Comments on: Guest Post: A Journey to the Dark Side – How a Cranky Engineer Became a Product Manager

By: Cranky Product Mgr

Cranky Product Mgr — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:30:08 +0000

New blog post: Guest Post: A Journey to the Dark Side – How a Cranky Engineer Became a Product Manager http://tinyurl.com/bzupgk

By: Paco

Paco — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:48:08 +0000

Myers-Briggs: an effective way of identifying tendencies in order to effectively motivate and communicate with diverse groups of people.

It’s also an effective way for some douche-bag VP to skip to the grid at the end and preemptively decide which people are gonna be winners and losers :)

I recall a team-building event where we did the test, and we had a workbook that listed famous people for each of the types, and some were more “infamous” than famous. I found it oddly appropriate that our head tech writer had the same personality traits as Mussolini. Something about keeping the trains on time…

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:22:48 +0000

I like this…”But if you love your subject matter and you have an obsessive personality, if you’re a compulsive but an articulate know-it-all… like it or not, you’re going to be a product manager.”

By: roadmapwarrior

roadmapwarrior — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:55:02 +0000

I love how we product managers wear our Myers-Briggs like lapel pins. I’m an INTJ, as well. My favorite boss is an ENTJ, though he probably sits on the border of I/E. My first boss out of college was an INTJ (but somewhat on the dysfunctional side). His VP boss (who got axed after 6 months on the job) was an ENTP.

Taking the Myers-Briggs was always something I associated with gifted class activities that were intended to help us not feel too bad about having higher aptitude than some of our classmates. It never seemed relevant. And then, everywhere I turn with product management, we all know our types.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m fine with being a “mastermind.” I mean, c’mon…Niels Bohr was a mastermind. He’s a freakin’ celebrity in my book…