Metadata
- Author: Gergely Orosz
- Full Title:: Working With Product Managers as an Engineering Manager or Engineer
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Déjame Sin Trabajo Por Favor, Product Management
- URL:: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/working-with-product-managers?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fengineering%2520manager&utm_medium=reader2
- Finished date:: 2023-05-10
Highlights
- Shared leadership – “one team, one dream.” (View Highlight)
If you trust your PM to make decisions on the product side, they should trust you with engineering decisions. (View Highlight)
Explain the implications of not addressing tech debt by describing the impact it will have on product development. (View Highlight)
While some metrics like team output and reliability likey do intersect with product, other elements might be mysteries to the product manager. (View Highlight)
Well-oiled teams have a leadership that speaks with one voice. If an engineer asks a question about strategy or tactics, both the engineering manager and the product manager should have the same answer. If this is not the case, it leads to confusion and will likely cause conflict down the line. How do you avoid this situation? Shared leadership between the engineering manager and product manager is the setup I’ve repeatedly seen work for high-performing teams. What does shared leadership mean? If either the EM or the PM is unavailable, the other person can step into their role on a temporary basis. This could mean as little as representing them in a meeting with stakeholders, all the way to filling in during a weeks-long vacation. (View Highlight)
Clear ownership of who is responsible for what is a prerequisite for shared leadership to work. Clarifying which areas of the work process the product manager owns, versus what falls under the ownership of the engineering manager, is something you need to do to avoid misunderstandings. I suggest sitting down with the product manager and drawing out all the activities you both do in order to ship software. Start with a blank sheet and then add areas. Once these are down, discuss which of you is ultimately responsible for getting that work done. What is the handoff point, when something is ready for engineering to start to develop? Which artifacts do you put in place to formalize this handoff – such as product requirement documents (PRDs), or engineering documents – and Requests for Comment (RFCs) or Engineering Requirements Documents (ERDs), or tickets? (View Highlight)