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More product, fewer product managers

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Re: More product, fewer product managers

#291

Post by ath3nd »

satvikpendem wrote: post #277
ath3nd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that scenario, who is driving product requirements? The developer teams, who else? You build it, you need to know what you are building, right? I find it fascinating that the dev community that gobbled so easily "You build it, you run it", doesn't question why we are not being trusted with knowing and determining what to be built in the first place. > For example, in an area with strict financial/regulatory comp…

Devs generally don't want to talk to the experts, they want to build. Talking means more meetings, which takes away from building. Ironic, as without knowing what to build, they can build nothing.

Ah, yes, avoid meetings with experts so you have to wait until a non expert who talked to the experts tells you what to build! Pesky, asocial developers, avoiding talk at any cost!

It's a well established fact developers love building things so much and hate wasting their time with useless meetings! The hero PM saves the developers so much thinking by being brave and talking with the scary outsiders.

The PM's selfless bravery gives the developers the time and space so they can focus on the really important part of building. The really important part of building is, of course, being in a 2 hour meeting where the PM is repeating (badly) what the experts said, and making you play card games where you pick some numbers, very much unlike a nursing home for the old playing bingo.

I love your take! You totally treats engineers as responsible adults who have multiple skills and abilities besides coding, and not at all like autistic children that would flip out as soon as somebody touches their crayons.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#292

Post by marcinzm »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #237
marcinzm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the domain expert have to be the PM versus someone the engineers consult directly?

Why shouldn't engineers consult with a PM? Isn't that a key part of the role - to break down external requirements into engineering needs?

Breaking down requirements and being the domain expert are not the same role. Engineers can break down requirements perfectly well given they have context of the code and systems and possibilities. A even bigger advantage is that there are multiple developers on team which means they can review each other's work. Just like a lone dev tends to go off the rails eventually so does a lone PM and almost all PMs are lone if they're the sole domain expert.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#293

Post by achow »

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.

Not sure that's going to work if one is building a Finance, HR,.. software. You need domain experts to draw up requirements, prioritise etc.

Similarly, if one is building a consumer app where back-end, infra are 'solved problem' but user experience needs to be differentiated, only engg team would not cut it (designers would be needed).

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#294

Post by icedchai »

allsunny wrote: post #79

I wonder what the author might suggest as an appropriate ratio of PMs to engineers might be. I generally like 1 per 10 person team. I also like the idea of not having a separate product tool but have yet to see a good tool that can satisfy software project management (eg Jira, Linear) and product ops (product board, Airtable).

I work at a place with approximately 3 PMs for 6 developers and I wonder what they do all day. Totally absurd.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#295

Post by featuregag »

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.

The state of almost every single open source competitor to commercial software (in terms of UI, usability, effectiveness, and market share) suggests that maybe letting experts at programming software design all other aspects of software is not a panacea.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#296

Post by jonhohle »

ath3nd wrote: post #176
jonhohle wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advocating for better is money much better spent That seems like a very Bay Area mindset - advocacy is more lauded than doing something.

Fair enough! I used "advocating" loosely here. I hate the "advocate a lot, build nothing" mindset myself, and I am not a fan of the Bay Area and its practices (to put it mildly), so I edited my post. What I mean is devs making tools for devs, resulting in better overall quality.

Sorry, that was a bit to snarky. While I don’t agree with not having dedicated QA, I completely agree with devs being responsible for the quality of their area and adjacent areas.

In my experience good test engineering teams can focus on having a more global view of systems while not being biased by implementation details.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#297

Post by ath3nd »

featuregag wrote: post #295
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.

The state of almost every single open source competitor to commercial software (in terms of UI, usability, effectiveness, and market share) suggests that maybe letting experts at programming software design all other aspects of software is not a panacea.

Ah yes, comparing a well funded company to two enthusiastic nerds coding in their free time, that's a fair take.

You are comparing paid labor to unpaid labor, not a company with PMs vs a company without PMs.

There is no panacea to hiring and retaining good engineers, all I am arguing is that the money spent on a PM is much better spent as Christmas bonus to the engineering teams.

However, if you believe that what takes building great products is an unqualified semi technical person with a made up role and title who doesn't do any work themselves but passing messages back and forth and strutting around like a peacock calling all the shots, be my guest.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#298

Post by idopmstuff »

NearAP wrote: post #253
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.

This mindset is also part of the reason why some products are atrociously bad. Developers build products with the latest tech, whizzes, bells and whistles and totally miss the 'actual' requirements and/or how their users use it. When bugs/issues are raised, dev complains that users aren't using the product the 'correct' way. At the end of the day, whether you should have a Product Manager or not AND the number of PMs…

I wish I could upvote this more. I feel like the people who say that all you need is engineers have worked either exclusively at devtools type startups, or they've only worked at unsuccessful startups but have convinced themselves that the reasons why had nothing to do with lack of people with PM skills.

If you work in pretty much any kind of B2B SaaS and don't have PMs (or someone doing the PM work - if you've got engineers who were formerly PMs who spend half their time managing the roadmap, you can't really claim you're only employing engineers), you're probably doomed.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#299

Post by ike2792 »

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.

This matches my experience. As a staff engineer I also did a lot of PO work and the fact that I was also an engineer on the team helped me ask customers the right questions. As an EM, I coordinate our Product processes but engineers on the team play a huge role and decisions are always collaborative. On teams I've been on with a dedicated PO/PM, the PO just ends up trying to micromanage the engineering team and pull people into a lot of useless meetings. Don't get me wrong, there are good PO/PM folks out there, but the vast majority I've worked with don't fall into the "good" category.

Re: More product, fewer product managers

#300

Post by featuregag »

ath3nd wrote: post #297
featuregag wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of almost every single open source competitor to commercial software (in terms of UI, usability, effectiveness, and market share) suggests that maybe letting experts at programming software design all other aspects of software is not a panacea.

Ah yes, comparing a well funded company to two enthusiastic nerds coding in their free time, that's a fair take. You are comparing paid labor to unpaid labor, not a company with PMs vs a company without PMs. There is no panacea to hiring and retaining good engineers, all I am arguing is that the money spent on a PM is much better spent as Christmas bonus to the engineering teams. However, if you believe that what tak…

Why would experts at programming software necessarily be experts at designing it?

(By “designing” I mean like, designing it in the large, what does it do, not UI design or something. Though of course the same goes for pixel pushing.)

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