Org structure

[u/throwRA-38879]

I work at a large bank and we’ve recently moved towards a new product structure that looks something like this:

PM → Product Lead (PL) → Product Stream Lead (PSL) → Tribe Lead

At the squad level, we typically have:

Product Manager (PM)
Product Lead (PL)
Squad Tech Lead (STL)
Engineers

The thing I’m struggling to understand is why there are now so many layers around product leadership.

For people working in big tech or large product organisations:
How many layers are there typically between a PM and the head of product?
Does every squad normally have both a PM and a Product Lead?

How do you prevent PMs from becoming glorified delivery managers in a structure like this?
Is it normal to just have 1 PM reporting into a PL?
Has anyone experienced a similar restructure? Did it actually improve product outcomes?
I

[u/Alarmed-Attention-77]

Stream, guilds, tribes, pods, domains. Associate, PMs, seniors, leads, staff, heads of Product, director.

It’s all the same BS wearing different clothes. When you get a large enough amount of people how do you ensure everyone is doing the right thing and going in the right direction? The best we have come up as a species is some sort of hierarchy. And then you need names for the groups of people and the different levels. We change the names and declare it something new.

Not sure about banks but in tech we use promotions as a retention mechanic. How do you keep the good people. You promote them. Then overtime you end up with a bloated middle. So you do a cull and you state we are removing middle managers and pushing autonomy down. Then you start again and start promoting again and bloating the middle.

Sorry feeling quite cynical today.

Pragmatically. Just ignore it. It’s all just noise. Focus on your customers and product.

[u/Copernican → u/Alarmed-Attention-77]

Lol. Sounds like you've leveled up to black belt to be a rockstar pm somewhere .

[u/perceptionad]

Why would you have Product Lead and Product Manager as a separate function?

[u/crustang → u/perceptionad]

It’s just product manager and product owner rebranded.. a dumb structure made dumber

[u/Significant_Year7377]

Also at a large financial institution and the Pm role has been stripped of a ton of responsibilities

[u/KosstAmojen]

Did your bank have product owners and business analysts prior? This feels like it might be a rebranding exercise.

[u/throwRA-38879 → u/KosstAmojen]

Yes. So the new roles are disguised as the old BA and POs?

[u/KosstAmojen → u/throwRA-38879]

I don’t know your situation in full detail, so just speculation. If you listen to Cagan and his product operating model, he does after these roles a bit, so this could be something similar.

[u/Old-Statistician321]

"why there are now so many layers around product leadership."

Has any company figured out how to grow without becoming a totem pole? At each company I've worked at every level of management is desperately trying to disappear the most capable people on the levels below, lest the people below replace the people above. Let's be real: with rolling and silent layoffs, It's truly a kill or be killed game we're playing.

I remember Sergey and Larry wrote some nice words before their IPO: "we are not an ordinary company and we don't intend to become one." But 22 years later Google has nixed the 20% time and installed a Great Chain of Being with 100,000 human serfs plowing the dirt with the help of AI oxen, some angels and archangels in the middle to oversee the humans, and a couple gods at top.

[u/holyelvis]

In most organizations I've worked at over the past 20 years, there has been a general 1:3 ratio for determining reporting and alignment with teams. Some companies had more, some less, but this has become my standard metric when working with clients to create team/org structures.

How that plays out:

• Small company: 1PM :: 3 Eng Teams
• Growing company: 1PM :: 3 POs :: 9 Eng Teams
• Larger company: 1SrPM :: 3PM :: 9 PO :: 27 Eng Teams
• Very large company: 1 PM Leader :: 3 SrPM :: 9 PM :: 27 PO :: 81 Eng Teams

However, I've noticed that financial and healthcare companies seem to LOVE their org charts and all the lines and connectors, so there is often a lot of unnecessary organizational bloat in those companies. Some of that is caused by serious lack of understanding of PM, but a lot of it is just "how they do it" elsewhere, transcribed over to product.

To me, the question is always less about "what should it look like" and more about "is it working". And if it's not -- where, why, and how is it "not working". Because org structure is often cultural, you can't always change it with logic. So sometimes you need to make tactical or surgical changes within the structure in order to grease the wheels.

[u/ii-_-]

It's all nonsense 😂. It's layers upon layers of corporate bureaucracy and confusion. No one even knows what a Product Manager even is, it's a made up role that's a vague mash up of project management, running a development team, consulting and other overlaps - so to have convoluted hierarchies of more made up role is hilarious 

[u/gonzo5622]

lol what the fuck are these titles? This shit is fucking bonkers.

[u/wonkystrategy]

Is this Uk bank?

[u/Lanky-Insurance-5382]

It all starts from buy vs make vs borrow and current teams structure such as platform, stream , complex and enabler teams. If a new demand or req isn't handled within these teams then decision of buy vs make vs borrow starts. During these decisions somewhere to avoid cognitive loads for existing role new roles takes birth. But at this very moment an org needs to be clear , the decision maker needs to know whats baseline and whats the forecast 1 or 2 or 3 year down the line the head count, budget , prioritization ,org goals. If enough time isn't spent here to understand, observe ,think and brainstorm then the OP mentioned roles kick in and starts to leak in. Mapping competency to role to title is the key element here and I think its missed in here and hence you land on such ambiguous org structure.