Sharing Knowledge: From Product Manager to Engineers

Teresa Torres argues that the handoff from product managers to engineers is harder than it looks, because the two groups hold different knowledge and often view the same problem from different angles. Drawing on Hislop's boundary classification, she distinguishes syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries and suggests how each can be bridged. Shared artifacts such as personas and usability video help engineers step into the customer's shoes. She closes by noting that mutual trust in the product team's judgment is essential, since misidentified problems waste engineering effort. This is the second part of a four-part series on knowledge sharing in product management.

01Key takeaways

• Translate customer jargon into terms engineers understand to close simple syntactic gaps.
• Recognize when teams interpret the same incomplete data differently and align on shared interpretation.
• Use personas to shift both teams from their own perspective to the customer's perspective during disagreements.
• Share usability study video so engineers see how customers actually struggle with the product.
• Earn engineering trust by getting the problem right, since wrong problems waste engineering effort.
• When teams lack a shared goal, seek facilitation from other parts of the company.

02Key sections

Why the handoff is hard

Product managers turn customer knowledge into requirements, but engineers want involvement without having the same customer context. The two groups also prioritize differently: customer problems versus technical solutions.

Three types of boundaries

Using Hislop's classification, the author describes syntactic gaps that are solved by translating jargon, semantic gaps where the same data is read differently, and rare pragmatic gaps where no shared goal exists.

Boundary objects that bridge the gap

Personas make a fictional customer concrete so both teams can reason from the customer's view. Usability study videos help engineers see how little customers know about the product.

Trust in the product team

Engineers must trust that product managers can identify the right problem and solution, since errors waste their work. Product managers must in turn avoid using their position to advance personal interests.

03From the post

“This is the second post in a four part series on Sharing Knowledge in Product Management. The first part looked at sharing knowledge from customers to product manager. This part examines from product Mangers to engineers. Part three will examine from engineers back to product managers. Finally, part four will”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.