Your job is not to tell us how to do our job

Re:Your job is not to tell us how to do our job by ukigumo on Monday February 23, 2015 @07:36AM (#9093927)

The author of this article does himself a poor service by exposing the limits of his knowledge and his unwillingness to learn from others.

Being a good coder is really nice, and you earn loads of cookie points with your team members and even some of your managers, I'm sure, but a valuable engineer (the kind who is trusted to make decisions about products) is one who understands how the scope of his activities affects the product perception for the clients and, ultimately, the bottom line for the company.

Want an example or two? Sure. 1) If 2% of your users represent ~20% of your revenue their concerns and requirements will be prioritized accordingly.

2) If you need to know a specific set of information that you don't have access to at any time, ask for it. If such information is not available, raise that concern and work with your team and the product manager to make a judgment call.

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Re:Your job is not to tell us how to do our job by a-ghost-fart on Monday February 23, 2015 @07:55AM (#9093984)

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here.

If you're insinuating that I don't think of the wider business value or the business as a whole then that is just false and what I have written is not meant to be interpreted as such.

Also your examples seem to be non-sequiturs, neither are relevant to the point I've made.

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Re:Your job is not to tell us how to do our job by ukigumo on Monday February 23, 2015 @08:52AM (#9094237)

There's always a rift between what one means for other people to understand and what they actually do. Case in point, I thought I had made a clear statement that I thought your post was disingenuous and immature and did you a disservice by casting you as more of a coder than a valuable engineer.

I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong, I just made a reflection of how you came across. Was that clearer now?

As for my points being non-sequiturs, I'll admit that I fail to see _any_ point in your post other than you don't know what a product manager _is_ and you feel attacked somehow, so there's a fair chance you are right.

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Re:Your job is not to tell us how to do our job by a-ghost-fart on Monday February 23, 2015 @09:08AM (#9094324)

It's a direct response to the original post, visit the link at the start. The point is answering the points raised in that product owner's post.

My point is that product owners should stop telling developers how to do their job, especially when the "advice" they offer is without value at best, and at worst insulting.

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