Main idea

Offloading the backlog, developer follow-up and releases is comfortable. A Product Manager therefore has an objective interest in a Product Owner role existing: the split leaves them discovery, vision and roadmap — what tells well in front of a committee — and delegates the part that costs time and exposes you to the unforeseen.

This is a regularity, not an accusation of bad faith: a split holds more easily when it favours whoever has the power to discuss it. The part kept is almost always the part that presents; the part delegated, the part that gets discovered.

Hence a reading rule: when an organizational argument benefits whoever makes it, you check it first, not last.

Why it matters

This gives an entry point into an organizational discussion going in circles: look at who the split benefits rather than at the justifications being exchanged.

And it applies to yourself, which is its main use — being wary of a position that suits you, including when you believe it rests on something else.

Nuances and limits

Self-interest doesn't make the argument false: a split can be both advantageous to whoever defends it and justified. Spotting the advantage opens a verification, it doesn't close the debate.

And the argument turns around: whoever contests a split often has just as objective an interest in doing so, and the same rule applies to them.

Open questions

• By what mechanism can an organization have a split examined by someone who draws neither advantage nor disadvantage from it?