PITA 026
Experimenting with an Asia-friendly time slot
TOPIC 1: How do you work with your team members sitting in different timezones. Share challenges, best practices, etc
Take turns to feel the pain - rotate who has to get up early/stay up late
As much transparency as possible around who’s doing what
Slackbot handles async standup (what you did,. What you’re doing, any blockers)
37 Signals approach (Shape Up / Ryan Singer)
More release planning up front, with recording of demo sessions
Extra time and effort on relationship development and onboarding for new team members
TOPIC 2: Roadmapping - now, next, future vs Project timelines
Clash and debate priorities with delivery/release planning. Limit work in progress. Repeat and refine and repeat and refine.
Communicate prioritisation and justification again and again
Road maps AND release plans (one quarter). No long term Gantt charts.
6 week iterations, Shape Up approach (2 mentions so far…)
6 weeks - 1 P1 (high confidence in results), some P2s (less confidence), P0s are complete unknowns/JFDIs
Trifecta: PM, Design and Tech lead joint ownership of roadmap
TOPIC 3: Product strategy - What are the best practices while building product strategy?
Start with definition - what place are we getting to, then what steps are we taking to get there?
Defining success amongst stakeholders
Competitor Analysis - gap analysis, & Customer segment analysis
User research - Qualitative data on user behaviours is invaluable, defining the JTBD
TOPIC 4: Trade offs with Tech debt and moving functionality forward
Dedicate a set % in every sprint to paying down debt
Enforce a ‘Leave it better than you found it’ mentality with the code base
Dev team prioritise it, reserve space for it
Tech debt is not immediately tangible - when people care about it, it’s already too late. Tech lead(s) needs to stay on top of this early. Consistent focus on the ongoing change.
Definition of DONE includes cleaning up the (inevitable?) mess
Red line: not allowed to compromise on quality for speed
Link product health check to strategic risks, make that visible to leadership