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Pms vs. Programmers (This week in pmclinic)

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum– PMs vs. Programmers:

Welcome to April (If you’re in the USA, time to get your taxes done).

Here’s this week’s situation: The raging debate in my corner of the world is PMs vs. programmers. Our management just agreed to hire another two PMs for our organization, instead of hiring another two programmers.

Most of us (the other programmers) think it’s a mistake: our biggest needs are team bandwidth and productivity, not planning, client management or crisis management. We’re afraid of the ratio of PM to programmers spiraling us down into unproductive misery. Most of the PMs around here are non-technical and can’t help much in technical decision making.

Two part question:

1. How do you know the right ratio of PMs to programmers for a team?
2. What level of technical skill should PMs have? CS degree? former programmer? C++ for dummies? Or none at all?