I think the quote at the beginning and the author are saying the same thing.
Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#12I've read and reread this several times, and I'm still not entirely sure what the author is trying to convey. Having been on both sides, I can say that engineers always benefit from business experience, particularly meeting customers. Product team members should have a deep understanding of how their products work and the resources required to build them. This alignment ensures everyone is working toward the same goal instead of ping-ponging back and forth with ill-defined work items. It also encourages useful creativity on both teams. Know how the other side works and occasionally immerse yourself in that world.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#13I think that software engineering is about two things: building things the right way and building the right things.
The second one is more important than the first one. If you don't build the right product, it doesn't matter how well it scales or how it has amazing test coverage or wonderful documentation. To that end, I think that too many managers (and companies) do too much shielding of engineers from customers. If you are just given a figma mockup and told "build this", it's easy to get bogged down for a week with the details of building a search bar at the bottom of the page only to realize that the stakeholders would have been OK with a dropdown select. Better to understand the problem you are solving and the only way to really do this is to have some kind of interaction with customers. As an engineering manager, I try to encourage engineers to get on sales calls and see product demos. When you see it from a high level, you a) almost always notice things that need fixing or can be improved and b) see where the piece that you are working on fits into the larger picture.
That said, I find that many engineers don't want to get on customer calls, and usually there's room for those engineers in an organization as well. For example, "build a new video conferencing service for artists to collaborate" would be a very challenging problem (I think) that is not well defined and therefore requires deep customer understanding. "Make Google searches run with 10% fewer CPU milliseconds" is arguably a much harder problem to solve, but it's so well defined that it really doesn't need customer understanding (setting aside the initial decision about whether it makes sense to work on).
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#14Seems like there are some steps missing between the quoted at the beginning and the outrage in the article. I don’t really understand the specifics of the complaint. My main thought reading the quote at the top is, “you shouldn’t call people ‘neckbeards’”. But it is also true that not all engineers want to talk to customers. Don’t judge a fish by how well they ride a bicycle, and all that. “It takes all kinds” is a b…
There's a lot of value in the entire product team understanding the customer/user.
My interpretation of the piece so far is that it's suggesting that leaders think about their role wrt to this as like the party host, who figures out how to facilitate socializing by each individual, to make the party successful. Rather than as the chess master, who keeps everything to themself in their head (and there's a lot of pawns).
I'll have to mull that over, but I do have plenty of anecdotes that would seem to support that.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#15Product Management is hosting a party... ...but the venue owner wants the staff to do insane party tricks instead of buy chips and soda ...and wants to take half the guests off the list because they invited too many people ...and wants to change the theme 12 hours before the party starts, because they're _certain_ the party goers will love this new theme (despite never talking to them) Your job as a PM is to make sur…
It sounds like advice I've given to men serving as the Best Man and women serving as the Maid/Matron of Honor at a wedding. Your job isn't just ceremonial. It is to make sure that if anything unexpected comes up, you solve it in such a way that the newlyweds don't even know it happened.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#16My metaphor for product leadership is a Jazz Band: step back and let your players shine.
Assuming you hired good players.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#17I think that software engineering is about two things: building things the right way and building the right things . The second one is more important than the first one. If you don't build the right product, it doesn't matter how well it scales or how it has amazing test coverage or wonderful documentation. To that end, I think that too many managers (and companies) do too much shielding of engineers from customers.…
As a fellow engineering manager -- I 100% agree. The more your engineers know as much as possible about the customers, the more they will code in the right direction just be understanding.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#18Having a sales meeting with the CIO, CTO, VP Procurement, etc. of a Fortune 500 company is unlike any conversation a non-customer facing engineer would have ever had in their life.
Dealing with these people is like golden gloves boxing. Every other move they make is a head fake or a trap. Before you open your mouth and take one step forward, you better have your back foot planted or else they're going to knock you on your butt simply to gain an iota of competitive advantage in the negotiation. One regrettable word or phrase in a sales meeting, even if it is technically and factually correct, can cost your team hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I don't understand why the author seemingly takes offense that sending an untrained person into a high-stakes scenario isn't something most companies do, or that some neurodivergent people might ethically struggle with personally misdirecting or suppressing technically and factually correct information as part of a business negotiation.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#19This kind of outrage is fun to read. Someone gets themselves all worked up after hearing an offhand comment. Then proceeds to take a few paragraphs to set up what a shining beacon of kindness and compassion and calm consideration they are, before ending the post with the truly measured "cautionary word" of: "don't say stupid shit".
Meanwhile, they never once addressed the central claim of the thing that made them so angry: some engineers aren't ready/willing to be customer facing. Instead they ranted about the benefits of introducing engineers to customers, all of which of course are true, but none of which address the original claim.
The self-importance of this person was beaming straight through my monitor the entire time.
Re: Product management is hosting a party, not playing chess
#20I always have this in my mind, “Life is Tetris; Business is Chess.”
Lots of noob chess players out there to beat!