You’re deep in the code, solving actual problems, when suddenly—the sky darkens. The air shifts. As if woven into the very fabric of fate, your product manager appears, eyes shining with urgent, pleading need. Every muscle in your body tenses. If I don’t move, they can’t see me.
Look, I get it. I really do. But trust me when I say—PMs take no pleasure in what’s about to unfold. Yet it is our eternal burden to ask, just as it is yours to endure.
"Hey, quick question…" (It is never a quick question.)
You exhale. Here we go.
The questions keep coming. One after another. A relentless interrogation with no discernible pattern. Security one moment, third-party dependencies the next. It’s like they’re gathering puzzle pieces with no clear order. And that’s because… well, they are. They’re desperately trying to stop The Nothing, but in doing so, they’re dragging you into the Swamp of Sadness with them.
Product managers don’t need all the answers at once—they just don’t know which ones matter most yet. So they ask. And ask. And ask. Until you start wondering if you’ll ever escape this quest alive.
For example, if there’s a critical security issue lurking in the codebase, that’s far more urgent than understanding the architecture at a high level. But they won’t know that until they start asking questions, which means they have no choice but to ask everything to figure out what actually matters.
And that, dear engineers, is why it feels like you’re stuck in The NeverEnding Story—only instead of soaring through Fantasia, you’re slogging through the Swamp of Sadness, watching your productivity sink with every new question. They’re not trying to be annoying (hopefully). I mean, I’m a PM, and even I know we can be a lot. But they’re just trying to understand the laws of physics for the product so they don’t waste time pushing for changes that are impossible, impractical—or just plain low-priority, relative to the bigger picture. Until PMs get that full picture, they have no choice but to ask about everything—one relentless question at a time.
Oh, and one more thing—PMs don’t just want to know this information once. They urgently need to know when these things change. A shift in security status, a new architectural constraint, or a critical dependency update could impact strategy and completely alter prioritization. So if you think stopping The Nothing once is enough… think again. It always creeps back.
Here’s what your PM is really trying to figure out when embarking on their question quest:
The kicker? Most PMs don’t explicitly ask for all of this upfront. Instead, they ask around it—piecemeal, over time—which means constant interruptions for engineering teams.
If you’re drowning in PM questions, I promise—there’s a way out. Want fewer meetings, fewer Slack pings, and less drive-by questioning? Here’s how to escape before you sink completely:
Now imagine a world where your product manager already has the answers before they even ask—and not just once, but always up to date. Because knowing the current state is one thing, but knowing when things change (and why they changed) is just as critical. A security issue today might not be one tomorrow, dependencies shift, and tech debt evolves. Keeping this up to date manually? Nearly impossible. Keeping it up to date with Flux? Effortless.
Flux surfaces all the insights your PM is desperately trying to collect—architecture limitations, dependencies, security risks, tech debt, 3rd party usage—without you needing to manually explain it all. And when something does change, they’ll know right away, without having to ask.
With Flux, your PM gets the context they need to ask meaningful questions and make informed decisions, and you get to focus on doing what you do best: building great software (without being interrupted every five minutes). So the next time your PM says, “Hey, quick question…”—wouldn’t it be nice if you could just say, “Let me Flux that for you…”?
At last, The Nothing stops creeping in. The endless questioning fades. Fantasia—and your focus—are saved. And hey, maybe your PM will finally stop Slacking you at 4 PM on a Friday.
Adrianna Gugel is the CPO and Co-Founder of Flux. With 15+ years of product management experience and a proven history of launching new products and strategic partnerships, Adrianna’s unique blend of business acumen and technical understanding allows Flux to bridge the gap between ideas and achievable results.