Heavyweight Product Management

Leading literature in product development (see seminal works at Open Source Product Development) indicate that the most successful management style - in complex projects requiring an interdisciplinary approach - is the Heavyweight Project Manager (HPM) model. For successful integration of multiple areas and stakeholders - a strong guiding hand is needed.

This project manager is not in a directive as much as a facilitative role - but does have leadership and power to influence decisions in a substantial way.

Applied to OSE, this means:

• The project manager does not focus on financial capital to access development effort, but rather a more integrated approach of Open Source capital. This means understanding of Open Source collaboration and how common interest and efficiency can be leveraged in an open development process. The advantage of an open source approach is that contributors are not alienated from their work via compensation, but instead rely on their self determination to be part of a team. This provides more authentic and integrated results.