Comment by greenyoda | Hacker News Reader

Comment by greenyoda | Hacker News Reader

"Make your product department be a service organization that provides feedback and information to programmers but that does not direct or manage their work. Let programmers make the final calls about what features to build."

Unless your programmers spend a lot of time talking with your customers, I don't think it's practical to let them decide what features should be built. Certainly they should have the ability to voice their ideas (and have their ideas taken seriously), but if they don't know what the customer needs, they shouldn't have the final word. Having been a programmer and a manager of programmers, I've never met a programmer (including myself) who knows as much about how my customers use the product as product managers or marketing people do.

Also, I think your title meant to say "then what", not "than what".

<I've never met a programmer (including myself) who knows as much about how my customers use the product as product managers or marketing people do.>

In my experience, customer/product support people (pre-sale and post-sale) have a better understanding of product usage and needs than programmers or marketing people.

Thanks for pointing out my typo.

Also, how do you account for the many successful software companies that are started by just programmers, with no product direction?

I happen to work for a company that was started by programmers. In the early days, they had to spend a lot of time doing sales and support, so they were dealing with customers every day. But as companies grow, people who specialize in product management and sales get hired, and programmers no longer have much contact with customers.

But since your article discusses the relationship between programmers and a "product department", I'm assuming that the company has grown to a point where programmers have relatively little day to day contact with customers, and thus they shouldn't be the ones calling the shots when it comes to figuring out what the customers need.

Hence, my suggestion that the product department be used to inform the programmers so they make wise feature decisions. It is not appropriate, however, for product to be in a management position over engineering.

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