|
Motronic posted:When I worked in a functional company being a PM was described as "You're the CEO of your products" with all that entails. Yes, budget, P&L, etc. That sense is pervasive in tech, and it's a huge red flag if a candidate says that to me during an interview. The PM is the CEO only when the PM IS the CEO. That mentality that people think they are a mini CEO have I've found lead to being lovely teammates and bad at their job.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 10, 2024 14:10 |
|
I've been a PM and will forever lol at the "CEO of the product" description. If you can get laid off or re-org'd at a moment's notice you're the CEO of precisely squat.
|
![]() |
|
I can see how that can be taken too literally and go wrong, but fortunately my experience of this was at a functional company so that wasn't the case.
|
![]() |
|
CEOs can get laid off at a moment's notice, the main difference is it usually comes with some fat stacks
|
![]() |
|
Oh I know the company very well and would never say I'm the CEO of jack poo poo over there. I know who the CEO is and what he represents. I was told, at my last job, that I am "the CEO of your domain" when I first got hired ![]()
|
![]() |
|
I'm more of a baron myself. People host extravagant scrum meetings to win my favor and sing and dance for my amusement, but every night I go to bed fearing the assassin's blade from a sociopathic minion or falling out of favor with my king.
|
![]() |
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:CEOs can get laid off at a moment's notice, the main difference is it usually comes with some fat stacks They will almost certainly have a reason to see it coming in advance, it's not going to be "number up, but not enough, eliminate 10% of the C suite today. The CFO and CMO can just do whatever it is the CEO does."
|
![]() |
|
Vasudus posted:I'm more of a baron myself. People host extravagant scrum meetings to win my favor and sing and dance for my amusement, but every night I go to bed fearing the assassin's blade from a sociopathic minion or falling out of favor with my king. Most accurate description to date of corporate management. Random number not up enough layoffs are like a plague or lovely harvest. In this scenario.
|
![]() |
|
Xguard86 posted:Most accurate description to date of corporate management. It's been remarked before, quite accurately, that the game that most closely models life in corporate management is Crusader Kings.
|
![]() |
|
Volmarias posted:They will almost certainly have a reason to see it coming in advance, it's not going to be "number up, but not enough, eliminate 10% of the C suite today. The CFO and CMO can just do whatever it is the CEO does." it definitely goes down like "number up, but not enough, here's a couple million and gently caress off" though
|
![]() |
|
Eric the Mauve posted:It's been remarked before, quite accurately, that the game that most closely models life in corporate management is Crusader Kings. In CK you have the chance of befriending a lucky cat that helps your reign until it is assassinated by your ne’er do well half brother. I think this proves your point
|
![]() |
|
priznat posted:In CK you have the chance of befriending a lucky cat that helps your reign until it is assassinated by your ne’er do well half brother. The lucky cat is a problem-free implementation of sharepoint.
|
![]() |
|
By PM do you mean Project Manager, because, lol
|
![]() |
|
priznat posted:In CK you have the chance of befriending a lucky cat that helps your reign until it is assassinated by your ne’er do well half brother. In CK you have the possibility of marrying a horse into your family, then having an entirely equine bloodline. BFC BWM thread compatibility confirmed. Sounds like a lot of things are like CK.
|
![]() |
|
So, here's why I cannot figure out ![]() So on one hand, they hate me? On the other hand, here's more money for succeeding. ![]()
|
![]() |
|
Sundae posted:So, here's why I cannot figure out Sounds like they're okay with either taking advantage of you or you failing hard.
|
![]() |
|
Che Delilas posted:Sounds like they're okay with either taking advantage of you or you failing hard. Any path to leads to victory!
|
![]() |
|
Vasudus posted:I'm more of a baron myself. People host extravagant scrum meetings to win my favor and sing and dance for my amusement, but every night I go to bed fearing the assassin's blade from a sociopathic minion or falling out of favor with my king. I’ve met software Eng directors that this is basically true for. The kind where they show up to the stand up and it’s now an hour long.
|
![]() |
|
CarForumPoster posted:I’ve met software Eng directors that this is basically true for. The kind where they show up to the stand up and it’s now an hour long. "Parking lot!!"
|
![]() |
|
knox_harrington posted:By PM do you mean Project Manager, because, lol The topic was product owners which I think some places seem to call product managers hence PM. It is a bit like a mini CEO but that's in the sense that your primary job is gunna be finding a way to get a very wide and diverse set of people on the same page and working together rather than a "you're the boss and can do anything"
|
![]() |
|
Yeah it's 70% just talking to people and pays 50+% more than being a "product maker".
|
![]() |
|
Cast_No_Shadow posted:The topic was product owners which I think some places seem to call product managers hence PM. Ah that makes sense. We have Global Program Lead people who are, at least in theory, the "CEO" of a drug asset, covering everything across development, commercialisation, manufacturing, regulatory, etc etc. Whereas I'm the head of just the clinical development feeding into that. Sounds similar. Of course it's all a fiction and the GPL is just as much away at sea and subject to the whims of the actual people in charge as anyone else in the company.
|
![]() |
knox_harrington posted:By PM do you mean Project Manager, because, lol Product Manager I think. At our shop PMs are product managers and PMOs are project managers. (And also “everyone is a PMO”)
|
|
![]() |
|
The PMO people kept bugging me yesterday about which version of a roadmap to use until I got fed up and told them that "I don't care just be consistent, as long as you make the changes I told you to make yesterday. These are all your slides anyway." and they immediately went off to set up a meeting with each other to discuss this further.
|
![]() |
|
Sundae posted:
Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen? Sounds to me like they want to keep everyone on edge so you jump when the overlords say jump. But with *treats* when you jump high enough, so that you all keep hanging around.
|
![]() |
|
So these mini CEOs actually get the authority of a CEO? If not, we have that where I am too.
|
![]() |
|
There was a time in the early 00's where IBM was calling everyone a Project Manager. My resume got a good boost from that.
|
![]() |
|
Jenkl posted:So these mini CEOs actually get the authority of a CEO? If not, we have that where I am too. Of course we don't.
|
![]() |
|
Organic Lube User posted:There was a time in the early 00's where IBM was calling everyone a Project Manager. My resume got a good boost from that. Playing a dangerous game there; someone might actually hire you to be one.
|
![]() |
|
My wife is a Project Manager (engineering consent cosnultancy, not in software) and it seems like she spends 50% of her time cajoling people into doing what they said they would do, 50% of her time trying to manage client expectation, and 50% of her time fixing other people's gently caress ups. No I didn't make a mistake on the math, yes "engineering consent" is a pretty good description of what a project manager needs to do on the daily I am an IC, and I wouldn't swap with her even if she has topped my salary by Wednesday afternoon.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
![]() |
|
Pharma project managers are basically administrators who write up occasional meeting minutes and ask excruciatingly dumb questions. Absolute waste of skin. It would be great to get someone to keep track of program deliverables, but that's not what they do apparently.
|
![]() |
|
CancerCakes posted:"engineering consent" is a pretty good description of what a project manager needs to do on the daily Absolutely the case at my employer. Engineering can and will blow up whatever they feel like with zero consequences.
|
![]() |
|
It’s okay, the engineer is just going to do whatever the gently caress they like anyway (software engineers at least)
|
![]() |
|
Awkward Davies posted:It’s okay, the engineer is just going to do whatever the gently caress they like anyway (software engineers at least) If only we'd been consulted.
|
![]() |
|
remigious posted:Hey all, I have a question…my career trajectory has been proposal coordinator to proposal manager. I’m interviewing for a job that is listed as proposal coordinator, but the salary and duties exceed what a coordinator would typically have. In fact, it pays considerably more than my current position and offers more responsibility. I guess I’m worried about how that would look on my resume though, since on paper, based on title alone, it looks like a step backwards? Is the title something I can try to negotiate if I make it farther in the interview process? you applying to a big four firm by any chance? e: never mind, missed a follow up post. looks like you got some advice already but as a PM myself I would not suggest taking that job. working for small companies (including in circumstances similar to those you described) was an important career step because with only one exception every one was absolutely miserable and mostly taught me what that job could be like if i didn't start viewing an oversized expectation of duties and poor processes as the red flags they are rather than "opportunities to create my own role". large business proposal management is where it is *at* as far as I am concerned. small businesses were great to pad my salary asks as I bounced to a new one every year or two and that's about it. HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 00:58 on May 12, 2024 |
![]() |
|
withoutclass posted:If only we'd been consulted. You just would have said something annoying, like “no” and “the product can’t do that” and “okay, we can do it but it’ll be really time consuming and annoying and take up the entire sprint and then you won’t be able to do anything else and it’ll be custom so it’ll break really easily and make someone mad down the line and it’s also probably not accessible”. Awkward Davies fucked around with this message at 01:54 on May 12, 2024 |
![]() |
|
Awkward Davies posted:You just would have said something annoying, like “no” and “the product can’t do that” and “okay, we can do it but it’ll be really time consuming and annoying and take up the entire sprint and then you won’t be able to do anything else and it’ll be custom so it’ll break really easily and make someone mad down the line and it’s also probably not accessible”. It's tough being the only people that actually care about the users!
|
![]() |
|
Awkward Davies posted:You just would have said something annoying, like “no” and “the product can’t do that” and “okay, we can do it but it’ll be really time consuming and annoying and take up the entire sprint and then you won’t be able to do anything else and it’ll be custom so it’ll break really easily and make someone mad down the line and it’s also probably not accessible”. Oh god forbid that product management actually prioritize anything.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 10, 2024 14:10 |
|
Che Delilas posted:Oh god forbid that product management actually prioritize anything. Easy. *Writes the number "1" next to every deliverable.* I had a boss who did that to me back at J&J/McNeil. I wrote out a list of all my projects and deliverables, the hours I was spending per week on them, and showed that it drastically exceeded even reasonable overtime to complete them all + they could not be met by the assigned deadlines. I asked her to help me prioritize which ones could slip and which ones were absolute "dead if we don't" sorts of things. She wrote (1) next to all of them and handed the list back to me, told me to make it happen. I left the company. They closed the site about a year after I left. E: Also, I am drunkposting on a Saturday night with no regrets. Ask me anything. Or don't. It's the weekend and I give absolutely no shits after this week. ![]() Sundae fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 12, 2024 |
![]() |