I did not have much experience in technology before my first role as a PM so I might be a bit biased here. Try telling this to the tech team and watch them have fun because you won’t understand most of the technicalities. However, there’s nothing to worry about. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to code – you only have to remember that a code is written based on a logic. If you are a logical person, you will get used to the technology and will start challenging the tech team eventually to up their game.
Here’s a situation.
Imagine, your tech team comes to you and proposes to build something fun that is not necessarily in the best interests of your customer. More often than not you let this go away but before doing that, you must first ask yourself, “Is it worth putting in the time, money and effort and taking the risk of unnecessary code in the system for something that is not even intended towards the customer?” How do you respectfully say NO and at the same time, not hinder the morale of your tech team? It is a tough challenge that you, as a PM, face.
In such a situation, you must remember that it is necessary to stop the tech team before they get too deep into the project and ensure that they do the right work for the right reason.
Being a PM, it is your responsibility to come up with the features for your product, which will grow the product as well as the business. You must understand the implications of each of these features, the potential technological and long-term maintenance costs, and the skill set that your team possesses.
A Tip (if you wish to take it): Involve the development and QA teams in the feature discussion. This will enable the dev team to be aware of the dependencies and the QA team will be able to write the user-stories accordingly. It will help reduce a considerable amount of effort.
Here is a link to my next blog in this series – Strategy Hat – The Chess Player
Also published on Medium.
