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Program manager, product manager and business analyst are 3 roles that make me check that mental "looks busy, does nothing" box. Maybe they're interdependent. P

Program manager, product manager and business analyst are 3 roles that make me check that mental "looks busy, does nothing" box. Maybe they're interdependent. Program manager feeds product manager feeds biz analyst who feeds program manager. The devs toil quietly in the corner and don't dare question the symbiosis and CEO is relieved someone is there to do all the work they make. If I sound grouchy it's because a biz analyst once tried to suggest I wasn't senior enough to attend the meeting we were in. [12 years ago. They'll never find the body.]

BadassFractal 15y ago
The PM's job is to clarify whatever questions the engineering team might have about the details of how the user will interact with the system. She has to have it all figured out to be able to pull her weight on that kind of engineer-heavy development team. Generally speaking it's difficult for everybody on the team to know everything about the little details, and it's good to have someone with that picture in mind. I hear that Pivotal Labs for example always require there to be an on-call PM when they work on their contracts, to immediately unblock progress.
- neutronicus 15y ago
  Where I worked before I went back into academia, the title "Project Manager" referred to someone whose main job was running interference between engineers and upper management. She was always coming up with answers to questions about how long things would take, etc. so I wouldn't have to and prompting me for various answers that upper management actually cares about. Definitely helped me get things done. That place was emphatically not Silicon Valley, though, so it makes perfect sense to me that the two positions share little more than a title and not coding.
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    I'd just like to point out to both you and the parent mmaunder said Program manager/product manager, not Project Manager. But if he means a PM, then fair enough. Anyone who thinks a good PM isn't worth their weight in gold is seriously la-la and probably hasn't worked with one.
arctangent 15y ago
You forgot about the "technical architect" - another role that often seems suspiciously redundant.
pasbesoin 15y ago
I've worked with (exactly) one excellent business analyst. She really pulled the work together and provided both coherence and context. In that, she essentially filled aspects of the project manager role, even if and as there were separate project managers (more than one, for example, an a particularly large and critical endeavor). In my opinion, formed while observing this and her work, it came down to the person, not the role. She was excellent and conscientious in her work; the role was subsidiary (although useful in giving her the influence she needed to get what she needed -- politely and cooperatively, for the most part -- from people). (I'll add that communication with her was a genuine two way street; team members could and did use communication with her to push ideas and concerns upstream, where they would actually, genuinely be considered and not infrequently acted upon.) Most other people filling such roles: More or less what the parent describes, in my experience. The better ones were at least honest about this, not full of themselves, and served as "project memory" and "reminders" for project members juggling so many things that they might otherwise -- rather occasionally, as opposed to regularly -- let something slip through the cracks. Fortunately, I was on some pretty senior teams, and the "devs" were plently able to plan and coordinate, themselves; they also could and did push back against management mis-steps. In many cases, the analyst or PM could to some extent become an "interface" to the organization and general management. The dev team mostly planned and got stuff done, and the analyst/PM was the one to spend their time in some of those less than fulfilling higher level... "status" meetings.

BadassFractal 15y ago

The PM's job is to clarify whatever questions the engineering team might have about the details of how the user will interact with the system. She has to have it all figured out to be able to pull her weight on that kind of engineer-heavy development team. Generally speaking it's difficult for everybody on the team to know everything about the little details, and it's good to have someone with that picture in mind. I hear that Pivotal Labs for example always require there to be an on-call PM when they work on their contracts, to immediately unblock progress.

neutronicus 15y ago
Where I worked before I went back into academia, the title "Project Manager" referred to someone whose main job was running interference between engineers and upper management. She was always coming up with answers to questions about how long things would take, etc. so I wouldn't have to and prompting me for various answers that upper management actually cares about. Definitely helped me get things done. That place was emphatically not Silicon Valley, though, so it makes perfect sense to me that the two positions share little more than a title and not coding.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  I'd just like to point out to both you and the parent mmaunder said Program manager/product manager, not Project Manager. But if he means a PM, then fair enough. Anyone who thinks a good PM isn't worth their weight in gold is seriously la-la and probably hasn't worked with one.

arctangent 15y ago

You forgot about the "technical architect" - another role that often seems suspiciously redundant.

pasbesoin 15y ago

I've worked with (exactly) one excellent business analyst. She really pulled the work together and provided both coherence and context. In that, she essentially filled aspects of the project manager role, even if and as there were separate project managers (more than one, for example, an a particularly large and critical endeavor). In my opinion, formed while observing this and her work, it came down to the person, not the role. She was excellent and conscientious in her work; the role was subsidiary (although useful in giving her the influence she needed to get what she needed -- politely and cooperatively, for the most part -- from people). (I'll add that communication with her was a genuine two way street; team members could and did use communication with her to push ideas and concerns upstream, where they would actually, genuinely be considered and not infrequently acted upon.) Most other people filling such roles: More or less what the parent describes, in my experience. The better ones were at least honest about this, not full of themselves, and served as "project memory" and "reminders" for project members juggling so many things that they might otherwise -- rather occasionally, as opposed to regularly -- let something slip through the cracks. Fortunately, I was on some pretty senior teams, and the "devs" were plently able to plan and coordinate, themselves; they also could and did push back against management mis-steps. In many cases, the analyst or PM could to some extent become an "interface" to the organization and general management. The dev team mostly planned and got stuff done, and the analyst/PM was the one to spend their time in some of those less than fulfilling higher level... "status" meetings.