I had the same thought. When some other team comes to me with a non-trivial request, one of the first things I do is check with the product team. Is it part o

I had the same thought. When some other team comes to me with a non-trivial request, one of the first things I do is check with the product team. Is it part of somebody's roadmap (it's not part of mine, or I'd know about it already)? If so, is it a current thing or a future thing? And do they agree that my team needs to drop our current work? If it's the product team coming to me, well, that's their job. I just explain what they'd be giving up by changing priorities. Of course, a PM that can clearly articulate a single #1 priority is a rarity, so sometimes this discussion gets a bit heated, but that's part of the job. And if some other team or product manager went directly to one of my engineers, I'll politely tell them that's not how things work.