“Developers who state they don’t need a PM because they’ve moved to Agile don’t understand what Product Management is, and also don’t understand what Agile is.”

This statement is insighful and true. Realizing the full benefits of agile development – even just the most important benefits – requires that the entire product team participate in iterative development.

But you are overstating the case when you claim that product management has always practiced agile. As with development, it is impossible for one department to practice agile in isolation. Agile product management requires that designers, developers, and testers help product managers bring demoable software to customers on an iterative basis. Bringing demoable software to customers on an iterative basis enables product managers to overcome BUFR.

Furthermore, common practices of product management directly contradict the notion that product management has always been agile. In the comment section of the blog entry I published addressing precisely this issue, I wrote:

“First, take the typical 50 page requirements thrown over the wall to developers. To the extent that product managers resisted creating such documents, it wasn’t because they were agile. It was because they were either lazy or didn’t want to get into design details.

Second, I challenge you to find an example prior to the popularity of agile where the product manager pushed for frequent, regular iterations. If product managers were truly agile, you should be able to find numerous examples.”

You never responded to this challenge.