How do product managers work with engineers? Plus, ways to work better together
Last updated: November 2024
Product managers lead the product. Engineers build it. The demarcation seems clear, but is it really that simple? If you are a product manager, then you know it never is. Both roles have nuanced expertise and strong opinions on how to make the product better. Responsibilities often blur. And miscommunication can lead to dysfunction. You might be tempted to meddle with the engineering team's technical direction, while some engineers may question your decisions about which features should be built next.
If this is happening on your team, then you need a clearer understanding of who owns which decisions and tasks at each stage of the product lifecycle. At a basic level, product managers should address the "why" (product strategy) and "what" (features) for the product. Engineers should focus on the "how" — the technical implementation of new or enhanced functionality. And together, you collaborate on the "when."
Bring product and engineering closer together — try Aha! software.
Some tension with engineering is inevitable, even healthy — if you are both engaged in delivering value to customers and respectful of each other's expertise. But minimizing friction wherever you can is wise. That makes it easier to achieve together.
Many product decisions are collaborative and require input from both sides. Each one is an opportunity to push each other to think more critically, explore new approaches to problem-solving, and come up with innovative solutions together. Does this sound like a better way forward? Then read on — the best practices in this guide will help you get started.
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5 tips for better collaboration between product managers and engineers
You can build a more harmonious partnership with engineering, even when tensions are high. This starts by deepening your understanding of how they work and emphasizing your shared goals.
Here are some guidelines for success:
1. Put strategy first
As the product manager, you set the product strategy — with a clear product vision, measurable goals, and well-defined initiatives. Shared goals are critical for alignment and give everyone a common direction to work toward. This also helps you prioritize features more objectively based on how well they support your strategy.
It is important to have regular conversations about strategic direction — including all of the customer needs and stakeholder feedback that has informed it. When engineering understands why they are building something and how it serves business and customer objectives, they can implement better solutions.
There is no better tool here than a strategic roadmap. This can help you visualize broader objectives on a timeline in a format your engineering team should be familiar with (assuming you share your product roadmap with them).
Create a strategic roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps to show timing and progress toward product goals and initiatives.
2. Learn what engineers do
Some product managers have technical experience. Others come to the role from a business or management background. Either way, you need to know how to empathize with the engineering team.
Should you learn how to code? Not necessarily — engineers will be the experts in that area. But you can be curious and ask them to explain how they approach their work. Remember that engineers are not just building the functional requirements for the product. They also determine the product's infrastructure, programming languages, database needs, and non-functional requirements (e.g., security, speed, and performance capabilities).
The goal is to build awareness of the context that engineers work in. That way, you can avoid over-scheduling your releases or cutting corners that could impact the product's performance. After all, product management and engineering care about similar things — you both want to make smart decisions about what is best for customers. The key is to try and not have one group make decisions at the expense of the other.
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3. Clarify areas of overlap
Product management versus engineering — who does what? Sometimes focus areas become muddled in product development when many activities are happening at once. But transparency makes everyone happier and more productive. This is why it is essential to establish clear responsibilities and workflows for each phase of the product development lifecycle.
The table below outlines the work that product managers and engineers typically collaborate on. Within each phase, you can break it down by product management, engineering, and shared tasks:
Product development responsibility | Who does what |
Defining features | Product managers: Responsible for gathering requirements and providing the engineering team with well-defined features. Engineers: Use requirements to build features that meet user needs. Both: Work together on user story mapping — a visual exercise that helps you outline requirements and prioritize what should be built next. |
Prioritizing features | Product managers: Organize and prioritize the backlog of features. Engineers: Provide estimates of the time and effort that a feature will require. Both: Find ways to bring more objectivity to the prioritization process (for example, using a scorecard or prioritization framework). |
Planning releases | Product managers: Translate the product strategy into a release plan — visualizing it on the roadmap and coordinating cross-functional teammates against a timeline. Engineers: Own the development work, which typically includes sprint planning and identifying acceptance criteria for feature completion. Both: Agree on the single source of truth to track all the work involved in the release plan — helping to keep everyone accountable to their commitments. |
Tracking progress | Product managers: Monitor progress to ensure that the team can deliver on time — often using a roadmapping tool to plan, prioritize, and track features and releases. Engineers: Track their own work in a workflow management or software development tools — such as version control systems, code review tools, and development environments. Both: Explore ways to integrate product planning tools and development tools to gain alignment. |
Roles, responsibilities, and workflows will vary by team and organization. The most important thing is proactive communication with engineers to clarify how you will work together. If plans get off course, refocus on your overall strategy and shared goals.
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4. Plan with conviction (and consideration)
The planning stage of product development can be a common source of conflict with engineering. At this point, you have made a concerted effort to explore and refine the best ideas to move forward with. You have written features and stocked the product backlog. You go to share your roadmap — only to clash with developers on the priorities and timeline. What now?
To be sure, good product planning requires you to be decisive about what needs to be built. But you also have to understand the resources it will take. Shifting timelines and unreasonable commitments will understandably frustrate the development team — likely making them more vocal about their opinions. This is your hint to listen to them.
To get input on how challenging a problem is to solve, bring in engineers early to share their insights. They can help you uncover technical implications that may require additional planning. You might need to adjust the scope or timing too. Your planning will go smoother if you remember to:
Share the "why" behind each feature, and trust the development team to build it in the best way.
Provide detailed requirements, user story maps, and wireframes for context.
Allow engineering to explore the use case before asking about a completion time frame.
Avoid committing to any customer requests or deadlines without engineering's buy-in. Get their estimates first.
Honor the scope of the plan you agree on, and avoid last-minute enhancements.
You might even consider creating a unified backlog that allows you to monitor product and engineering priorities side-by-side. Of course, you do not want to prioritize features based on how hard they are to build. If you have started with the "why," each feature should be deemed essential by the time you are discussing it with engineering. But it can be helpful to (literally) get on the same page.
Define new features and rank them in priority order in Aha! Roadmaps. Then, assign work to the right engineers in Aha! Develop.
This type of prioritization mindset is also important for organizations that follow scrum and the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®). The engineering team decides what to build in each sprint to deliver a release on time. But they may need clarification from product managers on customer requests and needs. Once you have explained the need and specifications, take a step back. Trust the engineering team to do the implementation work.
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5. Build connections
Product development is challenging. It is invigorating too. There are bound to be changes to the plans and unexpected obstacles. This is especially true when you have ambitious goals and deliver fast.
If you invest in building relationships with the engineering team, you will come to understand their passions, stressors, and points of view. You can meet them where they are and respectfully talk through tricky issues.
For example, try rethinking your product team meetings and retrospectives to make them more informal (even fun). Pause to consider how your comments may be received before speaking. And when your launches are a success, share the win — champion engineering's work and express gratitude. Simple actions like these can be meaningful in strengthening your connection.
The best product managers are advocates for engineers. You provide them with the information they need, protect their time, and admit any missteps. Alongside the engineering team, you are always learning and getting better at what you do.
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Tools to keep product and engineering aligned
Together you can work to establish a product planning and development environment that is both positive and productive. But it helps to have the right tools to support this effort.
Aim for the same goal as in cross-team collaboration — minimizing friction. But this is tough to accomplish if you are constantly switching between tools. Poor visibility into each other's work and inefficient hand-offs can hinder progress.
Sound familiar? Then here is an idea: try Aha! software. Our suite of products has everything you need to manage the entire product development lifecycle — and especially the crossover between product and engineering.
Aha! Roadmaps and Aha! Develop integrate seamlessly as one platform for strategy, planning, and delivery. Specifically, you can:
Set product strategy and link it to every idea and feature.
Explore collaborative templates for user story mapping, planning meetings, retrospectives, and more.
Move work seamlessly from whiteboard, to roadmap, to agile development.
Create and easily share all types of product roadmaps.
View product priorities alongside engineering work in a unified backlog.
Manage technical work for agile delivery at scale — using your chosen methodology.
Analyze collective value delivered with agile reports.
To get a closer look at how product and engineering can work together in Aha! software, check out the tutorial below (or try it out for yourself).
