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As someone who's about to start as a PM at MSFT soon... > I never understood why PMs are given the task of designing This is my biggest concern going forward.

As someone who's about to start as a PM at MSFT soon... > I never understood why PMs are given the task of designing This is my biggest concern going forward. My background is developing backend services, not building good UIs. I'm confident in my ability to build something somewhat sensible (I have some Android and other UI experience), but fundamentally my strengths have always been in designing and piecing together abstractions with code. I feel like the largest roles of a PM should be in resolving ambiguity and enabling people who have good ideas. My current boss, while he could certainly code circles around me, doesn't actually write much code aside from a few unit tests. Instead, any time I wonder why something should be done a certain way, he can give me a reason and convince me it makes sense. When I have a good idea about how something should be done, he gets out of my way, checks up every few days, and removes any non-technical barriers so that it's as painless as possible for me. I believe that the system we work on would be in a horrible state very fast if he were to suddenly up and leave.

melted 11y ago
PMs at Microsoft by definition do not build anything. Nor do they really "design" anything. You can't design a piece of software unless you're an engineer. At best, they will give you some user scenarios to handle, and half of those will be complete bullshit that customers don't actually need and never actually asked for (this, my friends, is how you got Metro UX in Windows; for the record, I like it _as a phone UI_). If you want to build and design stuff, you need to be an engineer, not a bureaucrat. That's what engineers do. Here's what a typical PM does at Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE
- edgyswingset 11y ago
  This doesn't add anything to the discussion of PMs designing the UI for a feature. There are plenty of other wonderful places where bitching about PMs is a relevant contribution.
  - melted 11y ago
    Funny, I'd rather "the UI for a feature" was designed by actual designers if I'm paying for it.

melted 11y ago

PMs at Microsoft by definition do not build anything. Nor do they really "design" anything. You can't design a piece of software unless you're an engineer. At best, they will give you some user scenarios to handle, and half of those will be complete bullshit that customers don't actually need and never actually asked for (this, my friends, is how you got Metro UX in Windows; for the record, I like it _as a phone UI_). If you want to build and design stuff, you need to be an engineer, not a bureaucrat. That's what engineers do. Here's what a typical PM does at Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7u1VBhWCE

edgyswingset 11y ago
This doesn't add anything to the discussion of PMs designing the UI for a feature. There are plenty of other wonderful places where bitching about PMs is a relevant contribution.
- melted 11y ago
  Funny, I'd rather "the UI for a feature" was designed by actual designers if I'm paying for it.