Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
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Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#2I stopped reading here: Involve engineering management early and often, so everyone has a chance to contribute to the product vision and buy into where the product is headed.
This is tailored to people in inefficient VC-istan companies where engineers don't get to speak for themselves, hence "involve engineering management". Ok, we're done here.
I agree that there are a lot of terrible, arrogant PM's out there. PM is the ultimate MacLeod Clueless job in many organizations (with engineers closer to the MacLeod Loser tier) because it involves a lot of context-switching and annoying work, but is ultimately just as subordinate as anything else, since the job still involves serving executives.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#3Eh—hoarding credit is sort of the M.O. of a really great product manager.
A PM has to compete with all the other PMs to get her features implemented. And if the PM's feature gets implemented first, this PM looks super productive.
I think if you're an product manager looking to be the best product manager, taking credit is imperative. Because at the end of the day, your feature is just paper until it is implemented.
Not being hated, well, that's another matter... I sympathize with the enormous friction between folks who assign work and folks who finish it.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#4Eh—hoarding credit is sort of the M.O. of a really great product manager. A PM has to compete with all the other PMs to get her features implemented. And if the PM's feature gets implemented first, this PM looks super productive. I think if you're an product manager looking to be the best product manager, taking credit is imperative. Because at the end of the day, your feature is just paper until it is implemented. N…
I sympathize with the enormous friction between folks who assign work and folks who finish it.
I don't. If you create this separation between the two categories, you'll have a terrible organization and when it caves in on itself, I will cheer that process on.
That's why open allocation is morally superior (in addition to working better). People "assign" work to themselves (without noise) and then do it. None of this parasitic high-horse management bullshit.
You know how much better the world would be if "work" was a culture of doing things rather than delegating and taking credit? It'd be a different world. People might actually, like, work when they go "to work".
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#5In what world do PMs actually think the supposed thoughts in this article? Yes, it's important to document well, focus on why not how, and be a shit umbrella not funnel -- though these have been PM 101 everywhere I've worked.
But when PMs infringe on these issues (and yes, all PMs do) I find it's rarely a conscious decision as much an impulsive/instinctive thing from being torn in 100 directions at once.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#6I stopped reading here: Involve engineering management early and often, so everyone has a chance to contribute to the product vision and buy into where the product is headed. This is tailored to people in inefficient VC-istan companies where engineers don't get to speak for themselves, hence "involve engineering management ". Ok, we're done here. I agree that there are a lot of terrible, arrogant PM's out there. PM i…
Good point. I deleted "management" from the post. The best orgs (and also the most successful) are those where everyone has a voice. Maybe you will keep reading now and let me know if anything else in the post really tweaks you the wrong way.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#7I hate articles like this more than anything. If you really want to help product managers, do you have to spend the first half of the article telling them that you're so much more important than them? It takes two hands to clap.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#8In what world do PMs actually think the supposed thoughts in this article? Yes, it's important to document well, focus on why not how, and be a shit umbrella not funnel -- though these have been PM 101 everywhere I've worked. But when PMs infringe on these issues (and yes, all PMs do) I find it's rarely a conscious decision as much an impulsive/instinctive thing from being torn in 100 directions at once.
For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5930324
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#9I hate articles like this more than anything. If you really want to help product managers, do you have to spend the first half of the article telling them that you're so much more important than them? It takes two hands to clap.
I am not sure what your point is. Where in the blog post does it say that I am more important than they are? My career has been defined by being a PM and I have made all of those mistakes myself. In fact, our new company -- Aha.io -- is built for PMs.
Re: Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers
#10I stopped reading here: Involve engineering management early and often, so everyone has a chance to contribute to the product vision and buy into where the product is headed. This is tailored to people in inefficient VC-istan companies where engineers don't get to speak for themselves, hence "involve engineering management ". Ok, we're done here. I agree that there are a lot of terrible, arrogant PM's out there. PM i…
Good point. I deleted "management" from the post. The best orgs (and also the most successful) are those where everyone has a voice. Maybe you will keep reading now and let me know if anything else in the post really tweaks you the wrong way.
In general, quite good and I agree with it.
Minor nit: (1) you used the term "executive team" and I hate that phrase. Don't get me started on teamism. I hate this cargo-cult bullshit where every group of people is called a team. Executives are a court, in the medieval sense.
Also, I still sense that you're writing from a closed-allocation perspective. (I'm not even sure that proper open allocation would have a PM/engineer distinction. Why not hire people who are willing to do both?) Closed allocation is doomed to produce garbage and no amount about of telling other people to be better will correct for its foundational problems.