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cm11 • today at 8:45 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I think this is broadly true of leaders including lesser ones. It even seems true of roles like product manager.

The vast majority of projects seem to not meet their stated goals or KPIs or mission, be late, not follow remotely the planned path, etc. Whether blame falls on poor execution, poor planning, or overpromsing, those are precisely the things that chosen leaders are supposed to have been chosen to avoid—and what they would in theory fail downwards for. Unpredictable things do happen, but the regularity of these outcomes for projects (and products as a whole) means we're systematically choosing the wrong ones, there aren't enough capable ones (period), and/or that we shouldn't be org'd to need them in the first place. The last one is simply saying that if the environment is unpredictable enough that you can't plan well, then let's not spend time and money on planning. That in itself axes large chunks of the things product leaders do before work starts.

It makes iterating a more likely plan, but most teams and workstreams don't iterate too much. The iterating that sometimes is done is typically downstream of the plan, strategy, architecture that leadership leadershipped. They might do better without all the planning and overpromised timelines, which gut iterating. Iteration is only sort of a strategy anyhow (depends on what layer we're talking about when we say strategy). Iteration is what hedges a lack of vision.


Replies

malfist • today at 10:20 PM

New devs learn quickly that when the TPM over promises it's the devs job to take the fall when delivery is late, or kill themselves so the TPM can take credit.

landedgentry • today at 9:25 PM

Some would call this a valuable skill.