The following cartoon has been shamelessly republished from Shreyas Doshi’s excellent “How to Get that Next PM Job” presentation to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. Many years ago, during her first month at DysfunctoSoft, the Cranky Product Manager had this EXACT argument with the Engineering Manager for DysfunctoCrank:
by Shreyas Doshi
It was years ago, but to this day the Cranky PM does not understand how that a-hole could take so LITTLE PRIDE in his work that he would insist on shipping a product with the name misspelled.
At the time, the Cranky PM was shocked. But after years in the product management game, nothing surprises her anymore.
Rest assured, the Cranky PM won this battle. The product was NOT renamed DysfucktoCrunk.
A little link love for Shreyas Doshi, for making the Cranky Product Manager chuckle just a little bit, through the tears of frustration:
- Shreyas Doshi on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/shreyas
- Shreyas Doshi’s Blog: http://shreyasdoshi.typepad.com/
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I’ve been through the engineering vs. legal having naming issues thing. Engineering coded the codename of the project in as the product name. Legal objected right before ship, but after code complete. Engineering just came back with another codename. Marketing and the Product Manager sat the issue out, as usual in that company.
I made one engineering team put the product name in a text file which the installation program used. 30 seconds to a new name!
thanks @crankypm for the link love – much appreciated. enjoyed reading http://crankypm.com/?p=1475
Follow the slideshare link!RT @crankypm: New cranky post! The Cranky PM on "Been There, Done That" – http://crankypm.com/?p=1475 #prodmgmt
RT @crankypm: New cranky post! The Cranky PM on "Been There, Done That" – http://crankypm.com/?p=1475 #prodmgmt
Great post, and @David I too have been through that process. I am hesitant to let engineering adopt their own code name as they often become emotionally tied to it, and get pissy when you want to change it for release. Fortunately, where I am at now, we use cuddly desert critters (ha ha) as code names, so there is little temptation to “keep” them.
@Kent I worship you and your team.
@crankypm Yep, I've had that same conversation at the end of a release cycle. http://bit.ly/aHoU3f #prodmgmt
Sounds familiar! We used to play a great game called Spec. Tennis. See my shamelessly plagiarised version!
http://www.slideshare.net/stevetherover/spec-tennis
Aaah, it projects: http://crankypm.com/2010/03/cranky-pm/
:) this is great.. I should have this kind of exercise with my team too
thanks for sharing
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