The alignment tax: What product managers and systems engineers have in common
Hardware teams require multiple functions to deliver products to market, whether mechanical, electronics, embedded, and much more. At a certain point in the growth of every hardware organization, some coordination across all the functions is required. In many organizations, (depending on the scope, type, or industry), this role falls under the job description of the product manager or systems engineer.
Product managers are responsible for the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a product, typically for B2B or B2C products. They represent the customer on the product development team and develop the product requirements to fit the user needs at the right price. This responsibility involves making tradeoffs between features and execution as well as scoping the right parameters so the product is fully functional at launch.
Systems engineers are responsible for ‘how’ a product is built, the integrative architecture that a product needs to function typically for B2B products in heavily regulated industries. Having received the requirements determined by the business, they ensure that the requirements are interpreted correctly by the cross-functional teams and perform systems-level simulations to make sure all components are correctly integrated.
While both roles are completely different and may not be simultaneously present in the same company, both roles require two levels of oversight:
Interacting with the cross-functional teams to drive delivery
Ensuring the right product is being delivered at a system level
In practice, this means a lot of meetings. Instead of working on their critical functions, their calendars get filled with meetings to ensure alignment of the product with the requirements. For teams with multiple product lines, with many product managers and systems engineers, a gap in alignment comes with a significant cost for the organization.
For product managers and systems engineers to shine, they need tools that enable them to dig deep into issues and zoom out into systems, tracking the entire product lifecycle.
That’s where EverCurrent comes in. We use AI to help product managers and systems with their biggest priorities:
Understanding the context around the cross-functional teams,
Connecting the dots between the tools used by the teams,
Proactively surfacing risks before they happen.
Instead of spending hours in meetings aggregating information from multiple sources of truth, gathering contextual information about the product, or cross coordinating between the teams, you can stay focused on the right priorities that drive product delivery.
We support hardware teams to build fast and while staying lean, by taking information from where it’s generated (whether in your CAD files, your Slack conversations, or design review meeting notes) to where it’s needed (the JIRA tickets, Confluence wikis, or PRDs) seamlessly.