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These are not ārulesā, but rather tendencies. We seem wired to go in one direction, and have to actively offset the tendency. Iāve fallen into each of these (repeatedly) over the years, and have observed extremely savvy product developers do the same. How do you avoid them? Two things stand out: 1) visualize the work and limit work in progress, and 2) make it safe for team members to call out tensions, lack of coherence, etc.
Iām writing a book that covers these traps and more. You can check it out here. Iād love your comments.
- We underestimate the amount of work we actually have in progress and the impact (of that high WIP) on flow, quality, and value deliveredā¦and overestimate the value of parallelizing work
- We underestimate the drag created by dependencies, constraints, hand-offs, reviews, etc.Ā ā¦ and overestimate our ability to navigate them, play Tetris, and thread theĀ needle
- We underestimate the impact of ālights onā and ābusiness as usualā type workā¦and overestimate our ability to tackle these issues without a big hit onĀ flow
- We underestimate what the current team can do with support, trust, safety, and letting go of past grievancesā¦ and overestimate the value of consultants, āfresh facesā, and processĀ fixes
- We underestimate the difficulty of creating lasting shared understanding and the speed with which understanding degradesā¦and overestimate our ability to āalignā with one-offĀ meetings
- We underestimate the value of converging lateā¦and overestimate our ability to āsync upā the understanding of small planning groups with āthe teams when theyĀ startā
- We underestimate the positive impact of high quality on future value flowā¦and overestimate the incremental value of cutting corners and shippingĀ early
- We underestimate the value of diverse perspectives, ideas, pairing, swarming, etc.Ā ā¦ and overestimate efficiency gains by farming out work to individuals (individual backlogs)
- We underestimate the non-engineering costs associated with new featuresā¦and overestimate the degree to which individual features make/break the product (vs. the overall experience)
- We underestimate the potential value in pursuing risky/uncertain opportunitiesā¦and overestimate the value of āsureĀ thingsā
Have any to add using this form (underestimateĀ ā¦ overestimate)Ā ? Please let me know in the comments.
10 Product Development Traps was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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