Comments on: Why Doesn’t Engineering report to Product Management (redux)

By: Bob Marshall

Bob Marshall — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:24:06 +0000

"Product Mgmt is the business function that enables companies [to match their latent capabilities] with market demand" http://goo.gl/ATWQm

By: Product Management Belongs in the Marketing Organization | marketada.com

Product Management Belongs in the Marketing Organization | marketada.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:31:23 +0000

[...] pitched this idea in several previous posts, so he’s had me thinking about it for a while. He’s suggested in the past that engineering should report in to Product Management as part of this “Products [...]

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:09:35 +0000

Great analysis, and I think very accurate. I think the current economy is going to benefit the Product Management role in the long run, because more and more focus will have to be paid to the value of what is being developed, in real market terms.

Your post highlights the underlying attitude (usually initated from the top)that Product Management is only brought to “maintain the product”, when all the innovation is done. That is the attitude that I think will shift over the next couple of years.

By: saeed

saeed — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:13:12 +0000

@Richard,

Very valid points and I would agree with you that there are PMs who think they have authority over engineers or have no understanding of how to interact with other groups like Engineering.

But, that is not always the case. I’ve seen and worked with Engineering teams who openly disregarded or discounted anything from Product Management unless it fit into their agenda. e.g. complex architecture projects and API development was welcome, but fixing deficiencies in the UI or adding functionality that simplified usage were shunned.

In the end it’s about power and politics. A strong Product Management group in a company means a shift in power to them, and a lot of Engineering management will not let that happen.

By: Roger L. Cauvin

Roger L. Cauvin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:23:56 +0000

In a new blog entry, @onpm asks whether engineering should report to product management. See my comment as well. http://tr.im/eyaj

By: Adam Bullied

Adam Bullied — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:43:51 +0000

Another great post on this topic, Saeed.

I also believe that if there was a better overall relationship with Engineering and Product (which some of us have experienced, and some of us haven’t), those conflicts, which can cause delays and “misunderstandings” and just politicking in general, would be avoided.

But I think this comes from more knowledge about what product does, which as you state, takes time.

By: rcauvin

rcauvin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:41:44 +0000

One simple way to look at the reporting structure is to consider how accountability and management fit together. It makes little sense for a product manager to be accountable for product success if she doesn't have hire and fire authority over the people who are essential to its success.The success of the product depends on the competence of sales, marcom, and engineering. In organizations that wish to make the product manager fully accountable for product success, perhaps management should be structured as product teams, each with its own set of sales, marcom, and engineering folks, and led by a a product manager.

By: OnProductManagement

OnProductManagement — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:32:14 +0000

New Blog Post: Why doesn’t Engineering report to Product Management (redux) http://tinyurl.com/d89ncj

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:19:30 +0000

One reason why engineers don’t like product managers is that a large proportion of engineers work in the field because they love what they do, which means they have opinion about it. That means when someone comes and tells them what they should be doing, there’s potential for conflict. I’ve been in both positions.

The successful product managers I’ve known have been the ones who not only come up a good product plan but also get the engineering team excited or at least committed to the plan (possibly even taking feedback on board along the way). Bad PMs turn up expecting engineers to simply respect their authority, which often causes the opposite reaction.

Those good PMs don’t need Engineering to report to product. Those bad PMs wouldn’t benefit from it.