“Front-end” user interface projects are an exercise in lift vs. gravity, whether you are on a quick sprint or a more relaxed release cycle. Busy design and development peeps pouring their souls into a project can feel saddled with negative vibes; a good product manager reminds them of the positive.
Most software product managers (aka: referees) that I’ve worked with are sensitive to both the creative and technical natures of UI projects. They can help teams mitigate the misunderstandings that happen when humans work with each other, such as:
- Questions about requirements could feel like alien invaders probing for weaknesses
- Constructive suggestions might be taken as a good slapping with heavy criticism
- Exciting ideas might be heard as threats of new gnarly work if approved
- The needs of the end user could be seen as hilarious problems for another day
So product managers, this one is for you. You see the user acceptance gain with the internal pain, even though the balance of the perceived heavy slapping may be in – or completely out of – your hands.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm and is filed under User interface design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Successful, seasoned teams – creative, technical, or both – avoid treating the Product Manager as the “enemy” and understand that the role is subject to its own “see-saw” scenario. Product Managers are usually juggling input from above: Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and upper management. Ideally, there is an approved, documented product strategy. Not only does this provide a foundation for understanding the reasons and requirements for creating the product in the first place, it defines a starting point and provides a document for noting changes as the project moves forward. It doesn’t have to be perfect – change happens – but it should be comprehensive and well thought-out.
Bottom line: in my experience, the best product managers had one thing in common: a sound strategy and a good plan.
Inevitably, UI projects that lack a strategy and plan regress into confusion and finger pointing. Lack of an approved plan and requirements indicate a reactive situation – perhaps to a sudden competitive threat. So add a sense of urgency, perhaps even panic, to a lack of planning and you have a recipe for trouble. With the product manager caught in the middle.