MEETUP: Developers: What do you expect from your Product Managers? at ProductTank Brighton

My week has been book-ended by Meetups! To finish off was the ProductTank Brighton session looking at what developers need from product people and how changes impact them.

 Dorothy Wingrove kicked off the evening with a lightning talk on 'How to Build a World-Class Rock Paper Scissors Bot'. Dorothy went through the concepts needed to build a bot to play the well known game. As she showed the very simple code needed to execute each strategy - each on one slide - and going to meta-strategies she showed how very complex and adaptive behaviour can be built. This was the best illustration of the impact of "just one small change" I have seen. With each change having a knock on effect needing a further change. I'd recommend anyone responsible for managing the software development process who doesn't have a technical background to see this talk if you get the chance! (thanks to Craig for booking her in)

 Next was the "main event" of the evening a panel discussion to find out what your development team most wants from you (if you are a product person). In the questioning and moderation chair was James Mayes, Co-Founder and CEO of Mind the Product.

 The panel represented some successful development businesses in Brighton:

  • Eilidh Hendry - Full Stack Developer at TrustedHousesitters
  • Danielle Vautier - UX Developer at ProdPad
  • Martyn Osborne - Technical lead on the Product team at 15below
  • Daniel Pickford - Head of Development at 15gifts
As you may be able to tell from the job titles the panel had a diverse range of experience, and therefor opinions on what they wanted. Taking from the answers is was clear that a useful bit of feedback was to approach people as individuals and find out what works for them. I've had the pleasure of knowing both Dan and Martyn since they were at 15below as placement students. So seeing them on the panel talking about building successful products made me feel proud to know them.

I'm also a keen user of ProdPad and love the idea behind TrustedHousesitters, so hearing the developer side of the experience it was interesting to note how they work comes through in the end product and brand.

Another subject that got close to consensus was the need for a delivery cadence being more important that sprints or deadlines. Although the panel also agreed that no deadline at all risked gold plating things (i.e. letting perfect be the enemy of good). Given how closely I work with Martyn, I am glad that he has seen the benefit of how I have tried to organise our product work! (sometimes real life does interfere with plans though ;-))

A great night out, with interesting talks and nice pizza provided by evening's sponsor - American Express. Also love the venue 68 Middle Street.

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