I've thought about that a lot and my conclusions weren't what I expected as a programmer. The issue is that, someone has to talk to the internal customer [0].

I've thought about that a lot and my conclusions weren't what I expected as a programmer. The issue is that, someone has to talk to the internal customer [0]. Now if a programmer do the talking with the internal customer, then I believe, he will naturally become some sort of a surgeon ala Mythical Man-Month [1]. Mills proposes that each segment of a large job be tackled a team, but that the team be organized like a surgical team rather than a hog-butchering team. That is, instead of each member cutting away on the problem, one does the cutting and the others give him every support that will enhance his effectiveness and productivity. Problem is, I believe the surgeon method cant work in practice for 2 reasons, 1) programmers dont want someone who tell them how to code, 2) even if people would want a surgeon, since the surgeon both need to be a great programmer and a great politician because he will naturally speak to the internal customer (because eh, hes the surgeon), hiring for that position becomes difficult - and you'll end up generally with a great politician that sucks at programming, which makes (1) even more pronounced. The only way you can get rid of the project manager is to make the team the internal customer. That's the case at Valve [2] I believe. In the mean time, the best thing to do is to work with project managers who were engineers before. [0] I know what you think: a project manager isn't only talking to the internal customers. Yes, that's correct but the rest of his job is similar the one of a secretary. Nothing that would put guy on top. [1] https://ia801903.us.archive.org/19/items/mythicalmanmonth00fred/mythicalmanmonth00fred.pdf#page=41 https://ia801903.us.archive.org/19/items/mythicalmanmonth00f... [2] http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...