The plan is our best company-wide communication device. It visualizes where and when we will spend our resources. It also shows us where we won't spend our resources. What's not on the plan won't get built. One of my apparently more controversial opinions is that Engineering, not Product should own the plan. Last week I explained why I believe there should be a single owner. This week, I’d like to go a bit deeper into why I believe that should be Engineering.
I think it's best when the CTO oversees product and engineering and can balance all of it together to your points. Engineering tends to focus too much on maintenance work. Product wants to build new features. Someone has to balance it out.
A version of this that has worked well for me is to have a Product focused person being on the engineering team that is doing the implementation (Squad, Pod, etc).
They are part of the team: in the standups, in the design discussions, in planning meetings. They understand both the overall Product needs as well as the engineering challenges. When a priority conflict occurs or a development hurdle presents itself, they are there working with the team to resolve it.
I agree, engineering should be the driver of the plan. The engineering team can include an embedded product person that understands both engineering and business needs.
I think it's best when the CTO oversees product and engineering and can balance all of it together to your points. Engineering tends to focus too much on maintenance work. Product wants to build new features. Someone has to balance it out.
A version of this that has worked well for me is to have a Product focused person being on the engineering team that is doing the implementation (Squad, Pod, etc).
They are part of the team: in the standups, in the design discussions, in planning meetings. They understand both the overall Product needs as well as the engineering challenges. When a priority conflict occurs or a development hurdle presents itself, they are there working with the team to resolve it.
I agree, engineering should be the driver of the plan. The engineering team can include an embedded product person that understands both engineering and business needs.
"Ownership means Engineering should be able to answer "When can we work on this?""
This is a great approach, engineering gets to make the commitments and understand the consequences of the action/inaction that is decided upon.
It is indeed important that developers understand the cost of delay.
But why not have both? When prioritization with limited deviation, you can be predictable by default (Kanban).