I suspect there are differences in our contexts, but I love to hear it! I think you can do a lot more in collaboration, but it helps to have complementary skills. And sometimes I just don't want to deal with things when that isn't true 🤷🏻‍♂️

I think #2 is a pretty big one. I don’t disagree with #3, but I do think smaller companies benefit from narrowing that scope to drive more focus, which is a big reason why I think you can do away with PMs in that context.

Oddly the only example of narrow scope I know of is Booking.com

Yeah, I don't think every environment warrants a PM. Some may excel with one, and some may hinder with one depending on the setup. Never worked at a tech company or startup so I wouldn't know how useful one would be there compared to an ad agency.

just out of curiosity, what's your reasoning?

And that's not to say I don't know how to manage clients and only leave it to a PM. I'm always in the room and presenting the work and walking them through design decisions we make, but a good PM can ensure that behind the scenes, the client knows they are being heard.

I've worked with a lot of great PMs, and every organization is different, so I wouldn't take too much stock into my assertion. I just have a strong perspective that there's too much overlap between PMs and PDs @ smaller tech startups.

I personally have such a solid relationship with the PM's I work with at my agency. Boundaries are never crossed, and they bring a lot of structure to my work where I can focus solely on design while they focus solely on wrangling clients and ensuring things stay on track.

i like working in a bigger company personally, but have worked in smaller teams where yeah, i can see why a PM could feel like a hindrance, so i get where you're coming from for sure.

I've only worked at mid-sized to smaller companies, so maybe there's a material impact at larger enterprises. But this is definitely how I've felt at the scale I enjoy working in.

FWIW, I've worked with some stellar ones, but unless there's relevant subject matter-expertise, I haven't found too much value, which is why I'm intrigued by AirBnB's newer model. If there are any AirBnB designers on here, would love to know your thoughts.

Especially since working at an agency requires me to be across varying projects and scopes in mind with multiple clients and working with their teams vs. working in-house that is more internal facing across the same group of people every day.

1. IMO, product acuity is on the decline across PMs—a sign of the times. Working with a PM that doesn't have a high caliber but has a lot of authority often leads to worse outcomes. I also think PDs can own aspects of the , which helps connect impact and product.

All that to say, someone that can provide subject-matter expertise in a complex domain or support with GTM motions is far more valuable IMO.

as an incoming new grad PM (project)… oof ouch what skill do I have to pick up to become relevant and easy to work with

I went from having PMs to having no PMs to having PMs again. And I've officially confirmed my position that there's little to no reason for them.

And my personal observation is that the PMs I like working with don’t tend to come from an elite MBA background.

at a bigger company: a good project and/or program manager can be really useful if you have a lot of ongoing projects under one larger program that all relate to one another, to make sure things stay in sync, especially wrt to avoiding scope creep and duplicate effort (imo)

i might be a little linear-pilled but their pm-less structure makes so much sense.

like you said, a good pm can be great but it seems more often than not that they're position doesn't feel needed...

That said, I agree with Pedro—the key is strong collaboration skills. No secret recipe to that; it's a constant balancing act that requires you to understand who you're working with and what you're trying to accomplish.

2. Esp. across smaller teams, I don't think it's that helpful to have someone own project management. Processes should be lean, and individuals should communicate and coordinate proactively. Having a PM that oversees process is an easy way to remove individual accountability.

These will be very loaded statements, but the crux of this is that the overlap between PMs and PDs is so large that it's an unnecessary bottleneck to making qulaity decisions. To that end, I think PDs are better equipped to just own the full spectrum of work here because:

The best PM's I've worked with all know how important it is to build a collaborative relationship with their design team. We're all trying to solve a problem, and it should be in both of our best interests to set ourselves up for success. Reliability goes both ways.

Good points @jibae .. there’s a lot of nuance to this depending on the org. 
1. Designers are trained to own product/service but usually don’t have authority. 
2. Not all designers want to do this
3. There’s honestly too much to do if a designer has to do product as well.

I don't work in product design, but as an art director in an agency, PM's are so integral to my project workflows. I'm convinced that every designer who doesn't like PM's either never worked with a good one, or never worked at an agency (or both).

Definitely makes sense! Interconnected dependencies necessitate some centralized oversight.

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