~15 years before, we had Business Analysts (BAs), who were canonically in charge of what we were building. They will own and be accountable for what's being bui

~15 years before, we had Business Analysts (BAs), who were canonically in charge of what we were building. They will own and be accountable for what's being built. They verify and sign-off whether what was built meets expectations. Part of their job entails writing detailed specifications, but not only that. When "Agile" happened, the BA role slowly transitioned to Product Manager (PM). For a short while, PMs from BA background still took ownership and care for the board, still took care of acceptance criteria for stories/tasks, still signed off on the deliverables. Now, Product Management has become a cult of personas. The role doesn't feel obliged to be accountable for defining specifications, or having a work handover, or signing off, or coordination, or product documentation, or anything. The role assumes it's creative work on a blank canvas. But guess what, all modern roles are largely creative, but it doesn't mean everyone should have no working model. But for some reason, this role has gone beyond beyond a working model into "I'm special". I'm seeing many other comments below still focusing purely on the personality aspect of it. Good product managers vs Bad product managers. NO! This is about Good product management vs Bad product management. The role should have a working model and clear cut responsibilities. And those practices shouldn't be undercut by saying "I'm special". But most PMs feel "boxed in" by any way of working. They prefer calling it "culture", because culture can be something abstract and disassociated from. We should realize: The transition to Agile has good and ugly sides. The ugly side is the broken transition from BAs to PMs, and the lack of accountability for what's being built which has left teams and deliverables ambiguous and dangling. --- As a side addendum: I would partly blame Steve Jobs for it. For some weird reason, he has become a role model for PMs. He was a freaking CEO who did the selling and investment, you can't delegate anything to a CEO! He would have had armies of PMs dealing with the working model and details. But unfortunately, PMs seem to fetish the master salesman and personality cult angle of Steve Jobs, spending all the time in "Why", but forget about the details and start delegating their actual responsibilities to everyone else in the team. It should be made pretty clear that PMs are not CEOs like Steve Jobs. They are regular people who should have regular working models.