Why product roles need to stay

演讲者对公司中日益增长的一种趋势表达了深刻的反对，即废除专门的“产品岗位”，转而推崇“人人都是构建者”的理念。他们认为，这种做法是一个“极其糟糕的构想”，将对组织效能和对专业知识的认可产生重大而危险的影响。演讲者认为，此举不仅可能导致运营效率低下，而且不尊重各个专业领域固有的智力严谨性和积累的智慧。 正如演讲者所阐述的，根本性的危险在于彻底抛弃不同角色的概念。通过这样做，公司有可能破坏一个至关重要的理解：组织内的各种职能实际上是高度专业化的学科，每个学科都拥有自身一套“可知的最佳实践”。这不仅仅是关于职位名称；它涉及在各自领域中经过长时间艰辛开发和完善的积累的智慧、既定的方法论、需要避免的陷阱以及经过验证的策略。演讲者坚信，忽视这种历史知识的积累是一个严重的错误。 特别针对产品领域，演讲者强调它是一个经过多年“建立起来”的成熟领域，充满了其自身的“真正最佳实践”，记录了“哪些尝试过但失败了的事情”的历史，以及精密的“流程”。他们认为，简单地放弃这宝贵的知识财富，往往是由于肤浅理解导致的误导性后果，即一些人可能认为他们“编写一些代码”的贡献在某种程度上否定了对专业产品知识的需求。这种简化主义观点，驳斥了定义有效产品管理所需的复杂战略思维、市场分析、用户理解、路线图制定以及跨职能领导力。演讲者担心，这种来之不易且经证实有效的专业领域，会因为对其深度缺乏认识而被简单地“抛弃”。 演讲者强烈反对“并非所有人都能胜任所有工作”的观点，并强调“每个学科都有其技能组成部分”。他们指出一个常见的盲点，尤其在一些工程师中，他们欣然承认自身技艺——“编写代码”——中固有的技能，却“未能认识到”其他角色也需要同样专业和复杂的才能。这导致了一种有害的看法，即从工程学的角度来看，“其他角色只不过是随性而为的人”，暗示着在直接编码之外的领域缺乏具体的技能或专业严谨性。演讲者认为，这种低估是推理上的一个关键缺陷，可能导致糟糕的组织结构。 为了强调这一点，文章提供了一个富有洞察力的类比：“是的，你会用Excel，但这不意味着你能在财务团队工作。”这有力地说明了拥有一个工具或一项基本能力（比如使用电子表格，或者延伸到编写一些代码），并不能自动赋予在复杂的专业领域（如财务，或产品管理）中胜任工作所需的深刻、细致的理解和专业知识。它突出了普遍能力与专业知识之间的关键区别，强调后者源于专注的学习、经验以及对特定学科最佳实践的应用。 本质上，演讲者的核心信息是一个警示：解散像产品管理这样的专业角色，并非是向敏捷性演进，而是一种倒退，冒着抛弃无价的机构知识、成熟的方法论和专业技能的风险。它呼吁认识并尊重不同职能所需的独特能力，而不是将所有角色扁平化为通用的“构建者”类别，这最终会削弱组织的整体能力和效能。归根结底，演讲者热情的论点是一个重要的提醒：组织的成功往往取决于专业人才的战略性部署，而不是泛化、不明确的方法。放弃精心培养的“产品专业”而追求模糊的“构建者”概念，被视为一个代价高昂的失误，可能导致创新、战略连贯性和整体市场竞争力的下降。

The speaker expresses profound disagreement with the growing trend among companies to eliminate the dedicated "product role" in favor of an "everyone's a builder" philosophy. This approach, they argue, is a "terrible idea" with significant and dangerous implications for organizational effectiveness and the recognition of specialized expertise. The speaker posits that such a move not only risks operational inefficiencies but also disrespects the intellectual rigor and accumulated wisdom inherent in various professional domains. The fundamental danger, as articulated by the speaker, lies in the notion of discarding the concept of distinct roles altogether. By doing so, companies risk undermining the crucial understanding that various functions within an organization are, in fact, highly specialized disciplines, each possessing its own body of "knowable best practices." This isn't merely about job titles; it's about the accumulated wisdom, the established methodologies, the pitfalls to avoid, and the proven strategies that have been painstakingly developed and refined over time within each field. The speaker strongly believes that ignoring this historical accumulation of knowledge is a grave error. Specifically focusing on the product discipline, the speaker emphasizes that it is a robust field, "built up" over years, replete with its own "real best practices," a historical record of "things that have been tried and failed," and sophisticated "processes." To simply abandon this wealth of knowledge, they contend, is often a misguided consequence of a superficial understanding, where individuals might believe their contribution of "writing some code" somehow negates the need for specialized product expertise. This reductionist view dismisses the complex strategic thinking, market analysis, user understanding, roadmap development, and cross-functional leadership that define effective product management. The speaker worries that this hard-won discipline, with its proven efficacy, will simply be "abandoned" due to a lack of appreciation for its depth. The speaker argues vehemently against the idea that "not everybody can work on everything," highlighting that "every discipline has a skill component to it." They pinpoint a common blind spot, particularly among some engineers, who readily acknowledge the skill inherent in their own craft – "writing code" – but are "guilty of not recognizing" that other roles demand equally specialized and sophisticated capabilities. This leads to a detrimental perception where, from an engineering perspective, "other roles are just people vibing," implying a lack of concrete skill or professional rigor in fields outside of direct coding. This undervaluation, the speaker suggests, is a critical flaw in reasoning that can lead to poor organizational structure. To underscore this point, an insightful analogy is provided: "Yes, you can use Excel, but you cannot work on the finance team." This powerfully illustrates that possessing a tool or a basic ability (like using a spreadsheet or, by extension, writing some code) does not automatically confer the deep, nuanced understanding and specialized knowledge required to competently operate within a complex professional domain like finance, or indeed, product management. It highlights the crucial distinction between a general capability and specialized expertise, emphasizing that the latter is born of dedicated study, experience, and the application of discipline-specific best practices. In essence, the speaker's core message is a cautionary tale: dissolving specialized roles like product management is not an evolution towards agility but a regression that risks discarding invaluable institutional knowledge, proven methodologies, and specialized skill sets. It's a call to recognize and respect the distinct competencies required for various functions, rather than flattening all roles into a generic "builder" category, which ultimately diminishes overall organizational capacity and effectiveness. Ultimately, the speaker's fervent argument serves as a critical reminder that organizational success often hinges on the strategic deployment of specialized talent, rather than a generalized, less defined approach. Abandoning the carefully cultivated "discipline of product" for a vague "builder" concept is seen as a costly oversight, potentially leading to a decline in innovation, strategic coherence, and overall market competitiveness.