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I think that perhaps devs saying pms should be able to code is really more like devs want pms to have a deep sense of what can be done with software, what can't

by earl 15y ago

I think that perhaps devs saying pms should be able to code is really more like devs want pms to have a deep sense of what can be done with software, what can't, and roughly how difficult things are. You can have that knowledge without being able to code yourself, but I'd bet the fastest way to acquire such knowledge is to learn to write software yourself. So while Jobs might not have been able to code, he'd done some engineering and I think had a keen sense of where the approachable borders of software lie.

aufreak3 15y ago
That knowledge is pretty hard to come by even if you know how to code, so not having thought computationally .. ever .. makes for a really bad PM. Computational thinking and prototyping skills are the key, even if you use another human to do the prototyping, knowing what to bother protyping and how to learn from the prototype are all very important for a PM. If you dont have those skills, you don't have the means to discover the limits of what you know about the area your product grapples with, and to grow. Steve Jobs, I believe, was very good at both.