Vishwaguru!

The Smart Cities euphoria has waned. It is absent from election promises and in the bragging of ministers. The project was supposed to be completed by June 2021. 100 cities were selected for the project. Turns out to be one more jumla among many!

All Indians are enjoying 100 smart cities created after we gained independence in 2014. Below are the benefits every citizen is getting.

PM of 5 years. Same place the whole time. We have a new Engineering Manager. They started 2 months ago and at first they seemed like they were very happy to learn our process and products. Then they soon started to manipulate the Engineering team which was very cooperative earlier. It’s incredibly demotivating. We are a small startup, and the culture isn’t great but seriously no need to be so dismissive of other people’s efforts and feelings. They are just fucking rude. No other word for it really. The problem is that they do NOT get the product side of things so you can’t explain anything to them. They start to physically roll their eyes when you go anymore product than the word “PRD”. I have never had to deal with someone like this and it’s really stressing me out as they are involved in effectively every project I work on. Advice that isn’t “quit” will be appreciated. I should also clarify that when I say “product limitations” I really mean how much effort goes into getting things right, the delays are shearing the roadmap apart. why do Software Engineers act so rude? How to solve this in my team?

Had a chat with a senior PM today on the need of the PM function with Ai getting smarter. Engineers build, designers design, data people analyse things, and a business person has the mind to make money by leveraging the team. When a point arrives where Ai does all the IC part of Engineering, Design and Data, there won't be a requirement of PM function at all! Creativity, Empathy, Product thinking, all these skills will be owned by Engineers, Designers, Data and Business leaders. These skills like "product sense" are something that won't hold the fort much longer because eventually all good engineers, designers and data people will have to develop the customer empathy and product sense to prompt the Ai and do their individual job better. IMHO it is a high time that all PMs work to strengthen at least one hard skill to keep themselves employable. While I am writing this post, unfortunately I am also the one who is seeking a PM role right now. Any suggestions or thoughts you have on which hard skill to master and how to remain employable?