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If I have a full and well-groomed backlog waiting for me at my desk, what's there to talk about? Sure, you can, but the the whole point of the PM is to take tha

If I have a full and well-groomed backlog waiting for me at my desk, what's there to talk about? Sure, you can, but the the whole point of the PM is to take that off your shoulders and the parent is saying he doesn't want that lifted from him.

vannevar 8y ago
A well-groomed backlog is not working code. So I don't get how that somehow means there's nothing to talk about. If there's an agile MVP, it's "write some working code, get feedback on it, then repeat until everyone's happy within some tolerance." Scrum is designed to increase feedback, but it's a floor, not a ceiling.
- betenoire 8y ago
  Sure, but the PM is there for a reason and the PM has roles. There is overlap with what developers can be doing, but we are trained/encouraged to punt to the PM for such decisions, questions, and suggestions. I get it, but it's now how I do my best work, proxying questions and discussions through a gatekeeper.
  - vannevar 8y ago
    We do agile, but also use Slack and email, and walking across the room. If your organization is actively discouraging communication within the team unless it goes through the PM, that's bizarre. On the other hand, if the PM is acting as a gatekeeper with customers, that's not unusual. The reality is that you can't have everyone on the team talking directly to the customer, for a whole host of good reasons. Regarding decision-making, that can be a problem---some PMs and product owners are micromanagers, hamstringing their team. But they would be micro managers with or without agile.
  - majormajor 8y ago
    IME the PM works best when acting as a shield from random questions or future things or other not-important-this-instant distractions, but shouldn't block direct clarifying questions or feedback from you to a stakeholder. I'd keep them in the loop, but the ones I've worked with haven't wanted to just be a glorified "I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!" middleman for basic things like that.
    - alexchamberlain 8y ago
      As a tech lead in a Scrum team, this shield causes more problems than it solves in my experience. We often get questions missing context or find out about a decision too late to provide meaningful input on a technical level.

vannevar 8y ago

A well-groomed backlog is not working code. So I don't get how that somehow means there's nothing to talk about. If there's an agile MVP, it's "write some working code, get feedback on it, then repeat until everyone's happy within some tolerance." Scrum is designed to increase feedback, but it's a floor, not a ceiling.

betenoire 8y ago
Sure, but the PM is there for a reason and the PM has roles. There is overlap with what developers can be doing, but we are trained/encouraged to punt to the PM for such decisions, questions, and suggestions. I get it, but it's now how I do my best work, proxying questions and discussions through a gatekeeper.
- vannevar 8y ago
  We do agile, but also use Slack and email, and walking across the room. If your organization is actively discouraging communication within the team unless it goes through the PM, that's bizarre. On the other hand, if the PM is acting as a gatekeeper with customers, that's not unusual. The reality is that you can't have everyone on the team talking directly to the customer, for a whole host of good reasons. Regarding decision-making, that can be a problem---some PMs and product owners are micromanagers, hamstringing their team. But they would be micro managers with or without agile.
- majormajor 8y ago
  IME the PM works best when acting as a shield from random questions or future things or other not-important-this-instant distractions, but shouldn't block direct clarifying questions or feedback from you to a stakeholder. I'd keep them in the loop, but the ones I've worked with haven't wanted to just be a glorified "I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!" middleman for basic things like that.
  - alexchamberlain 8y ago
    As a tech lead in a Scrum team, this shield causes more problems than it solves in my experience. We often get questions missing context or find out about a decision too late to provide meaningful input on a technical level.