If the product manager is a baseball pitcher, the role of "starter" and "relief" PM in smartwatch development

If the product manager was a baseball pitcher

Kayo Okada: Thank you, my name is Kayo Okada of Casio Computer. Today, I would like to talk about a slightly fluffy title, "If the product manager (PM) is a baseball pitcher."

Casio is a company that makes watches like G-SHOCK, and there is a department called the watch development control department. There is a smart watch department in it, and we are planning products there.

When I joined the company, I was in charge of embedded software for digital cameras because it was software development. After that, it took about four years to launch the first generation of smart watches for product planning, and now we are finally selling the second generation products. Originally, my hobbies are mountaineering and the outdoors, and I also climb snowy mountains.

The product I worked on was called "PRO TREK Smart" ... Originally, there was an outdoor watch called "PRO TREK", and I developed a product called "WSD-F20" as a smart watch version of it.

Because it's a smartwatch, of course, it's waterproof, and there's a hard part that doesn't break when used outdoors, and there's a soft application part about what to show on the smartwatch screen. How do you create value with a product that has a large weight for both? I was doing various things while searching for the hardware and software development process and what to do.

I talked about that story at the last PO festival, and the slide is open to the public. You can find it by searching for "smartwatch product development", so if you are interested, please do so.