Which statement do you agree with more?

Engineers need Product Managers to do their jobs?

OR

Product Managers need Engineers to do their jobs?

What do I think?

It depends…

During the early stages of a company, an engineering team can get by without a Product Manager (PM). As the company scales, Product Managers (PMs) become critical to the success of a product and company.

Regardless of the stage of a company, good PMs are great assets to their engineering teams and their value will always be recognized. As such, it is critical for a PM to maintain a great working relationship with the engineering team.

The PM-Engineer relationship is a complementary and interdependent one. Though sometimes, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a battle of Us (PMs) versus Them (Engineers). Given that much of what a PM does involves accomplishing goals through others, the onus is therefore on the PM to develop a better working relationship with his or her engineers and everyone as much as possible.

How can you work better with your Engineering Team?

Display Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. PMs should not only have empathy for the customer but also the engineers and anyone else they work with. Some ways this can be done include:

• Making the effort to get to know each member of the team
  • This is something I do when I join a new company or team. I reach out and schedule 30-45mins with each person on the team from junior engineers to engineering leads. These meetings are typically introductory by nature. I learn more about the person, her or his experience on the team/company, share a little bit about myself and learn about how to best engage with the engineer and team at large.
  • This might seem time-consuming but it goes a long way and helps build rapport and trust with the team. It helps make inevitable actions that plague PMs such as last minute changes, re-prioritization, additional requests go smoother.
• Prove yourself by unblocking the team
  • The quickest way to earn engineers’ trust is to solve dependencies and unblock the team as much as possible. Ask them what big hurdles they face (related or unrelated to your role) and work to get them answers.
• Including them in critical product decisions
  • One of the many tasks of a PM is to set direction and make calls. It’s easy and tempting to make those decisions in a vacuum. However, it is important to get as much information from the engineering teams and other related parties before making a critical product decision.
• Communicating clearly the problem you’re trying to solve
  • Clearly articulating the problem, writing crisp and clear requirements ensures that the team provides the right solution that will delight the customer.

Possess Good Communication

This entails:

• Writing specifications that clearly state
  • the problem, the users and their goals
  • the constraints, if any
  • expected timeline for release given other priorities, if necessary
• Keeping them focused on prioritized requests 
  • Engineers love to solve problems and sometimes they get carried away with nice-to-have technical solutions that have no major impact to the customer or tech stack. It is important for the PM to re-focus the team on solving problems that will provide the most value for the customer and the company.
• As much as possible, protecting the team from random feature requests and frequent context switching
  • This is not easy to do especially when these feature requests come from executive stakeholders. You’ll need to evaluate the request, understand it more in depth and make a decision on where it falls in the prioritization order, if possible. Communication with both the engineering team and executive stakeholder will be crucial here.
• Communicating quickly when things change
  • Take responsibility for changes in requirements, if at fault, be quick to admit that and work swiftly to find a solution.

Recognize and Celebrate

• Share the credit
  • As a PM, you’re often the main recipient of blame or (rare) praise. Cherish the praises but be sure to highlight accomplishments of not only yourself but that of your team. As for blame, take one for the team every so often but try not to be seen as the resounding scape goat.
• Highlight efforts by deserving individuals to manager(s) for recognition where possible
  • Take note when an engineer you’re working with delivers successfully on a task or goes above and beyond on a project. A kind and specific note to his or her manager will make both the engineer and manager feel valued.
• Celebrate wins – no matter how small
  • Bring in breakfast, lunch, snacks
  • Go out after work for happy hour, dinner etc
  • Send congratulatory notes to the team or specific individuals
• Share newsletters/emails periodically detailing accomplishments and lessons learned with each major launch/release

Stay out of the Weeds

Product Managers are responsible for the What, the Why and the When i.e. What the product should do, Why it should be built and a potential time frame for release. The How should be left to the engineers. Regardless of your past experience as an engineer or your goal to become technical, refrain from telling engineers how to do their jobs as this will reflect negatively on you and risk the relationship with the team. If you’ve laid out strategic objects and clear requirements for a product, then you should not need to do anything else but be available to your team as needed.

Note

Having empathy, possessing good communication, recognizing and celebrating milestones are just some of the many traits that PMs should put into action daily to work better with engineers. This doesn’t mean that things will be rosy or preclude PMs from engaging in difficult conversations. In fact, some respectful and healthy tension is always good.

PMs should not shy away from disagreements and advocate for the customer always!

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