More product, fewer product managers • Hacker News Board

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#211

Post by lp4vn » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

dan_mctree wrote: post #188

lp4vn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But most of them seem to think they can operate entirely in document-land and just crank out roadmap docs and keep stakeholder alignment via endless check-ins and nagging. They are doing a "project manager" job instead. Ok, maybe I came to the wrong place to say what I'm gonna say because I guess that a sizable part of the demographics here works in hot, meaningful projects, but as a corp worker for the last 8+ year…

>but the catastrophist discourse that there's a deep slowdown in productivity compared to the previous decades and that today we're mostly relying on things we already did in the past maps pretty well with my perception. Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much? Is this a software online observation, or more of a wider pattern With software I guess part of the problem is that there's a lot of dimi…

>Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much? Is this a software online observation, or more of a wider pattern

It's a wider pattern in fact:

"The productivity paradox, also referred to as the Solow paradox, could refer either to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the same period, or to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States and developed countries from the 2000s to 2020s; sometimes the newer slowdown is referred to as the productivity slowdown, the productivity puzzle, or the productivity paradox 2.0."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#212

Post by pyrale » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

dan_mctree wrote: post #188

lp4vn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But most of them seem to think they can operate entirely in document-land and just crank out roadmap docs and keep stakeholder alignment via endless check-ins and nagging. They are doing a "project manager" job instead. Ok, maybe I came to the wrong place to say what I'm gonna say because I guess that a sizable part of the demographics here works in hot, meaningful projects, but as a corp worker for the last 8+ year…

>but the catastrophist discourse that there's a deep slowdown in productivity compared to the previous decades and that today we're mostly relying on things we already did in the past maps pretty well with my perception. Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much? Is this a software online observation, or more of a wider pattern With software I guess part of the problem is that there's a lot of dimi…

> Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much?

It's not exactly a new idea:

> The term "software crisis" was coined by some attendees at the first NATO Software Engineering Conference in 1968 at Garmisch, Germany. [1]

As you can see, people have had the perception that it's harder to crank out software than before for a long time now. The reality is that we're collectively vastly better at it than we used to be, and that what we're trying to do gets harder and harder. No one is paying for the kind of productivity software dev had in the 2000's, and no one will be paying us 20 years from now for doing what we do now. Except if maintaining older software that yields value - in which case, well, maintaining and expanding a brownfield is always harder than greenfield.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_crisis

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#213

Post by jasondigitized » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

ath3nd wrote: post #143

tashoecraft wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you haven’t had a good PM or a job that supports having one. Saying it’s often some new grad is like saying there’s no point having an on shore dev team because the devs are often fresh out of university. If you continually hire terribly you’re going to have a bad result. A PM should become the subject matter expert in the product they are developing. They should be able to field questions on most every p…

I can most certainly and confidently tell you that a dedicated QA team that only does testing is a total waste of money! A sre/platform team building fuzzy testing tools and mandating better testing practices is money much better spent. The developers MUST care for the quality, not outsource it to some external team. The desire of large corps to spend huge amount of $$$ to create artificial roles to water down owners…

You are so right on the QA thing and so wrong on the PM thing. If you have a PM that just came out of uni, your company has no idea what they are doing. Good PM's are really really good at communicating at multiple abstraction levels within multiple levels of the organizational hierarchy. Why? Because they have to build consensus and coalitions to get the things ( money, people, buy-in, details, information ) required to build really good software and build all the ancillary things to sell and support that software. I think what you are calling a PM is what I call a jr. project manager.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#214

Post by mushbino » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

Hippocrates wrote: post #112

The problem with most PMs is that they are not doing boots-on-the-ground work. A good PM should be constantly bridging the gap between engineering and the user. 1. Map the product or idea being built to those who will use it. Present it, get users feelings on it, if it is viable and needed. Throughout development, gather continuous feedback by demoing, shadowing, and adapting to new feedback. Plan and execute a launc…

I've worked with dozens and dozens of PMs over the years and almost zero of them do this. Most of this is always done by product designers.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#215

Post by jasondigitized » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

ftio wrote: post #118

sunpazed wrote: post #33

I’ve been in product management for over 20 years, and I agree with most of what is said here. Ratios matter. CPOs end up empire building with an army of PMs. The organisation ends up with PMs owning a slice of the customer experience such as a single page, optimising CTRs on buttons, with no meaningful contribution to the product strategy or vision. It’s hard to be a Product Manager without owning a product.

Longtime PM as well, and I strongly agree. PMs should have lots of surface area —- ideally, an entire product (or more). PMs should also be a lot more focused on the business’ goals than most PMs are. It’s necessary but insufficient to solve problems for your users. Solving those problems needs to translate into value for your company too. Strong, product-minded Eng/UX partners are essential in enabling that.

This. The closer to the P&L the better. It forces you to act as a "whole product" manager and not think everything is solved by adding a new feature.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#216

Post by codingdave » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

ath3nd wrote: post #70

bjornsing wrote: post #63

I've spent some time interacting with product managers as an engineering manager, or head of a functional area. I've also been "acting" PM for an internal product at a medium size tech company. I think product management entails some of the most important things a company does. But it's really hard work, and many less capable PMs gravitate away from it and more towards either "driving" (i.e. micromanaging) the engine…

I don't believe in Product Managers or Project Owners as a net good towards building a better product or a better company. The most successful teams I have been in had no dedicated product role, instead, all decisions were made by the developers. My current view is best to remove all type of non technical people or even mildly technical people from the developers' way and let them build in peace.

"most successful teams"

For what definition of success, and at what point in the product lifecycle?

I've been on teams as you describe. They were great - as long as nobody had to deliver a working product and you were just running out runway until the next gig. They were also great when the product was already built and we were just KTLO and deliver some new features once in a while. But I haven't seen such teams deliver a product from initial idea to PMF and sustainability.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#217

Post by aperson_hello » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #196

ath3nd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Management worshipping at the throne of agile become really enthralled with these guys and can derail an org for years. In theory a PMs stakeholders are the users, but in practice it is buffing the egos of the senior management that hired them. Can become a self reinforcing closed loop between senior management / agile consultants / PMs. Beautifully put!

This was the way in almost every place I've worked. If you did a good job at managing upward and schmoozing and stroking the senior management's ego, and had those smooth "ivy leaguer" mannerisms, then it didn't even matter if you did your job. You were the Golden Boy and destined for greatness. But if you were too busy actually doing your job and didn't properly pet your management chain, you were setting yourself u…

This is exactly the problem. If you do your job as a PM, you get pushed out because doing your job means you'll be ruffling feathers in senior management. So to stick around, you schmooze instead of doing your job because doing your job properly invariably pisses off management at some point

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#218

Post by mistrial9 » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

lp4vn wrote: post #211

dan_mctree wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but the catastrophist discourse that there's a deep slowdown in productivity compared to the previous decades and that today we're mostly relying on things we already did in the past maps pretty well with my perception. Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much? Is this a software online observation, or more of a wider pattern With software I guess part of the problem is that there's a lot of dimi…

>Mine too. Any ideas why productivity has slowed down so much? Is this a software online observation, or more of a wider pattern It's a wider pattern in fact: "The productivity paradox, also referred to as the Solow paradox, could refer either to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the same period, o…

this compares apples to vitamins in a way -- what is possible and what is expected have changed so much in thirty years for office and information work, that reducing it to a pair of numbers seems ridiculous

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#219

Post by solatic » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

liquidpele wrote: post #195

flappyeagle wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best PMs I’ve worked with were HIGHLY technical, either in the same areas as the developers or in adjacent areas, like product design, or the domain of the product PM for retail company did long stints in merchandising at Costco PM for spreadsheet company was a former banking analyst Most companies hire under qualified generalist PMs who have to learn everything about their market from scratch; it’s very challeng…

Pffft, they train the juniors? Hahaha, that’s funny.

https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/students

https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/students/

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#220

Post by ath3nd » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

ako wrote: post #200

ath3nd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in Product Managers or Project Owners as a net good towards building a better product or a better company. The most successful teams I have been in had no dedicated product role, instead, all decisions were made by the developers. My current view is best to remove all type of non technical people or even mildly technical people from the developers' way and let them build in peace.

I don't understand, how do you handle prioritization decisions: if you have a 100+ customers that all want something, how do you create understanding of all needs, how do you distill that to an integrated roadmap, and how do you align the roadmap prioritization decisions across 20+ teams? How do you organize updating of documentation, training materials, enablement of support, pricing decision, updating of price list…

> I don't understand, how do you handle prioritization decisions: if you have a 100+ customers that all want something, how do you create understanding of all needs, how do you distill that to an integrated roadmap, and how do you align the roadmap prioritization decisions across 20+ teams?

That does seem to require at least a PHD in prioritization or a totally real role like a Product Manager indeed! A naive approach would be to make a spreadsheet with the names of the clients, their current and potential monetary value, group the issues by the corresponding teams and themes, and let the teams ask additional clarification questions to the clients so they can prioritize. But yes, I can see your point, a PM guy called Josh with an bachelor of arts degree indeed seems more qualified to do it than a bunch of software engineers, and make the better decisions. I dunno what I was thinking.

> How do you organize updating of documentation, training materials, enablement of support

A naive approach would be to have a frequently updated knowledge base. However, I understand that Josh and his arts degree make him the best at producing/updating of documentation, training materials, and enablement of support, so probably...Josh?

> updating of price lists, enablement of sales, presales, and customer success teams?

Sales + developers + finance sitting together? Shared company view of the important client metrics? Nah, Josh will do it.

> How do you manage the input towards analysts like Gartner, that have a big impact on the decision process of your customers?

Marketing departments? But I have the sneaking suspicion Jake (or was it Josh) is a better candidate.

> How do you evaluate the offering of the competition compared to your offering, how do you determine where you should be in 1,3,5 years to have a competing product in the market?

By analyzing competition, thinking forward and having a vision. Are developers supposed to only think on the benefits of mysql vs postgres?

> Most PMs are mostly concerned about what should be built to create a valuable product for customers, that provides healthy stream of revenue for the company. Most developers are concerned about how it should be built. That is a completely different responsibility.

Let me float a crazy idea out there, I hope it doesn't sound too far out, I am just trying to dream out loud. Because I believe that if we dream big, then everything is possible.

Hear me out... How about, maybe having developers concerned BOTH about what should be built and how? I know this is too radical, and we would probably need first to have that notion reconciled with mainstream physics, mathematics, and fluid dynamics, but it's just a crazy thought I've been having.

Just imagine a universe where engineers not only execute instructions from people with suits, but actively decide what to build themselves. Of course, that's science fiction and can't possibly be achieved, but just imagine!

P.S Sorry for the patronizing tone. I just think the industry got it really wrong as a whole, and that we can build far better things and far easier if we treat engineers as adults who know what they are doing. The existence of a PM (or PO) role for me is the opposite of treating devs like adults.