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I’ve been reading the Mythical Man Month and I think that book has a lot of good ideas. The issue I find is that often leadership of hierarchical organizations

by urthor 5y ago

I’ve been reading the Mythical Man Month and I think that book has a lot of good ideas. The issue I find is that often leadership of hierarchical organizations is given to nontechnical glue person. These people eventually bubble up and become “middle management,” as they amass visibility and receive credit for the products their technical team built. There is no vampire of workplace productivity like a nontechnical skip manager directing project priorities. I want instead all the nontechnical support personnel to be relegated to being assistants like in Mythical Man Month. Ultimate leadership and ultimate responsibility for delivering a software project must be embedded in a technical leader. Nontechnical product owners are a true blight on society.

_carbyau_ 5y ago
To extend that: non-technical has various degrees of bad. Ask any engineer whether Marketing or Accounting should have product ownership.
- bladegash 5y ago
  Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but wouldn’t those two non-technical roles have pretty significant reason to have ownership/input into a product? I could see extreme positions on every end I guess. The Marketer has no idea what is technically realistic and makes promises to customers that are not technically feasible. The Accountant paralyzes decision making and reduces expenses via a variety of counterproductive means to protect the bottom line. The Engineer just wants to build cool things and does not really care if it makes money or customers actually want it/might find it cool. So long as curiosity is piqued and we can give it away for free to other engineers. I think they all have a role to play in the process, given that at the end of the day, you can’t have a product without money, customers won’t buy a product if it is not appealing/meets their requirements/something usable, and you can’t have money or a marketable product without people building it under mostly realistic expectations.
  - urthor 5y ago
    Of course they should have a role to play and input. They should be part of the discussion. It's a question of responsibility for delivery. People in those positions shouldn't be the owner, who is accountable to the business for features being delivered. The person responsible for features being delivered should be technical.
  - the_gipsy 5y ago
    Significant? No, or it depends on your definition. Marketing should sell your product, not tell you what to build. Same for accounting. They should tell you what is selling or what is not profitable.

by urthor 5y ago

_carbyau_ 5y ago

To extend that: non-technical has various degrees of bad. Ask any engineer whether Marketing or Accounting should have product ownership.

bladegash 5y ago
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but wouldn’t those two non-technical roles have pretty significant reason to have ownership/input into a product? I could see extreme positions on every end I guess. The Marketer has no idea what is technically realistic and makes promises to customers that are not technically feasible. The Accountant paralyzes decision making and reduces expenses via a variety of counterproductive means to protect the bottom line. The Engineer just wants to build cool things and does not really care if it makes money or customers actually want it/might find it cool. So long as curiosity is piqued and we can give it away for free to other engineers. I think they all have a role to play in the process, given that at the end of the day, you can’t have a product without money, customers won’t buy a product if it is not appealing/meets their requirements/something usable, and you can’t have money or a marketable product without people building it under mostly realistic expectations.
- urthor 5y ago
  Of course they should have a role to play and input. They should be part of the discussion. It's a question of responsibility for delivery. People in those positions shouldn't be the owner, who is accountable to the business for features being delivered. The person responsible for features being delivered should be technical.
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  Significant? No, or it depends on your definition. Marketing should sell your product, not tell you what to build. Same for accounting. They should tell you what is selling or what is not profitable.