SPM activities are covered in the course.

What is a Software Product Manager?

A software product manager is a member of a software organization responsible for managing a software product or software part of a software-intensive product, i.e. system or service, with the objective to achieve sustainable economic success over its life cycle. Tasks and activities are shown in the SPM Framework.

What are the key elements students take away from this course?

Through this course, students know and understand the role of software product manager, its purpose and objectives, its tasks and activities, its challenges and techniques to overcome them. And they get a structure with the SPM Framework.

How did you weave practice with theory?

The syllabus of this course is based on industry best practices and academic research results. It is my job as the trainer to spice this up with lots of industry examples. And there are exercises that provide opportunities to apply the contents to a practical product example.

Becoming a Software Product Manager in three days sounds ambitious. How are you able to teach the students all the knowledge in such a short span of time?

Achieving excellence in SPM usually takes years and requires a good mix of education and practical experience. This course provides the foundation of SPM in a structured way. It is quite a lot of contents for three days, but the structure helps students to digest it. ISPMA has created four Excellence Level training modules on top of the Foundation Level that provide more in-depth content in the different areas of SPM and more room for case studies and exercises.  

What can students do once they’ve finished the course and acquired the certificate?

The course enables students to start as software product manager or become a better software product manager. Even experienced participants tell me frequently that they get a lot of value from the course, in particular from the structure and the comprehensiveness. See some testimonials: https://www.innotivum.com/en/education/customer-testimonials/. The ISPMA certificate is proof of the student’s knowledge and understanding of SPM. We have reports from participants who got promotions and/or better job opportunities due to the certificate.   

How do you see the future for SPM?

We have been seeing increasing demand for SPM skills, not only in the software industry, but more and more in other industries which recognize that software is turning into a significant value driver and differentiator in their products, e.g. automotive, banking, manufacturing etc. A growing number of corporate IT organizations establish the SPM role – sometimes under a different name – in order to manage the applications in their portfolio with a longer time horizon beyond the individual development project. In the startup world, good SPM skills are often an important success factor. 

The discipline of SPM is continuously changing and developing which is why ISPMA is periodically updating its syllabi. This Foundation Level course is based on the new version 2.0 of the syllabus which was released in 2021 with significant new and changed contents. Some of the more recent changes result from newer SPM techniques being more or less applicable in different product scenarios. This increasing differentiation is covered in the course.