Being VP of Product & Development at the same time...

I had a very interesting experience while I was at Clearfit that many product leaders never get to experience. After the departure of our VP of Engineering, I found myself in charge of both Development & Product Management. This approach has pros & cons...and frankly there are very few people who combine them together, and now I know why...here's the run down:

In the plus column, you're in charge. That part's pretty good. You don't need to "influence without authority" you have it. You don't have that constant struggle between "technical debt" and product delivery, you make the call...that's all good right?...well. sorta.

Unfortunately, with great power comes great responsibility....you can't run a product with only product management priorities in mind, the product will fall over, and not scale for the future. You have to be benevolent and make sure that both sides of the fence have their say and time. 

Oh right, you also are in charge of both sides...it's like you have a split personality...your lizard product management brain wants wants wants, and your VP dev brain knows not only is it impossible with the current resources, but if you push too hard, you'll have a mutiny on your hands. It's a constant trade off between business goals and resourcing realities. Usually this is a negotiation between teams, but when you're it, the inner debates run deep. 

Managing development is a lot of work. I was lucky to have a relatively "low maintenance" group for most of my tenure in this role, but it took care & feeding. Developers are weird cats. I love cats, really I do...but they are not all motivated the same way. Product Managers generally want to have customers love their products, and get them in market...some developers do, but not all...not an easy task...They also need technical leadership that I could not provide and did I mention the always possible mutinies?

And probably the biggest problem of all is the focus...when you're running development you have to fight every day to not become myopic. You don't get to talk to customers as much as you want, you're focused on the next release, not the next year. Your need to make sure delivery happens hampers the long term vision...this is probably the biggest problem with this arrangement.

Would I do it again? Probably not. I spent most of the last year and 1/2 feeling like I didn't do a great job at either role. Product Management suffered because of the focus, and dev needs a technical leader who understands them and can give them what they need.  At first I would have disagreed that they need to be two roles, but now, having been in deep...I want just one job again :)