How do you evaluate the contribution of project management and marketing in the company in relation to development?

Question

Project management

I heard different opinions on this, from "marketing over production", to "50/50" and below.
I understand that it happens in different ways, there are many factors, but I suggest taking a web development company of up to 10 people as a real or fictional example.
It is interesting to know your opinions about the time invested and, accordingly, the payment for it in relation to the indicators of the developers.

Answer 1

I heard different opinions on this, from "marketing over production", to "50/50" and below.

Depends on what you're making:
If you're making simple toothbrushes, marketing isn't important. It is important to minimize the cost of production, cheap logistics, etc.
If you decide to produce "premium" toothbrushes, then you will need to explain to potential buyers exactly how the bristles of your brushes will allow them to win the lottery, for example.
If your brush is an airplane, and your name is Boeing, then you have competitors all over the world - well, 2-3-4 companies. Marketing here is purely conditional.
If you are going to introduce a new super project to the world, have invested a billion (well, something like the first iPhones) - of course, you don’t want to risk the entire invested billion to screw up. And the whole project will be well coordinated with marketing.
That is, situations with the importance of marketing in each case are different - up to the opposite.
I understand that it happens in different ways, there are many factors, but I suggest taking a web development company of up to 10 people as a real or fictional example.
With marketing, everything is just simple.
Does anyone need your company by itself, is it provided with orders for 2 years in advance, or do you have to, to put it mildly, be imposed?
But if a company presses on a scheme, there are a lot of cheap developers. Yes, you need to have good drivers here.
I had to work to ensure the Olympics in Sochi. So, this Western scheme was adopted there (despite the fact that the end specialists were highly qualified administrators, but the scale of the projects was obligatory) - the number of managers at all levels, I think, exceeded the number of end specialists by three times. And this works great too.
If you rely on a specialist developer. If his qualifications are high, if he is quite obligatory, and you are not afraid to get full dependence on him (bus factor) - you can minimize the managerial component. Which will reduce your cost. But it will raise the risks.
That is, with management there are fundamentally different options.

Answer 2

In a conditional design studio, in my opinion, the programmer's contribution to the overall success of the company will be one of the smallest. All because the client pays and the company needs to dance from him. It is not the programmer who organizes these dances. He also acts as an ordinary such worker, albeit with high qualifications. And his salary is usually above the average bar of any other specialist.
Everything depends on the business, on the product. In software companies where the product is made, I think the contribution is higher. But then again, there are several tens of thousands of programmers in conditional Google. Of which a good half patches holes and, in principle, is engaged in a monkey job. And, for example, 20% of specialists work on products that bring most of the profits.

Answer 3

What difference does it make which is more important? one cannot exist without the other.
do not go to such extremes that the more "scarce" for you, then the higher for you will be valuable.
If you have a critical lack of promotion, then marketing will be more valuable to you, if the product is crap, then it will be more important and more expensive for you to evaluate the work of creating a product.
my video on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hTInj8R-DE

Answer 4

This is where salespeople are important. Management's job is to do no harm. And programmers will cope, the main thing is not to let them get distracted and get carried away. This is the task of the manager.

Answer 5

More important than production is Management with Vision, Strategy, understanding of Value and communication thinking.
And marketing and production and a story about yesterday's products for, as they operate with the current task and the current market.

Answer 6

there are kpi for them and it is considered effective
to consider it from the ceiling is stupid
somewhere relatively simple implementation and a lot of marketing, somewhere there is little marketing and a lot of development

Answer 7

Everywhere is different. In conventional VK, the development team is much more "important" than the marketing team. In a conditional web-studio / outsourcing gallery, developers (no matter how talented they may be) will have nothing to eat next month if salesmen / managers are removed.
On average across a hospital, the assertion by a number of developers that "managers/marketers are useless parasites and technogods do 90% of the work" is wrong. Almost always, all roles are important in a team, another question is who copes with their duties.

Answer 8

Provided that managers and marketers do their job, they still receive a significantly lower rate than developers. This is the situation in most companies. For small companies, one good marketer is enough, you need to look at managers depending on the amount of work.