Photo by Alpha Perspective on Unsplash
Canary in the mine: AAA game developers are unionising
Early warning signs that there may be another storm brewing in tech for product managers to weather
Tag: developers
Data codes through eyeglasses. Photo by Kevin Ku on Pexels.com
Are developers vibe coding themselves out of a job?
And is the increasing reliance by junior developers on AI coding assistants storing up a generational skills shortage for the future – ‘professional debt’, if you will?
PRODUCTHEAD: Empathy with engineering (or avoiding developer disengagement)
» Rather than focusing on engineering team productivity, examine the causes of their low / negative value work
» When asked for development estimates, ask why they need the information and what they’ll do with the answer
» Different development tasks need varying amounts of user story detail
» Treat your developers with the same thoughtfulness as your users
PRODUCTHEAD: ‘Better’ decision making
» Decisions should be the result of rational and deliberate reasoning, but not all are perfectly rational
» Almost every decision has associated downsides or compromises
» Avoid trying to please people or to allow individuals to dominate the decision-making process
» It’s easy to conflate transparency on the decision-making process, with transparency on the actual decisions
PRODUCTHEAD: How technical does a product manager need to be?
» Developers and managers often have conflicting views of what constitutes value in software
» Software engineers should ideally understand both what they are building and why
» Unforeseen edge cases can cause headaches at roll-out, but provide valuable lessons
33 cut-out-and-keep usability requirements for your product
I strongly believe that all software companies should have a manifesto or a set of guidelines for usability.
4 key ways to spot a successful product manager
As a product manager, how do you know you’re doing your job well? This article outlines the problem with traditional metrics for product managers and offers some better alternatives for measuring success: communication, ideas, roadmapping, launch and end-of-life.
Context is everything
Your developers may be happiest when they’re hacking gnarly code, leaving you to get on with engaging with the market, but this doesn’t mean you can ignore their need for context – the ‘why’ of their project.
