Things to strive for in an engineering team: A "culture of product"

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One of my favorite phrases came from talking to someone at Facebook many, many months ago. When describing the way he thought about the Product Manager job he said "I think of this as a culture of product - everyone feels ownership of and thinks about what we're building."

The phrase in particular - a "culture of product" stuck with me.

I like the suggestion that everyone thinks hard about how and why every pixel and action matters. The PM's job isn't to come with ideas and make decisions, as it is to make sure all of this thinking and input, is filtered transparently into action.

It formally implies that everyone on a team thinks hard and naturally, about the user experience and what matters to users. I like to think that the teams where people feel this culture is real, are the ones that build the best stuff.

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