Woah there buddy, you can’t just jump straight into the (non-)solution like that! You skipped the planning refinement! And the planning pre-refinement! And the pre-planning pre-refinement! And we’ll still discuss all of this in the post-planning refinement!
(Yes, every one of these are real, distinct meetings, lasting at minimum one hour but sometimes two or more. EVERY WEEK. Kill me now please? 🥺)
And after all that it is discovered that it was the wrong solution all along because the requirements were poorly specified, so the process must be started all over again
So something I don’t understand is the logic behind my job. I’m a software engineer, that effort makes sense to me to develop and solution and configure.
But I’ve been given a product owner role. And then I have a product manager I work with who isn’t technical.
I really don’t feel like I do much other than stress out
Normal human ways of thinking go like: however you do it, so long as the job gets done it’s fine! ☺️
PM thinking: even if nothing ever gets done, so long as I collect a salary we continue to have 3 hours of meetings most days every week, it’s all good! 🤔🤯
Also, afaik, the conflict between the PO and PM roles is somehow literally the point? You get blamed if the tasks don’t get done, while the PM ensures that endless reports get generated - I doubt the vast most of which are ever read, and I know that I for one can never find one of those later, in part bc there are so many of them and they encompass everything else into them as well (Jira tickets, Slack messages, hundreds of emails per day mostly saying “this Jira ticket or that Confluence page has been edited”, the former of which for the life of me I cannot figure out how to turn off!).
So… not only I but we all feel your pain! Otoh, that seems one of the first job roles that will soon be replaced by AI?
Yes, this is greatly to be feared:-). But at least you will have a job, other than “factory worker” like everyone else seems to be geared into becoming (either that or soilent green / food - I wish I were joking, though possibly the person in charge who put forth that idea was joking at least? I mean… unless we are into it? No? Okay we can wait on that one…).
You will just have to manage all of the products that the company can force upon you, while they do the “real” work - of golfing, ofc! 😉
Also I now realize that my above messages were slightly incorrect - they were for the “Project Manager” role, which is distinct from your role as “Product Owner”, and then “Product Manager” is a whole other thing… I guess, but I have no idea what the latter is supposed to do, really.
Product Manager: Make a step by step guide of how they think the lightbulb is going to be fixed without explicitly mentioning the broken lightbulb.
Woah there buddy, you can’t just jump straight into the (non-)solution like that! You skipped the planning refinement! And the planning pre-refinement! And the pre-planning pre-refinement! And we’ll still discuss all of this in the post-planning refinement!
(Yes, every one of these are real, distinct meetings, lasting at minimum one hour but sometimes two or more. EVERY WEEK. Kill me now please? 🥺)
Fuck me am I glad I’m out of the corporate world
And after all that it is discovered that it was the wrong solution all along because the requirements were poorly specified, so the process must be started all over again
The circular justification of a PM’s job, see how much value they add!?
So something I don’t understand is the logic behind my job. I’m a software engineer, that effort makes sense to me to develop and solution and configure.
But I’ve been given a product owner role. And then I have a product manager I work with who isn’t technical.
I really don’t feel like I do much other than stress out
Tbf that seems like the proper response to me.:-)
Normal human ways of thinking go like: however you do it, so long as the job gets done it’s fine! ☺️
PM thinking: even if nothing ever gets done, so long as
I collect a salarywe continue to have 3 hours of meetings most days every week, it’s all good! 🤔🤯Also, afaik, the conflict between the PO and PM roles is somehow literally the point? You get blamed if the tasks don’t get done, while the PM ensures that endless reports get generated - I doubt the vast most of which are ever read, and I know that I for one can never find one of those later, in part bc there are so many of them and they encompass everything else into them as well (Jira tickets, Slack messages, hundreds of emails per day mostly saying “this Jira ticket or that Confluence page has been edited”, the former of which for the life of me I cannot figure out how to turn off!).
So… not only I but we all feel your pain! Otoh, that seems one of the first job roles that will soon be replaced by AI?
I have a feeling AI won’t take my role, AI will force me to take ownership of more products. I worry greatly about that.
Yes, this is greatly to be feared:-). But at least you will have a job, other than “factory worker” like everyone else seems to be geared into becoming (either that or soilent green / food - I wish I were joking, though possibly the person in charge who put forth that idea was joking at least? I mean… unless we are into it? No? Okay we can wait on that one…).
You will just have to manage all of the products that the company can force upon you, while they do the “real” work - of golfing, ofc! 😉
Also I now realize that my above messages were slightly incorrect - they were for the “Project Manager” role, which is distinct from your role as “Product Owner”, and then “Product Manager” is a whole other thing… I guess, but I have no idea what the latter is supposed to do, really.
And then complain that the light bulb wasn’t fixed in the time that a different team projected on the L1 from 3 years ago.
Exactly. Also, prediction they’re referencing from 3 years ago was to build a lemonade stand.