Sunday, February 5, 2017

Flying the product kite - creative tussle between Product Management and Engineering

If you have built software products as part of either Engineering or Product Management, I am sure you have often wondered why these two roles sometimes seem to be at cross purposes. Product Management always seems to want the greatest features now, and engineering always seems to be explaining why a feature is technically infeasible or difficult to complete in so short a time. You are very sure both sides are trying to bring their best to the game, and you keep wondering how they can play better as a team.

These kinds of experiences led me to the need for a simple analogy describing the relationship between Product Management and Engineering - something that teams could easily grasp, something that would stick. So where did that search lead me? It led me back in time to the days of childhood and the joy of flying kites!

In my model, Product Management can be pictured as a kite, soaring among the clouds, with Engineering as the little kid on the ground, holding the string firmly. Please see the picture below the next paragraph, where I have attempted to represent this visually. (Note : This is just my way of looking at this relationship. You readers may have other ideas or opinions. I would love to hear about them, and I look forward to your comments)

Product Management is up there facing the winds of change blowing through the business environment, trying not to be left behind. They have their head truly in the clouds, thinking up grand new features to leave competitors languishing in the lower echelons. Being up high, they are also able to gaze at distant horizons and see the future of the industry, and they may also look through their telescopes at other kite-flying teams to see what the competitors are up to. Engineering, on the other hand, is the kid running around on the tough technology terrain, trying to avoid prickly technical problems and the hard rocks of architectural dead-ends. They are the anchor, grounding the product in solid engineering, the voice of practicality and logic and reason that keeps the kite from being torn apart by the wind or snared by the electric pole. And just like the skillful interaction between kite and flier helps them reach new heights, close coordination between Product Management and Engineering is the only way to launch a successful product and keep the organization's banners flying.


If you have flown kites, you know that the only way to make the kite rise is to pull on the string, against the wind. Similarly, Engineering needs to have a firm hold on the string to help and guide Product Management through turbulent business scenarios. Another thing you will also know from your kite flying days is that to get the kite higher up in the sky, you need to successively pull on it and release the string to allow more and more of the string to play out, carrying the kite higher and higher. This is very important for Engineering to understand. The successive pulls on the string are equivalent to engineering hardening of the product where feature-creep is kept on a tight leash and the product resilience and performance is improved. The successive relaxations of the string are the innovations, hackathons, new technology adoptions and release marathons that Engineering undertakes to feed Product Management's needs for better features, improved user experiences and insightful business intelligence.

Kite-flying disasters are quite common when either of the parties stops playing as a team. An unruly kite that fails to respond to the inputs of the flier ends up in tatters or high-up on a tree, and a flier that pulls too insistently on the string is left with either a stalled kite or a broken string. These are important lessons for Product Management and Engineering to keep in mind.

By the way, in no way do I want to imply that these roles of kite and flier are rigid and exclusive. Far from it. Good engineers are expected to understand business and be aware of developments in the domain, and if they do, they can also become partners to Product Management in driving features. I have seen many instances of this happening. I have also seen equally commendable cases of Product Management being cognizant of the challenges faced by technology, and working with Engineering to create a road-map that provides enough space for deep technology transformations. So yes, the parts played by the kite and flier can overlap, and they often do. However, the analogy presented here does provide a very simple story of what the generic and ideal relationship between Product Management and Engineering should be like.

What do you think? Do you see your kite-flying lessons being as handy in product development and engineering as envisioned here? Or do you feel that product development is too serious a sport to be compared with mere kite flying? Do let me know through your feedback.

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