What’s the value of implementing a dual leadership or two-in-a-box model where the software engineering and product management leads each have equal decision-making authority? Does shared leadership ultimately lead to a better product?
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I've never seen a dual leadership model in practice, but it does seem difficult to achieve. The engineering team is responsible for the how, as well as the platform's needs and technical debt. A partnership looks like product coming to the table with what the product needs to do, and engineering ensuring long-term stability and capabilities. We allocate a portion of our budget for platform needs, which has worked well. We work with product to figure out the how, but ultimately, product chooses the what because they have a better connection with business leaders and strategic needs. Our role is to be a good partner and help them understand the implications of their requests.
It can be a power struggle when product leaders and engineering leaders try to deliver an effective product. It's important to define the roles clearly. The product leader should be responsible for what we are building and when, while the engineering leader should be responsible for how we are going to build it. This shared responsibility model provides the best value to customers. Role clarity is what makes this model successful. In our practice, the product lead defines the what and when, and the engineering lead ensures alignment with technology and investments.
A 50/50 split can sometimes be confusing or hard to pull off. However, a strong partnership is an excellent model. Engineering and product need to be aligned on high-level outcomes and goals. Sometimes, Product wants to build something that's impossible, so both teams need to be in a mindset of shared success or failure. This partnership model ensures that both teams understand the end goal is to deliver something of value. All parties involved are responsible for scoping, timeline commitments, complexity, and the delivery of the product. It's a shared responsibility model.
I believe this is how most successful engineering teams work. Both engineering and product bring their needs to the table and they prioritize the work. This natural conflict helps facility unique solutions and the best outcomes. This does require that both product and engineering are prepared with proposals for the upcoming work. I believe setting quotas (50% product, 30% tech debt/security, 20% bugs) is helpful for some. But the best won't have a quotas, they will just agree on the right work, at the right time, in the right way.