> Their answers to most ‘why are we doing this ?’ ‘trust me bro’.
I've profoundly annoyed so many PMs asking this question, I don't get it. I believe it's because they don't want to admit it's because it's an exec's-idea-of-the-week rather than market/biz/customer research and analysis.
> Engineers have said enough is enough and are now taking over product roles
Fingers crossed. It's about time we up our communication- and managing-upwards skills. I feel many PMs are sustaining their roles just because they're sycophantic yes-men to the execs, because execs got tired of engineers saying "no".
Having read a few criticms of PMs on HN, I can imagine the "your companies just didn't hire the good PMs" comments incoming
Everything you said in your post is true, especially about 90% of PMs being presenteeist yes men. Indeed most PMs are at best a waste of time, and at worst a net negative to the company and anything they touch.
However, a good PM is worth their weight in gold. I maintain the cynical view that 80% of the work done at any large company is useless. That's why a good PM is so invaluable
A good PM is the difference between your project aimlessly spinning its wheels and changing directions for 8 quarters (like most projects), or relentless execution with full focus and rewards from higher-ups.
Clarifying what executives want, nudging their worst impulses towards something more productive, maintaining focus and clear communication amongst multiple teams with competing priorities, working with engineers to design features and schedule them realistically on the road map, exploring the company beyond your current team to find impactful projects to work on or to join forces with... All these things are exhausting, painstaking, and take a level of attention to technical details and human affairs which most of us don't have the patience or energy to deal with. It's more than a full time job.
But if a PM does it successfully, you actually ship important stuff, and that stuff is so important that it moves the whole company forward, and improves the bottom line so much that no one can ignore it. And that's why the PM role continues to exist, despite most of its practitioners being useless suckups. The impact just one PM can deliver by shipping a successful and important project at a large company outweighs all the useless baggage that is the rest of their colleagues. And that's why you continue to invest in your PM org, and hope you get a few nuggets of gold amongst all those turds.
I'm guessing you're a PM or have been? You did the classic 'opening agree to disarm, then disagree with a long sales pitch' that they're so good at ;)
It seems to me you're vastly overselling the impact of even the 50th percentile of PMs
I think project management is useful (I'm not going to get in the weeds of PM vs PM vs PO etc). But I feel we've over-promoted classic project managers into roles driving product direction without them having the experience or acumen for it.
I agree with everything else you wrote. Especially the bit about over promoted project managers. That's my thinking as well.