Scott Adams, in the back of "The Dilbert Principle," describes the OA5 model of running a company: Out at 5. His main goal was an efficient organization that let everyone out at 5, which meant the product was delivered, which meant everyone did a fantastic job, and other things that we all take for granted as being desirable.
One of his big points was that nobody should be doing anything more than 1 degree removed from the core mission. If you're a web host, you're either directly working on maintaining or supporting the service, or you're optimizing an internal process relating to the first two (as an example).
Otherwise, you're dead weight. The kind of product guy described in this article runs afoul of that OA5 principle.
What I don't like about OA5 is that it assumes everyone is able to work at the same pace at the same time during the day throughout the day. All my best thinking is really in the afternoon and evenings. Always has been.
Maybe I can hack my biological clock to be better in the morning. Dunno. For now, my brain doesn't seem to start focusing until about 10am, and then it doesn't seem to really get into gear until an hour or two later. With that in mind, it's really difficult for me to get my work done with people who want OA5. I suppose it would be fine if they're OA5, but they don't force it on me.
That was one of my problems with it, too, even though I do get rolling pretty fast in the mornings. I think the real solution is to assume that the meeting time is going to be inconvenient for someone and just try to have a big stupid group sit-down once a week at most. Small agile teams can do a lot with impromptu stand-ups.
I think the most important thing, though, is to plan the big stupid group sit-down at one end of the day so that it doesn't interrupt. I've worked in places where they would stop us mid-day and ask what we have been doing and what we will be doing. Surprise surprise, the answers to both are the same 99% of the time. On top of that, they often pull me off something I'm intensely focused on to tell them what I was focused. /rant
One of his big points was that nobody should be doing anything more than 1 degree removed from the core mission. If you're a web host, you're either directly working on maintaining or supporting the service, or you're optimizing an internal process relating to the first two (as an example).
Otherwise, you're dead weight. The kind of product guy described in this article runs afoul of that OA5 principle.