Make a difference (3/4): direct access to engineers

Ideally, the product manager and product designer should have daily and ongoing contact with engineers. This statement may seem obvious to many of you but it is especially relevant in those situations:

• Environments where engineering is outsourced

• Environments where engineers can be difficult to interact with. For example, when they are in different timezones.

• Environments which believe that engineers must work in a sheltered environment to code efficiently.

• Split product team environments. The product manager interacts exclusively with customers and stakeholders, while the product owner or project manager interacts exclusively with engineers.

Engineers work with enabling technology daily, making them experts on "what's possible right now". It is only through daily interaction with product managers and designers that engineers can achieve this goal.