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Thought that one would be contentious. In a past life I had a product owner whose hallucinations drove development direction. I have zero faith he represented w

Thought that one would be contentious. In a past life I had a product owner whose hallucinations drove development direction. I have zero faith he represented what customers wanted accurately, not least because as far as I can tell he never spoke to them either. That was not a good time.

ivalm 4y ago
That sounds like a bad product owner, not that product owners are bad. In every discipline there are people who are bad at their job and bring negative value.
ryandrake 4y ago
I worked at a place with no product owner and I would literally have to task switch from writing code to talking to an irate customer on the phone because we only had basic tier 1 support. I would also have to fly out to the customer’s actual site to live debug while they stood over me mad. I’d have to also gather requirements and ideas from them. All while also needing to do a full-time software engineering job. I would have killed for a Product Owner to shield me from that!
wpietri 4y ago
I am totally with you on product hallucinations being a big problem. For me the sweet spot is a product manager who grounds needs in user research that is then shared with the team, so we could get a real sense of who we were building for and why what we did mattered. And who then follows up after we put something out there to see if it's really working for the users, so that we can iterate until it's right.
cortesoft 4y ago
It is a big jump to go from saying you don't want a bad product owner to saying you don't want a product owner at all. If you have a customer facing product, being a good product owner should be a full time job. You can't do that and be an engineer at the same time.
codingdave 4y ago
I would say that you don't want a bad product owner between you and the customer. Having a great one can build an amazing experience for both the customer and the devs. But you are correct that a bad one will traumatize you.

ivalm 4y ago

That sounds like a bad product owner, not that product owners are bad. In every discipline there are people who are bad at their job and bring negative value.

ryandrake 4y ago

I worked at a place with no product owner and I would literally have to task switch from writing code to talking to an irate customer on the phone because we only had basic tier 1 support. I would also have to fly out to the customer’s actual site to live debug while they stood over me mad. I’d have to also gather requirements and ideas from them. All while also needing to do a full-time software engineering job. I would have killed for a Product Owner to shield me from that!

wpietri 4y ago

I am totally with you on product hallucinations being a big problem. For me the sweet spot is a product manager who grounds needs in user research that is then shared with the team, so we could get a real sense of who we were building for and why what we did mattered. And who then follows up after we put something out there to see if it's really working for the users, so that we can iterate until it's right.

cortesoft 4y ago

It is a big jump to go from saying you don't want a bad product owner to saying you don't want a product owner at all. If you have a customer facing product, being a good product owner should be a full time job. You can't do that and be an engineer at the same time.

codingdave 4y ago

I would say that you don't want a bad product owner between you and the customer. Having a great one can build an amazing experience for both the customer and the devs. But you are correct that a bad one will traumatize you.