The document discusses how product and engineering teams can foster a productive relationship by focusing on shared understanding and collaboration. Key tips include providing engineers with business context, prioritizing clarity, respecting non-technical roles, and maintaining flexible processes. The importance of acknowledging tension and ensuring both teams work closely together is also emphasized.

1. How Not To Kill Each Other
A PM & An Engineer Share What They’ve Learned
Eli Rose & Eliza LaJoie

2. Agenda: How can product and engineering
build a healthy and productive relationship?
● Motivation
● Who Are We?
● Tips
○ People
○ Process
● Questions

16. “If you’re just using your engineers to code, you’re
only getting about half their value.”
1. Provide engineers business context
2. Connect engineers with customer pain
3. Understand constraints vs. requirements
4. Give engineers time in discovery
5. Measure product team as a whole
6. Competent and confident product managers

17. How can Product + Engineering build a
healthy + productive relationship?

18. Who are we?

19. What do we do?

20. Survival tip #1: Resist the urge to
people-please.

21. Survival tip #2:
There are no magic words that should make
you stop trying to understand.

22. Survival tip #3: Clarity is a shared
responsibility.
If you and the engineer can’t both explain your decision in plain language, you
both aren’t done yet.

23. Survival tip #4: Build a culture where product
and other ‘non-technical’ people are
respected

24. Survival tip #5: Acknowledge the root
tensions
Who’s creating value?

25. Survival tip #6: Flexible processes allow for
healthy collaboration.

26. Survival tip #6: Flexible processes allow for
healthy collaboration.
Backlog
Grooming
Estimation
1 week
1 week

27. Survival tip #7: Live in the ‘same house’
● Colocation
● Tools
● KPIs

28. 1. Resist the urge to people-please.
2. Clarity is a shared responsibility.
3. There are no magic words.
4. Build a culture where ‘non-technical’ people are
respected.
5. Acknowledge the root tensions.
6. Flexible processes allow for healthy collaboration.
7. Live in the ‘same house’.

29. Find us on linkedin!
Eli Rose & Eliza LaJoie