The article approaches the problem in a strange way: In most big consumer-facing companies, product manager is a very important title and product managers have

The article approaches the problem in a strange way: In most big consumer-facing companies, product manager is a very important title and product managers have a lot of power. One problem is that Scrum jargon uses the term "product owner." That might have been intended to give that person more influence, but the effect most often is that real product managers assign junior people to that role and it becomes the "features check-box accountant." Real product managers should be directly engaged in product development teams because, if they are any good, they have clout with senior management and can grok concepts like minimum viable product, especially the viable part. I can understand the frustration with mediocre product managers. But that's a symptom of being in a sub-scale organization that can't hire great product managers. If the senior management don't see that and engage better with their product teams to make up for it, you're screwed. And Scrum jargon often adds to the problem.