Requirement conflict b/w Product and Engineering team?

Question

Product team is the team which owns the requirement. They write the Functional requirements. Based on which, the engineering team makes the low level design.

But down the line during development, the engineering team finds there is a big impact necessitating a requirement change. Now Engineering makes the Product team/person responsible for not doing thorough impact analysis before writing down the requirement. At the same time, the product team tries to make the engineering team accountable stating why Engineering did not catch it during during design.

I feel it's the primary responsibility of the product team to have thorough knowledge of the system and if there is any impact of new requirements on the existing system. It would have been good if the Engineering team could have caught it during during or earlier in development but ownership of the requirement and any impact should lie with product team.

Question is who(Product or Engineering) is primarily responsible for not catching the impact earlier?

Answer 1

Your premise is toxic.

Both teams are putting too much emphasis on who is to blame and too little emphasis on fixing the recurring problem.

Currently, your two teams are in an antagonistic relationship with each other. For one to succeed, the other needs to fail. That is the root of your problem.

Try to get your two teams to work more closely together. Whether through representatives in meetings, co-locating the teams, doing shorter iterations of design with faster and more extensive communication, or whatever makes sense for your teams.

Above all, though, make sure that the two teams succeed - or fail - as one.