We Need Fewer Product Managers
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We Need Fewer Product Managers
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#2We Need Fewer Exaggerated Headlines
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#3I don’t quite understand this piece. Perhaps there is some exaggeration in the use of product and product manager in titles, but I think it’s superior to previous exaggeration in project management.
It seems like this author has a complaint against product management, but doesn’t quite explain who hurt him or why.
The recommendation is for various different titles to serve in the role- analyst, domain specialist, etc. But I think this is just syntax sugar for product manager. I don’t think you go to school to be a product manager. I think you go to school for a skill and then add product management skills (eg, be an engineer, learn product management to design products and lead teams). This approach is better to the leader being a project manager with no domain expertise but able to track schedules.
I don’t think it’s important what you call the product leader, it’s more important that you have someone with knowledge of the user and the problem domain “in charge” rather than just a procedural person following the project.
Finally, you need a metaphor for all products to help with oeganization. I prefer product over project as it better puts the user as the measurer of value (ie, if user is happy then project is succeeding) rather than the project itself which frequently can continue on intertia for some time without any user value.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#4> We have roles (hats) for these things: project managers, UX, researchers, data scientists, business analysts, team managers, coaches, etc. Do product managers often wear these hats? Sure. Do you need a product manager to wear these hats? No.
Yikes, some problems immediately spring to mind:
1) It's significantly more overhead (both financially and logistically) to have seven specialists doing the job that one generalist was previously.
2) Someone still needs to "herd those cats". Someone has to take the UX research and distill it into project requirements, someone has to take the business analysis and figure out what that means for the product, and so on.
3) It's ok to have generalists with changing job duties. Companies do this all the time with job titles like "software engineer" or "full-stack engineer".
I get the frustration with vague job descriptions and unclear responsibilities, but I don't think the answer is more specialization necessarily.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#5> We need fewer product managers.
We need MORE:
- internal startup co-founders,
- UX,
- customer advocates,
- domain experts,
- service designers,
- complexity untanglers,
This suppose to be a sarcasm?
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#6This is really a rant against management. Reading it reminds me of my way of thinking early in my career before I had encountered a good manager, and also really understood how hard it can be to get even well meaning people working on the right things and moving in the same direction. A collection of specialist individual contributors sounds great, but in practice, it just doesn't work.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#7> We have roles (hats) for these things: project managers, UX, researchers, data scientists, business analysts, team managers, coaches, etc. Do product managers often wear these hats? Sure. Do you need a product manager to wear these hats? No. Yikes, some problems immediately spring to mind: 1) It's significantly more overhead (both financially and logistically) to have seven specialists doing the job that one genera…
>"herd those cats"
I'll do it.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#8> We have roles (hats) for these things: project managers, UX, researchers, data scientists, business analysts, team managers, coaches, etc. Do product managers often wear these hats? Sure. Do you need a product manager to wear these hats? No. Yikes, some problems immediately spring to mind: 1) It's significantly more overhead (both financially and logistically) to have seven specialists doing the job that one genera…
No matter how it is worded, someone needs to be the shield for the development team. There is a constant stream of requests from customers, but the team should not be exposed to all of them. That is the responsibility of the product manager. A coherent system, and decide how to use the limited ressources to develop the product the best way.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#9> We have roles (hats) for these things: project managers, UX, researchers, data scientists, business analysts, team managers, coaches, etc. Do product managers often wear these hats? Sure. Do you need a product manager to wear these hats? No. Yikes, some problems immediately spring to mind: 1) It's significantly more overhead (both financially and logistically) to have seven specialists doing the job that one genera…
"Herd those cats" - that's where "self organizing teams" come in. Turns out, most groups of people who are told "Hey, you're all accountable for (X). Work together on it" will actually work together. That includes figuring out what the business actually needs (not what they say they want), and what tradeoffs may be necessary. I've been on a project in the past that for most of its life had no product owner (or equivalent), just devs, QA, and a team lead, and we delivered what the business flat out said was the biggest success our department had ever given them. We still had internal issues on our team that we had to work around, we still had disagreements, but when everyone is invested in the success of the product, you learn the domain, learn when you need to ask questions, when you need to listen, and when you need to overrule the business (and how to do that in a way they can appreciate).
You should have someone in charge (a technical manager say) to handle personnel disputes and otherwise play tie breaker in the event of disagreements, but that's a very specific, and very different, role, compared to what product/project owner/manager entails.
Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers
#10I can think of a few kinds of manager who ought to be culled (mostly upper), but somebody who can give me crystal clear requirements with clear priorities is of immense value to me as a software developer. It takes a massive weight off my shoulders.
The alternative is fielding a stream of requests from different people with different agendas and trying to figure out both what their deal is, what the hell it is they are actually after (because most people can't explain their requirements coherently and have to have it teased out) and using subtle social cues to figure out how important their requirement really is so it can be prioritized.
I've noticed that PMs who can't do this are pretty common though. It's a job that seems to be filled frequently by unqualified people.