Engineers and Marketing Myopia

For those who are new to SheeleyTech, I am a software engineer at heart but more often I “act” as a project manager, product manager, and systems engineer. Because of this, I tend to find myself in a conflict of interest that, if I’m not careful, results in marketing myopia.


“Heads Down” Versus “Heads Up” Roles

The engineer’s role
Engineers love to learn and apply their newly acquired skills. They enjoy building products by using their knowledge, skills, and past experiences to design and create solutions. A large part of this enjoyment is the challenge of creating the product. Sometimes it is the ability to utilize a technology that the engineer has never used before. As a software engineer I can look back at the software products I enjoyed developing the most. There is the first time I used CORBA, or the first time I used RMI, or learning about and developing web services was a great experience. Keeping up with the latest technologies, gaining new skills, and creating products with new tools requires the engineer to focus on the development of the product. I refer to this as a “heads down” responsibility. The idea being that the engineer’s head is facing down at the computer screen writing code or reading about new technologies.

The product manager’s role
When you are in the role of product manager, systems engineer or even the project manager you need to be focused on the customers’ problems. What needs do your customers truly require? Your job is to make sure you are building a product that solves their problems. You need to be what I call “heads up” – researching competing products, learning about the customer, and gaining feedback from the customers. This process does not stop once the development effort of the project begins. Challenges and issues will come up during development. Decisions will be made halfway or ever later into the development of a product that will have a huge impact on the final product. These challenges will come from the development effort (technical issues) as well as from the customers (market issues). Both of these types of challenges need to be addressed with the interests of the customers first.


The Conflict of Interest

When the same person developing the product is the same person who is responsible for making sure the product will meet the customers’ needs, there is a natural conflict of interest. I speak from experience.

Once the development effort starts, the engineer begins to fall in love with his or her product. There has been long hours invested into their development. Thus the engineer has been “heads down” and the focus has been on the product. When technical issues come up, the first reaction is to find the best technical solution to the problem. This is how the engineer wants to solve the problem. Because the product manager and the engineer are the same person, the interest of the customer can get lost. For example, a drill bit engineer (if there is such a thing) will focus on the drill bit. The engineer begins to think that the drill bit is the focus and that the customer needs a really good drill bit. This is wrong. What the customer truly needs is a hole, not a drill bit. Issues need to be addressed by thinking about the need of a hole, not how to make the drill bit better.

If you share roles as an engineer and as a product manager, you need to spend equal time “heads up” as well as “heads down”. If you started your career as an engineer you need to fight your instincts to focus more on the product than the customer. Before dealing with any technical issue, take a step back and think only about the customers’ needs. Review any relative requirements created for the product. Revisit use cases and all the materials you created before you put your head down into the code. Seek out subject matter experts or even contact the customer to get their perspective on the problem. This way, in the end, you will have developed a product the customer needs rather than just a product you enjoyed developing.