“Can We Run A Train From Windsor And Farnham?” Why Product Managers Matter

Internet publishing directors are busy people.

So are web developers and technical architects.

Windsor is quite close to Farnham.

It’s about 25 miles as the crow flies, travelling as it would over the green belt border through Berkshire skies and on into Surrey. But crows travel light and people prefer to take the train.

Information online moves between people across systems in any numbers of ways. It gets coupled and decoupled and disseminated at its destination and spat out in a way people can easily digest. Often content providers carry lots of data which is split up for different clients to display in a way they choose.

For example, a sport news agency could provide a range of football data including scores, live play-by play updates, in-game text comments from users, video highlights, match stats, half-time summaries, as-it-stands league tables, betting odds, audio commentary, live streaming video, celebrity post-match analysis and a full time summary.

Now imagine you’re the director of a mobile network. You have customers looking at small screens who want information on the move and you have a limited budget.

You really want live streaming video, because none of your competitors offer it, and also know your parent company bought the rights in your territory.

It is the content most desired among football fans, and as far as your budget goes, it’s free. Additional content will cost more, and besides, with video-capable mobile devices becoming a standard, you see littl point in offering text commentary and half time summaries as a poor alternative to live video, right?

Good move. You’re a smart operator. I knew that from the moment you clicked on the link to get here. Which link was that by the way? That’s the one. With the blue text? Or the one with the picture? Exactly, I know it well.

Now imagine you’re a web developer. You’ve been up all night playing dungeons and dragons and you’re on your forth mocha (only joking) and your director walks in (seriously, cappuccino) and says: “We need to get video highlights attached to every weekly newsletter we send. Is that possible?”

And you say: “Yes, it is, but-”

And she goes: “Great.” And she puts the phone that’s been in her hand up to her ear and goes: “Tom? We can do that. I was right.”

Never ask developers if something’s possible without listening to the full answer or specifying your bigger goals.

Attaching a video to an email is possible, but it’s heavy. It will crash your servers, no one’s going to download it on a mobile because it will take forever and don’t even think about anyone sending it on to their friends. A link would do just as well.

It is possible to get a train from the 25 miles from Windsor to Farnham. What you do is get the 9:42 from Windsor and Eton Central to Slough, travelling east. Then go back west on the 9:58 from Slough to Reading. After that, catch the 10:34 from Reading to Northcamp. From Northcamp, walk 20 minutes to the station at Ashwalk and get the 11:44 to Farnham. It should take you under two and a half hours at an average speed on 10 miles an hour.

It takes so long because Windsor and Farnham are on the commuter routes and the lines are geared up to serve London, so services between the two towns aren’t great because here isn’t the demand.

If a manager said: “We need to get more trains running between Windsor and Farnham. Can we do that?”

The infrastructure people could say: “Yes, but it’s a pain to do and there are better ways of doing it.”

The short-manager could reply: “But if it’s possible, then we should do it. I know these things are hard, but we need to overcome them going forward.” They would probably also walk away, noting to self: “(Doesn’t like challenges. Sees obstacles.)”

Technical solutions are much the same. While things are possible, managers need to understand that what they are trying to do might not be the best solution in the timeframes they are given.

Directors should listen to technical solutions, but that’s not their job, and that’s where a product manager steps in. A decent product manager looks why people want to travel from Windsor to Farnham and address that need rather than blindly try to meet the demand.

They would look at how else to provide video rather than use precious developer time building systems to execute an uniformed decision.

If there were a real need to run trains the 25 miles between Windsor and Farnham, a product manager would check whether it was worth the time, money and effort of laying new tracks between the two towns and introducting a dedicated direct train service. Or they would look at a new delivery system to embed video in an email instead of as an attachment.

A decent product manager would tell you you’re going to need more crows.