> anything short of perfection was inconceivable to them
them being the list of leonardo, steve jobs, peter thiel etc..
the part I quoted just isn't true
The product manager role is a mistake
251–260 of 370 posts
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you had a project manager, not a product manager. A good product manager is very valuable.
Project management was the role Larry Page once axed in 2001: https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-manage...
Sounds like he fired a type of project manager - one who controlled the team. A project manager can manager the team by supporting them and unblocking them while doing non-implementation type work such as managing and reporting the project's budget, managing and reporting progress and delivery aims.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#253The thing about PMs. They fulfill a very specific need, and that need is hard to quantify, but I can tell you that without a good PM everything falls apart. Here's a list of what they tend to do: - gather information from users on what is/isn't working for them - gather information from executives about what needs to be done to keep the company working - gather information from industry leaders who may or may not be…
Advocating funding for a project budget and trying to involve stakeholders as well.
omg yes!!!! this too.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like whoever named these titles did a poor job. They’re so close, can you blame people for not seeing a difference? What is a product but a large project anyways?
A product manager is expected to view things from a business point of view. To identify features for the product and help it succeed in the market. A project manager is in charge of planing, execution and governance of a project. They don’t define any of the goals or vision. Saying product is a large project is a big over simplification. If we go that route anything could be called a “large project”.
> in charge of planing, execution and governance of a project. They don’t define any of the goals or vision.
This sounds like if you were trying to hire a race-car driver instead hired two people, and put one of them in charge of steering to the left and the other in charge of steering to the right.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
A project has a planned end date, a product typically doesn't.
Isn't it the other way around? Projects tend to never end. Products eventually get released.
A released product is not the end of the product. See: Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, X, Gmail, Dropbox, Firefox, etc.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
And ironically it seem like the things you'd positively attribute here to a product manager used to be/are actually part of the scope of what was traditionally a "project manager" or "program manager." For example, look at the scope and definition of a "program manager" from Microsoft or the US DoD in the 1980s, 1990s+, as well as literature describing the role of a program manager and the discipline from that time.
Why’s that ironic? There didn’t used to be frontend / backend / full stack devs either. As software engineering has matured and grown in scale, more subdivision of responsibilities is a natural outcome of that. We’re not all just directly writing code on mainframes and our customers aren’t just < 1k of users who directly call us on the phone if something goes wrong anymore, it’s millions of people using services 24x7…
What subdivision of responsibilities? Clients and servers were divided for as long as clients and servers existed. Full stack is aggregation of responsibilities. DevOps too. Dedicated QA is rare now.
Most companies with product managers have fewer customers and less complex products than 1990s Microsoft.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#257Sounds like he wasn't happy with his last PM haha. Interesting convo starter article though, as the PM role seems to also draw a wide range of opinions. In my view, the PM duties are critical, but the PM function is what a company makes it, as there are multiple ways to divvy up work and get things shipped.
To me, great products are a result of having a leader in the company who brings strong vision, customer focus, prioritizing the needle movers, and assembles the right technical talent to turn concepts into reality. This leader "gets it", and they make the tough decisions.
So while simply having a PM doesn't ensure these things, it doesn't necessarily prevent them either. Once you scale, the PM function brings much needed order to chaos. But if a company is relying purely on IC PM's to bring the vision, focus, needle movers, leadership, the company is flying blind as it's a signal that the founders / execs / board are absent. And that's a bigger problem than not loving your PM.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In my experience, the vast majority of PMs could not describe the difference between TLS 1.3 and 1.x. Does the vast majority of PMs need to tell the difference between TLS 1.3 and 1.x? I mean, is that a relevant aspect of the vast majority of products? If not, why should a PM bother about irrelevant details? One of the cardinal sins of proponents of this "engineers should rule everything" mentality is failing to te…
Generally it is quite important especially for SaaS. Old TLS will cause SOC2 cert, PCI cert failures and similar. It is the kind of thing that can derail a major deal as often the 'whale' clients are the ones that really care about security certs while smaller companies and startups don't. Non-technical PMs tend to gloss over things like that as an engineering-driven feature. Clients don't ask for TLS 1.3 (at least u…
> Generally it is quite important especially for SaaS.
You see, I don't think that's true at all. If it was, certainly you'd have clients complain loudly enough for the PMs to notice.
But that doesn't seem to even register a concern, both from the client and from the PM point of view.
Convenience is a nice-to-have, and fixing problems that don't exist registers even lower in the priority queue.
> Non-technical PMs tend to gloss over things like that (...)
See, this is where I think we disagree at a very basic level.
There is no such thing as a technical and non-technical Product Manager, because a product isn't technical. A product is something that meets the needs and expectations of its customers. A Product Manager's responsibility is to know their product and manage it to meet its clients' needs, and in the process help guide the development effort to maximize its returns on investment. Whether it's to paint a button red instead of blue, or to tell if they need to upgrade TLS, a PM's job is to read the room and deliver what meets the needs.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#259This is what happened at the last startup I worked at, before we had a product, even MVP level, the CEO hired an engineering manager, who however was really a process person, except for the title the progression of things is about the same. Things quickly went south. A career ladder was introduced, this is in an org with 6 engineers. Everything even the smallest changed required an RFC and a spec. Open sourcing unrelated stuff got me into trouble. Instead of working on product we got into endless discussions on how to tweak the career ladder or some other part of the org, when there was no org to speak off.
Re: The product manager role is a mistake
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last time I saw one of these types of articles on here it quickly became apparent that a lot of companies don't know the difference and call their project managers by the wrong name.
What is the difference then, between a project manager, product manager, a project owner and a product owner? Always thought they're approximately the same thing. Isn't any product you're working on a project too?
The main difference is between a product and a project. The gist is that projects are short term specific plans while products are a bit more open-ended ideas with continual feedback. Here’s a decent overview: https://martinfowler.com/articles/products-over-projects.htm...