After I wrote The Maven, I started thinking about what poem I would hack next. I didn’t intend to land on another Romantic–allegedly I do not even like the Romantics very much–but then the title just came to me one day. I want to say “and then the rest happened quickly,” but in fact principal photography took place over a total of four days spread over more than two years. Editing and the the composer’s work came together quite a bit more quickly than that, and only at that point could the rest be declared to be history.
My plan for Rime was to produce a more complex film with multiple sets and multiple actors. This is a difficult undertaking for professionals, much less unschooled hacks who are trying to produce the least amateurish artifact they possibly can. I can say two things about the process: it is apparently difficult to get right, and it is one of the most enjoyable things I do.
With that, I present to you The Rime of the Product Manager:
I won’t drag you through a detailed account of what I meant to convey with the film, but I will say that my message changed from the time I originally hatched the idea to the time I finished editing. The place I landed is hopefully obvious enough. Once again, because artistic license sometimes pulls me to extremes, I should make it clear that it is not my opinion that the role of the product manager (or “product owner,” which is more precise but does not scan) is a bad thing, nor on the other hand do I think Scrum is somehow destructive.
A tired Product Manager
Spies a group of friends
He grabs the young one and proceeds
His great wisdom to lend
The Conference-Goer stands chagrinned
His eyes and mouth agape
The PM grabs his hand and then
His friends make their escape
The Conference-Goer took his seat:
He cannot choose but hear;
And so spoke on that tired man,
The Product Manager.
We started in a coffee shop
Upon a city street
UI mocks were drink to us
And code our only meat
We coded long, we coded hard
We coded day and night
We coded like our days would end
Unless we code aright
None among us told his peer
The features he should build
If we'd have played the manager
Our vision we'd have killed
Then one dark night, we launched the site
Our hearts besot with hope
In Graphite's thrall we watched it all
And dread caught every throat
We watched the charts all day and night
Frowning, sighing gently
Our only goal, the favor of
The Valley Cognoscienti
We got the mentions we were after
Traffic started spiking
The cluster groaned under the load
All servers running to the hilt
We dared to think we might have built
A product of our liking
We bathed in growing revenue
With metrics in our favor
Subscribers new, renewals too
Made these the days to savor
The VCs saw what we had built
And offered to us terms
That we could scarcely not accept
—so much we had to learn!
We closed an A round and we thought
Success was now in hand!
Who could but think that capital
Had ratified our plans?
With all due youthful confidence
We set ourselves to hiring
We poached, cajoled, and outbid for
The staff of our desiring
And what with shiny laptops humming
Could all these hackers do?
They built the features users wanted
Feature on feature accrued
We coded long, we coded hard
But a hacker needs to rest!
With VC funds we bought some cheer
And wine and gin and Scotch and beer
We worked and drank and worked 'til near
Our work was not our best
Now such a team could scarce avoid
A Providential chastening
No one could know that this new flow
Had been our failure hastening
Those early days of coding hard
In cafes on the cheap?
Were gone and in their place we’d built
A comp’ny growing weak
No longer was each eager coder
Focused on our users
No vision animated them
No judgment was within their ken
We looked at our new features then
We judged these features losers
We all agreed the thing we’d need
Without a doubt averred:
I’d hang up coding and become
A Product Manager
The founders’ product vision now
Came through the medium
Of story cards and backlogged scars
Of endless tedium
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all had seen, I'd killed the team
That made the comp’ny grow.
You wretch! said they, the team to slay,
That made the comp’ny grow!
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, no more did we code;
As idle as a painted team
Upon a painted repo
Product, product everywhere
And happiness did shrink
Product, product everywhere
Nor anyone to think
Subscription growth had flatlined and
Our runway shrank to nothing
Subscriber acquisition cost
So bloated we were blushing
That dream team that we'd hired then?
No longer could they trust
We'd have an exit worth their time
So left they as they must
If it were only staff I lost
Survive I just have might
Buy my partner joined the tide
And left me in my plight
There was nothing left to build
The vision we had started
I could only turn and leave
A founder, broken-hearted
And now I fly from show to show
Spreading far my story
To coders young who've yet to learn
What made my heart so hoary
It doesn't matter what your scale
Nor where you got your funding
If devs don't love their users then
Your futures will be plunging
The vision that you started with
To set the world aright?
Must be spread to everyone
Who gives your product life
The sub-creators of the world
Must love the things they make
If you would lead, then you're the one
To spark their hearts awake
They can't be bought with snacks or drink
And process least of all
Can bring the flush of health into
A coder once he fall
And now I fly from show to show
Telling wide my story
To coders young who may yet learn
Where lies their future glory
The old PM, whose eye is bright,
Whose blog with age is stale,
Is gone; and now the Conference-Goer
Departs the conference vale.
He leaves like one who has been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder, wiser hacker then
He rose the morrow morn.