[vault_]

Where this breaks down, as I've experienced at least, is that the product management side maintains basically zero awareness of the production constraints engineers are working within. If you've built out a painting production line around spray guns and beige, that has knock-on effects as to what results are attainable. A PM asking for polka-dots next sprint is throwing into question the entire body of practice, but this happens with extreme frequency in software.

[Spivak]

This I think is a broader problem of a certain personality of "idea guys" that lie about requirements, often without being aware of it, and it being our problem as engineers to read their minds and be two steps ahead of them.

Director: "We need a factory that's tooled around manufacturing boxes of cookies with blue frosting. We don't need any other colors, just blue frosting!"

Junior Engineer: "He's going to come back in two days and ask for red frosting. Better make sure it can do any color."

Mid Level Engineer: "He's going to come back in a week and ask us for multi-color boxes. Better make sure it can do any combination of colors in each box."

Senior Engineer: "He's going to have the big idea to add sprinkles, writing, and branch out into eclairs. Better make sure the factory is extensible and can retool itself per-batch to make each box to-order."

The worst part about this is you can see where uncertainty leads to over-engineering and consequences if your psychic senses are off. This is where a good PM steps in and forces folks like this into a roadmap on a long-enough time-scale that you can see the mid-level's design is all we'll need. And if you still want eclairs we can talk about that in 2026.

[xnorswap]

Seasoned Engineer: "He's going to come back in a week and ask for croissants, better focus on just making blue cookies now and worry about the future later".