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There are lots of bad actor reasons (putting career advancement ahead of product success), but there also structural issues that can lead teams to operate this

by enjo 7y ago

There are lots of bad actor reasons (putting career advancement ahead of product success), but there also structural issues that can lead teams to operate this way. The most common: product decisions are made higher up by well intentioned leaders who lack the product management expertise and the context the team does. Usually this looks something like a sales person hearing from a couple of customers “we really need feature X”. The sales person doesn’t ask what actual problem they’re trying to solve but instead reports back “the market is telling me we need X!!”. An executive picks this up, writes a business case, and then hands a solution (build X) instead of the problem (our customers are struggling with Y) to a product manager. That PM is no longer really empowered to think about the overall outcomes but rather is tasked with discovering requirements and then project managing the feature through. At some companies this is how all product decisions are made. It’s not that there is no thought about benefit, it’s that the wrong people are the ones doing the thinking and as a result you end up with teams who spends years never delivering anything actually valuable to their users.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
I hear that these situations exist, yet this is the complete opposite of what I was taught, which is that (at least !) the project manager had to have frequent and direct contact with the customers starting from trying to figure out what their real needs are - for the project to have any hope to succeed?
- loopz 7y ago
  In software/tech world, PM's customer are often internal stakeholders, often not all relevant ones. Very rarely company's customer. PM juggles internal issues like milestones, priority, resources, budgets and even some politics.
  - tomaskafka 7y ago
    Yes. This is a redefinition of a role though, this should be called Project manager.
    - loopz 7y ago
      https://www.techopedia.com/definition/677/project-manager-pm https://www.techopedia.com/definition/677/project-manager-pm
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Ah, yes, I don't really understand what is a "product" manager and how it's supposed to be different from a project manager ?
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  I've seen proposals where one of the requirements was that the developers would have as little contact with the customer as possible. What little contact was allowed was through the most junior person at the customer.

by enjo 7y ago

BlueTemplar 7y ago

I hear that these situations exist, yet this is the complete opposite of what I was taught, which is that (at least !) the project manager had to have frequent and direct contact with the customers starting from trying to figure out what their real needs are - for the project to have any hope to succeed?

loopz 7y ago
In software/tech world, PM's customer are often internal stakeholders, often not all relevant ones. Very rarely company's customer. PM juggles internal issues like milestones, priority, resources, budgets and even some politics.
- tomaskafka 7y ago
  Yes. This is a redefinition of a role though, this should be called Project manager.
  - loopz 7y ago
    https://www.techopedia.com/definition/677/project-manager-pm https://www.techopedia.com/definition/677/project-manager-pm
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Ah, yes, I don't really understand what is a "product" manager and how it's supposed to be different from a project manager ?
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I've seen proposals where one of the requirements was that the developers would have as little contact with the customer as possible. What little contact was allowed was through the most junior person at the customer.