We Need Fewer Product Managers • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers

#31

Post by makecheck » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

I’ve had many managers; by far the best were former peons that had actually worked on the project/technology they’re driving, or at least used it.

Better still, those that never became 100% managers; more like people still being regularly exposed to the tech so they know firsthand. And since frankly tech is more fun than spreadsheets, this meant fewer meetings and shorter interactions overall, just getting stuff done. It meant using technology to help the project rather than periodically re-explaining everything to somebody and shoehorning it all into someone’s idea of a project plan. It meant that estimates could be meaningfully judged instead of being made-up numbers.

Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers

#32

Post by lostcolony » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

wgerard wrote: post #26

lostcolony wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, of course we filled in that role, and to a point that's what I mean by team lead. But the standard is having both a team lead, and a product owner. Why? What is the PO doing that the team and it's lead aren't better able to do? If there is something, by all means, have that person, but typically there isn't. Which I think is this article's point

> What is the PO doing that the team and it's lead aren't better able to do? I think you've either been very lucky with teams or you've had terrible luck with product managers. Let me turn it around, actually: Why have a team lead at all? Why can't the developers just collectively meet with higher-ups, decide on timelines, etc.?

Oh, the team does. The team lead serves largely as tie breaker, and as the person to help bring everyone back on track if discussions go off on a tangent. But the team lead is not there (and frankly would not be able to) decide by fiat on something the team was not amenable to; that can't work.

Re: We Need Fewer Product Managers

#33

Post by lostcolony » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 12:27 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #27

lostcolony wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the technical people don't understand the tradeoffs and prioritize the business' actual needs (sometimes even above the business' stated wants), why do you think a non-technical person (which is 100% of the POs I've encountered) will be able to?

Because the non-technical person has time to dedicate to learning about business' needs while the technical person is busy doing technical stuff for most of their day.

And then they have to communicate that to the dev team, and sit with the dev team to come up with proper stories, which effectively saves little to no time (and leads to a game of telephone; is what the PO telling you -really- what the business needs or just what they heard the business tell them they wanted?). Or, be technical enough that they don't need to communicate it to the dev team in the first place but can just write the stories. I've yet to encounter one sufficiently technical