Comment by willsmith72 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by willsmith72 | Hacker News Reader

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product teams are long-lived, unlike projects

if someone (say someone from marketing) has a need for the product, and it gets de-prioritised, someone has decided the marketing person's needs are less important. That's why product teams have to be cross-functional and have ownership. You can't just have a board of execs 5 levels of hierarchy removed switching and swapping people randomly.

also why there are so few product teams. There aren't many execs willing to put the trust in their people to give them ownership of products/problems/opportunities/outcomes, without wanting a micro level of control on the solutions. Which is always hilarious because they hired these people in the first place (or the ones who hired them etc...)

> without wanting a micro level of control on the solutions.

HiPPO attacks are real. Nothing like having countless customer interviews only for a dataless HiPPO to come in and maul your product.

I feel like PMs are used as sacrificial anodes in some orgs. The HiPPO controls product via the PM. When the product inevitably flops, it’s the PM’s head on a spike.

Highest Paid Person?

Highest Paid Person’s Opinion, I believe.

You know the ones, they drop in towards the end of a complex cross functional discovery process and say something like “but it should do it like…” or “can’t you just…”

And some of the time they’re right, but the reason they’re right is because they created an organisation without delegated authority and autonomy, and tasked a team with creating change that also didn’t have authority. Which reinforces their view that micromanaging and not delegating authority is the only way to operate effectively because their team just doesn’t come up with the right answers ever.

Unfortunately very familiar with them and their disconnected demands, just have never heard them called HiPPO before and now I have a new favorite term for the over inflated egos in management that make being productive harder.

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