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Comment by rubiquity | Hacker News Reader

I suspect under-producting has killed far more products than over-engineering. The ratio of decision making power to decision making abilities is way out of balance for most Product Managers. Even at the big tech companies I feel most PMs are unimaginative MBA types that can optimize but not innovate and have no grasp of the concept of opportunity cost.

In terms of power structures, Product Managers decisions largely go unchecked in a lot of places. Engineering decisions face significantly more scrutiny, especially in places that work in short sprint cycles.

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A product manager's decisions go unchecked most of the time because engineers and responsibility for business concerns are like oil and water. That's why PM exists, no? If engineers could just talk to marketing, sales, etc. then there wouldn't be a need for them, but alas, that is not the case.

No one is denying the need for PMs. OP is pointing out that PMs have too much decision making power, with too little accountability in most organizations.

Your argument is akin to, "PMs can't code, so alas we need engineers, and that's why shitty engineering exists, and there is no way to make it better"! Nope! We need product practices, akin to engineering practices, with 360° feedback and analysis, and the product management should be held accountable for their decisions!

Right. And I'm saying that is because engineers don't want the responsibility that they often request because the entire point of PM's existence is offloading that responsibility. They seem more than happy to complain about it though

This is still missing the point. The way to improve PM accountability isn't engineers fixing them. It's the organization's and leadership responsibility to ensure PMs are held accountable.

Engineers would be far happier if they don't have to do good engineering and can do away with shitty software without accountability. But there are checks and balances to improve engineering quality, and those aren't created by PMs. It's the engineering org that champions good engineering practices and accountability and post mortems. Same should be done in PM organizations.

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