Folks - i'm the one that gave that presentation. One thing I am seeing here is a semantic assumption that PRODUCT management and PROJECT management are the same thing. IMHO they are two vastly different disciplines and very little of what I said applies to my opinion of PROJECT management (I could do another preso on that alone). Project management is a book keeper and arbitrator function in my view - not a decision maker about the final product being developed. Many companies blend these functions, we intentionally separated them as managing project timelines and gant charts is a vastly different skill set than managing requirements. I suspect many people have a poor opinion of Project Management (and the institute) because they blend the two functions. But don't confuse the downfalls of many project managers (they have limited consituencies - budget and timeline) with the Product Management process.

Hope that helps - glad this started some discussion.

Niel