
The phases product teams go through - yarapavan
https://firstround.com/review/how-to-craft-your-product-team-at-every-stage-from-pre-product-market-fit-to-hypergrowth/
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rbruggem
I have worked with a lot of product managers, but I still find myself unable
to understand what value they bring. It increases the distance between the
engineers and customers. This eventually leads to making wrong short term
decisions because PMs do not understand how to actually _build_ a product. I
had better experiences when engineers made product decisions.

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czbond
Possibly for very technical products, an engineer could be more impactful than
a PM - since engineers could be their customer.

In most all other regards, I can't fathom how a proper engineer makes a better
PM. I would suggest either: your personal product engineering skills might be
higher than average, or the quality of PM's you have worked with is lower than
average. Engineers typically are more interested in: frameworks, languages,
algorithms, performance, technology of the day, etc - rather than the customer
experience, messaging, ease of use, and business value brought to a customer.

Context: CompSci background, built lots of products, founder through Series C
companies.

~~~
sdiupIGPWEfh
> Engineers typically are more interested in: frameworks, languages,
> algorithms, performance, technology of the day, etc.

As a software engineer myself, I think I'd go mad if I had to work with fellow
engineers who were that stereotypically one-dimensional. Frankly, even the
nerdiest of kids whom I went to college with that chose to present themselves
as such had broader interests than that. I got into this field myself because
I liked solving problems and was half-decent at doing so with math and
computers, which hardly excludes caring about customer experience, messaging,
ease of use, and business value.

If I'm choosing to work at companies with products aligned to my interests and
values, and if my day-to-day work actually matters to the success of the
product, why would I not care about customer experience, etc.? The success of
the product or project will ultimately reflect on me, so frankly, I'm going to
have strong opinions about what work the PMs are trying to push on the team
(maybe not literally push, but at least pressure) and how that work is then
communicated back to the customers and stakeholders. The engineers who don't
learn to give a crap about all that are setting themselves up as sheep.

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_puk
Massively long article, but good enough that it kept me reading to the end.

Having a clearly rationalised summary of what a product team is for, and
roughly when to introduce it, is an invaluable reference when transitioning
from the "drunken walk" phase with a first time founder.

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gijoeyguerra
Looks like Kent Becks' Explore, Expand, Extract:
[https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/fast-slow-in-3x-explore-
ex...](https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/fast-slow-in-3x-explore-expand-
extract-6d4c94a7539)

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j45
A rare read in it's usefulness to know what gear you are in and how to build
and execute around it.

Helped me remember:

\- every good project/product I've worked on that has scaled began as
something small and messy until.. it was less messy and less small by each
iteration.

\- having a team to innovate, startup, grow, and scale are often different
teams.

\- made some great points for providing opportunities to junior team members
and not only experienced ones. People leave regardless but the ones who stay
will be great.

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nikalras1
Good indeed! I recommend reading if you are running a team and growing.

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itronitron
I found that page very difficult (impossible) to continue reading due to the
various popups (social propagation buttons) and inserts (must read article
thumbnails) that fade-in while scrolling down. The content doesn't match the
delivery device.

