What’s a PM?

I was thinking about government analogies for software development organizations while I was unclogging our bathroom sink. I originally made this analogy after in this post about the supreme court. But I didn’t make any analogies between the roles of software development and the roles of government.

The first couple were easy to figure out:

• Judicial—This is clearly test. They enforce the rules and decide when things are done.
  
• Legislative—This is the real work done legislation, so it must be development.
  
• Executive—This one is management. True, management has more direct power over what gets done than the President does. But they both set direction and have veto power.

Note that program management doesn’t show up here. But then it finally dawned on me. PMs don’t exist at all companies. They are sometimes despised, but at their best they represent customer voices.

PMs are lobbyists.