On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Platonides Platonides@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for your explanation but personally I'm more confused than before about the difference between Engineering and Product, also because the terminology didn't appear internally consistent. :-)
I feel like you, Nemo. I am glad by Terry explanation, but as I went on reading it, the less I felt I understood it. It would benefit from a more layman explanation. Maybe it's just complex to everybody.
Simplest possible explanation of what Erik is proposing: we need to split a large department in to two, and add more managers. It's too big ad too critical for one person to manage.
In three steps...
1. Right now there is one department, Engineering & Product Development. It includes engineers, designers, product managers, community liasons, data analysts, and more. It's the biggest department at the Wikimedia Foundation. 2. In 6-8 months there will be two departments, Engineering and Product Development. Each will have their own leaders that report to Sue, instead of everyone reporting to Erik. Engineering will contain software engineers and their managers, for the most part. Product Development will contain designers, product managers, and data analysts, for the most part. 3. There will also probably be new Director-level positions under the new departments, such as to manage the design team.
That glosses over the entirety of the reasons for proposing this and the benefits, obviously. Howie's explanation of what each of these roles are will help define why product development is distinct from engineering, I'm sure.
Steven