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0 pointsbunderbunder2mo ago0 comments

I have worked with some really really good product managers.

But not lately. Lately it’s been people who have very little relevant domain expertise, zero interest in putting in the time to develop said expertise beyond just cataloguing and regurgitating feedback from the customers they like most on a personal level, and seem to mostly have only been selected for the position because they are really good at office politics.

But I think it’s not entirely their fault. What I’ve also noticed is that, when I was on teams with really elective product managers, we also had a full time project manager. That possibly freed up a lot of the product manager’s time. One person to be good at the tactical so the other can be good at the strategic.

Since project managers have become passé, though, I think the product managers are just stretched too thin. Which sets up bad incentive structures: it’s impossible to actually do the job well anymore, so of course the only ones who survive are the office politicians who are really good at gladhanding the right people and shifting blame when things don’t go well.

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alphazard2mo ago

There are individuals who have good taste for products in certain domains. Their own preferences are an accurate approximation for those of the users. Those people might add value when they are given control of the product.

That good taste doesn't translate between domains very often. Good taste for developer tools doesn't mean good taste for a video game inventory screen. And that's the crux of the problem. There is a segment of the labor market calling themselves "product manager" who act like good taste is domain independent, and spread lies about their importance to the success of every business. What's worse is that otherwise smart people (founders, executives) fall for it because they think hiring them is what they are supposed to do.

Over time, as more and more people realized that PM is a side door into big companies with lots of money, "Product Manager" became an imposter role like "Scrum Master". Now product orgs are pretty much synonymous with incompetence.

npunt2mo ago

Taste is pretty transferable, I think what you're talking about is intuition. The foundations of intuition are deeply understanding problems and the ability to navigate towards solutions related to those problems. Both of these are relatively domain-dependent. People can have intuition for how to do things but lack the taste to make those solutions feel right.

Taste on the other hand is about creating an overall feeling from a product. It's holistic and about coherence, where intuition is more bottom-up problem solving. Tasteful decisions are those that use restraint, that strike a particular tone, that say 'no' when others might say 'yes'. It's a lot more magical, and a lot rarer.

Both taste and intuition are ultimately about judgment, which is why they're often confused for one another. The difference is they approach problems from the opposite side; taste from above, intuition from below.

I agree with your assessment otherwise, PM can be a real smoke screen especially across domain and company stage.

sarchertech2mo ago

> There is a segment of the labor market calling themselves "product manager" who act like good taste is domain independent

That’s definitely one of the biggest problems with product management. The delusion that you can be an expert at generic “product”.

We used to have subject matter experts who worked with engineers. That made sense to me.

rrrx32mo ago

The proportion of "really good" PMs on product engineering teams has to be less than 0.1%.

The counter to that is "the proportion of 'really good engineers' to product engineering teams has got to be in the single digits," and I would agree with that, as well.

The problem is what is incentivized to be built - most teams are working on "number go up?" revenue or engagement as a proxy to revenue "problems." Not "is this a good product that people actively enjoy using?" problems.

Just your typical late-stage capitalism shit.

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