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I agree that a PM who simply play the role of a telephone between design, engineering and marketing is indeed useless...though i disagree that PM in general add

by yilunzh 11y ago

I agree that a PM who simply play the role of a telephone between design, engineering and marketing is indeed useless...though i disagree that PM in general add no value building product, even in a team of A players. You work at google, and google is a place full of A players. It also happens to have hundreds if not thousands of product managers. Surely they are not there to just look pretty. I can't speak for you, but from my own experience, I get into the weeds with engineers on technical tradeoff and debate over user experience with my designer on a daily basis. I run user testing, I scowl over metrics to understand what's working vs what's not. If that's not contributing to the product in a meaningful way, I don't know what is. I hope at some point, you get to work with a PM that is able to do that with you.

kevinskii 11y ago
Most product managers, in my experience, greatly overestimate their own level of knowledge. Your whole post smacks of this too, and when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology. Also when you refer to engineers and designers as being "yours," this is a huge red flag. They are not your subordinates--at least not in any company that's worth working for. You would do yourself well not to think of them as such.
- mistermann 11y ago
  > when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology. Could you offer some additional insight on why you think that way?
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  > Also when you refer to engineers and designers as being "yours," this is a huge red flag. I think you're reading too much into a common shorthand for "engineers who I work with". People also say "my friends", "my family", "my workmates", "my boss", "my bus driver", "my doctor" and so on without implying subordination.

by yilunzh 11y ago

kevinskii 11y ago

Most product managers, in my experience, greatly overestimate their own level of knowledge. Your whole post smacks of this too, and when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology. Also when you refer to engineers and designers as being "yours," this is a huge red flag. They are not your subordinates--at least not in any company that's worth working for. You would do yourself well not to think of them as such.

mistermann 11y ago
> when you say you "get into the weeds" on technical tradeoffs, it's quite likely that you're wasting the engineers' time trying to debate things that are either utterly inconsequential or are obviously wrong to anyone with a basic grasp of the technology. Could you offer some additional insight on why you think that way?
jacques_chester 11y ago
> Also when you refer to engineers and designers as being "yours," this is a huge red flag. I think you're reading too much into a common shorthand for "engineers who I work with". People also say "my friends", "my family", "my workmates", "my boss", "my bus driver", "my doctor" and so on without implying subordination.