This kind of thing is the reason why I’m so against #5. The idea that the PM is “the CEO” or “the product owner” often leads to management by authority (“I’m the CEO of this product”) and that leads to bad interactions with the rest of the team. The PM keeps the trains running on time, and sometimes that means replacing the tracks and deciding where to lay new ones, but good ones know they can’t do it without the team. I agree with you that the biggest problem most designers and PMs have is a misunderstanding of why the other is doing what they’re doing. (I’m one of those product minded people who has chosen to stay on team design to help them see the forest for the trees, so often my job is translating between PMs and Designers as they talk past each other) My experience with my teams of designers and close collaboration with PMs over the years is that the PMs who have been told some version of “you are in charge of the product” tend to do less explaining why something needs to get done and more demanding something gets done because they are in charge.