Over the years of the experience as a Product Manager and a hobby cook, I have realized several similarities. I tried to bringout similarities and drive the point that Chef's do a fantastic job of product managing their products (food).

1. Product Management and Cooking 
08/30/2013
Photo Credits : Google Image Search
Suresh Krishna Madhuvarsu
> www.sureshkrishna.com
> www.linkedin.com/in/sureshmadhuvarsu

2.  Yes, there are lots of similarities between
product management and cooking 
 Cooking has Product Strategy, Product Design
and Product Development aspects that every
chef takes care of (consciously or
unconsciously)!
 A product manager deals with product strategy,
product design and product development to
accomplish his product vision.

3. Product StrategyProduct Strategy

4.  Who am I making this food for?
How many?
 What kind of food do my guests
like?
 Do I have enough time to
prepare?
 Can I (or my team) do it?
 Am I paid (financially /
emotionally) enough to take on
this job?
 What should I make?
 What is the
opportunity? Market
size?
 Should we get into this
market?
 What are user needs?
 Can we do it?
 Make/buy decision
 Can we compete?
 Who are the users?
CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

5. Product DesignProduct Design

6.  How should I make?
 What do my guests
like and don’t like?
 What food looks
good, tastes good
and is healthy?
 How to present the
food?
 What are the
functional use cases?
 How to provide the
best user
experience?
 Are there any
industry standards to
comply?
 Is the product
CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

7. Product DevelopmentProduct Development

8.  What are the
ingredients?
 What utensils should I
use?
 How should I split the
work with my sue chef?
 Do I have infrastructure
to cook?
 How much time do I
have?
 What technology should
we use?
 Can we provide all the
requested functionality?
 What is the development
methodology?
 What is the timeline for
the product release?
 Effort and resources?
CookingCooking Product ManagementProduct Management

9.  While product managers produce MRDs, BRDs,
PRDs and FRDs to represent their understanding of
the problem space, top chefs usually keep strategy
and design in their minds.
 The fundamental questions that a chef and a
product manager asks are same.
 What, Why, Who and How
 At the end, both chef and product manager are
happy to see their products providing value.