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Oh, the joy of being a product manager for the particular type of programmer who, by virtue of being a programmer, also knows absolutely everything about absolu

Oh, the joy of being a product manager for the particular type of programmer who, by virtue of being a programmer, also knows absolutely everything about absolutely everything. This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month, but if they disagree with a tiny aspect of the feature you've brought them, the deep domain knowledge you were hired for and dozens of customer visits you've done are nothing in the face of the awesome might of their computer science degree. Better get comfortable, because it's going to take you several hours to persuade them that you do in fact know how to do your job and the wild-ass alternative they've just come up with is wanted by the market about as much as syphilis. With these guys (and they're always guys) you've got to process up and micromanage, because the only way to get a little bit of intelligent estimating out of them is to ask for ten times as much, so they can give you what you need while still feeling like they're largely ignoring you. The only silver lining is the process eventually makes them leave, so they can be replaced by people who work well with others. You know, I really don't miss being a product manager. Ranting aside, good developers in larger organizations realize that people have specializations, they and other parts of the company are interdependent, and a little administrative overhead is necessary to keep everybody moving forward together - so they work with people from other parts of the company in good faith, and this makes it possible to keep the administrative crap (which no one likes, it's not just them) as light as possible for as long as possible.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month A comment in the article made a similar point. QFT: I dare say you wouldn't win much work though turning up to pitch to potential customers and declaring that you'll definitely deliver something, but you don't know how long it will take or how much it will cost. Every employee needs to be aware of time, of deadlines, and needs to understand that the money to pay their salaries needs to come from somewhere. Or they need to find a job working for some government agency, or in academia, not in the real world.
- mobiuscog 11y ago
  If businesses didn't make promises before they knew if they could keep them, the deadlines wouldn't be such a problem. If an employee agrees to a deadline, it's fine. If an employee is just told they have to complete a task within a deadline that they're weren't included in estimating, that's not the employee at fault.
  - gearoidoc 11y ago
    Thats not what gyardley is saying though. He's talking about developers who refuse to estimate how long a chunk of work will take.
    - mobiuscog 11y ago
      An interesting point on developers who refuse to estimate, is how often they are then asked "Why ?". I'm definitely someone who has either refused to give, or given massively exaggerated estimates in the past, for various reasons, the main being "I don't know". Think about this for a moment - why wouldn't an (experienced) engineer know how long something will take ? The most likely answer (and in retrospect the only reason I ever did this) was that the project was far too large / complicated to visualise, and needed to be broken down. By asking an engineer to break the task down into smaller tasks, until they can 'ballpark' estimate each part, is the best way to solve this problem. Maybe more design or investigation will be required to manage the breakdown. Instead of writing off 'problem' engineers, try to work with them and find the common ground.
UK-AL 11y ago
Probably been bitten by estimates being treated as deadlines issue. So he just doesn't bother. Software estimation has been proven to be extremely hard and inaccurate in many academic studies, and yet business tends to want software developers to held to those estimates.
triplesec 11y ago
I think there's a middle ground here, and you're being somewhat unfair. And yes, the article writer wants a utopia that he won't often find. But his criticisms of a certain kind of company culture and bad unresponsive political management are valid
simula67 11y ago
> This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month Software development is about figuring out how to do something. Sometimes you can still kind of estimate how much time something will take, especially if it is some grunt work. But truly meaningful changes are unestimatable. If I told you 'I want you to make me some Japanese kuhoo kuhoo. I wont tell you what it is, what goes into making it and if it is even a real thing that can be made. Now tell me how much time it will take', how can you react to that ? I am not saying you acted this way, but I have seen managers act this way. > but if they disagree with a tiny aspect of the feature you've brought them, the deep domain knowledge you were hired for and dozens of customer visits you've done are nothing in the face of the awesome might of their computer science degree Why not just let the developers do all these things ? We have been asking our product managers for customer visits for years. Would that be the end of the world ?
draw_down 11y ago
Ha, I usually have the opposite problem (and I'm on the other side of the table). Product guys (and they're always guys) telling me to design the thing they want me to ship, because they suck at making decisions and want someone else to do it. (Of course they phrase it differently.) No dice, it's my job to build the thing and your job to decide what the thing is.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month, I don't mind giving people an estimate if they know what the word means.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  Absolutely, sow an estimate, reap a commitment, get plowed by a deadline.
z3t4 11y ago
> because it's going to take you several hours to persuade them that you do in fact know how to do your job Never, ever argue about the person! When arguing with programmers you should only argue about the technical side. For them it's not about prestige, it's about making a perfect system. X+Y=3 because I know math (wrong) X+Y=3 because X=1 and Y=2 (right)

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month A comment in the article made a similar point. QFT: I dare say you wouldn't win much work though turning up to pitch to potential customers and declaring that you'll definitely deliver something, but you don't know how long it will take or how much it will cost. Every employee needs to be aware of time, of deadlines, and needs to understand that the money to pay their salaries needs to come from somewhere. Or they need to find a job working for some government agency, or in academia, not in the real world.

mobiuscog 11y ago
If businesses didn't make promises before they knew if they could keep them, the deadlines wouldn't be such a problem. If an employee agrees to a deadline, it's fine. If an employee is just told they have to complete a task within a deadline that they're weren't included in estimating, that's not the employee at fault.
- gearoidoc 11y ago
  Thats not what gyardley is saying though. He's talking about developers who refuse to estimate how long a chunk of work will take.
  - mobiuscog 11y ago
    An interesting point on developers who refuse to estimate, is how often they are then asked "Why ?". I'm definitely someone who has either refused to give, or given massively exaggerated estimates in the past, for various reasons, the main being "I don't know". Think about this for a moment - why wouldn't an (experienced) engineer know how long something will take ? The most likely answer (and in retrospect the only reason I ever did this) was that the project was far too large / complicated to visualise, and needed to be broken down. By asking an engineer to break the task down into smaller tasks, until they can 'ballpark' estimate each part, is the best way to solve this problem. Maybe more design or investigation will be required to manage the breakdown. Instead of writing off 'problem' engineers, try to work with them and find the common ground.

UK-AL 11y ago

Probably been bitten by estimates being treated as deadlines issue. So he just doesn't bother. Software estimation has been proven to be extremely hard and inaccurate in many academic studies, and yet business tends to want software developers to held to those estimates.

triplesec 11y ago

I think there's a middle ground here, and you're being somewhat unfair. And yes, the article writer wants a utopia that he won't often find. But his criticisms of a certain kind of company culture and bad unresponsive political management are valid

simula67 11y ago

> This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month Software development is about figuring out how to do something. Sometimes you can still kind of estimate how much time something will take, especially if it is some grunt work. But truly meaningful changes are unestimatable. If I told you 'I want you to make me some Japanese kuhoo kuhoo. I wont tell you what it is, what goes into making it and if it is even a real thing that can be made. Now tell me how much time it will take', how can you react to that ? I am not saying you acted this way, but I have seen managers act this way. > but if they disagree with a tiny aspect of the feature you've brought them, the deep domain knowledge you were hired for and dozens of customer visits you've done are nothing in the face of the awesome might of their computer science degree Why not just let the developers do all these things ? We have been asking our product managers for customer visits for years. Would that be the end of the world ?

draw_down 11y ago

Ha, I usually have the opposite problem (and I'm on the other side of the table). Product guys (and they're always guys) telling me to design the thing they want me to ship, because they suck at making decisions and want someone else to do it. (Of course they phrase it differently.) No dice, it's my job to build the thing and your job to decide what the thing is.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>This is the type that refuses to tell you if they think, completely ballpark, whether something will take a day or a week or a month, I don't mind giving people an estimate if they know what the word means.

humanrebar 11y ago
Absolutely, sow an estimate, reap a commitment, get plowed by a deadline.

z3t4 11y ago

> because it's going to take you several hours to persuade them that you do in fact know how to do your job Never, ever argue about the person! When arguing with programmers you should only argue about the technical side. For them it's not about prestige, it's about making a perfect system. X+Y=3 because I know math (wrong) X+Y=3 because X=1 and Y=2 (right)