> Sales and Engineering - very different competencies. Companies like IBM are NOT technology companies. They are sales-culture oriented, and their product HAPPENS TO BE technology. In fact you could argue, the only way to win big enterprise contracts in the first place, is to be a sales-culture company.
Companies as large as IBM don't have a single unified culture. The sales groups are sales oriented, and the engineering groups are engineering/ tech oriented. Most of the time the two aren't in the same building, and often not even the same city.
> Draw horizontal lines on the org chart. The sales guys are at the top. They are generally competent. Proof = they sold a massive deal. The devs are at the bottom. They are often competent. They have to be or they wouldn't get hired or find work. You can PROVE someone doesn't know dev work. But, they don't have enough POWER to change things or fix things.
> Reasons for failure:
> 1. The middle. This is the breakdown. Many PMs often have no real skills. ORGANIZING for success, given a complex technical and organizational problem. 2. The projects are too big. Any huge project is from the get-go at an unacceptable level of risk. Decentralization, Deconstruction is powerful. The projects must be broken into smaller pieces to be managed.
It seems like you're stretching to blame PMs, and I don't think it's deserved.
The sales guy's job isn't just to sell the biggest deal - it's to sell the biggest deal that the company can actually execute and deliver.
And it's no secret that there at least as many incompetent devs as there are smart, amazing devs. There's a reason "fizzbuzz" is a weed out question.
Likewise, there are good and bad PMs.
Without all of the information it's impossible to place blame on a single group of employees.
Companies as large as IBM don't have a single unified culture. The sales groups are sales oriented, and the engineering groups are engineering/ tech oriented. Most of the time the two aren't in the same building, and often not even the same city.
> Draw horizontal lines on the org chart. The sales guys are at the top. They are generally competent. Proof = they sold a massive deal. The devs are at the bottom. They are often competent. They have to be or they wouldn't get hired or find work. You can PROVE someone doesn't know dev work. But, they don't have enough POWER to change things or fix things.
> Reasons for failure:
> 1. The middle. This is the breakdown. Many PMs often have no real skills. ORGANIZING for success, given a complex technical and organizational problem. 2. The projects are too big. Any huge project is from the get-go at an unacceptable level of risk. Decentralization, Deconstruction is powerful. The projects must be broken into smaller pieces to be managed.
It seems like you're stretching to blame PMs, and I don't think it's deserved.
The sales guy's job isn't just to sell the biggest deal - it's to sell the biggest deal that the company can actually execute and deliver.
And it's no secret that there at least as many incompetent devs as there are smart, amazing devs. There's a reason "fizzbuzz" is a weed out question.
Likewise, there are good and bad PMs.
Without all of the information it's impossible to place blame on a single group of employees.