(x) Things I Learned from #Startup032 Field Trips
Running draft
Have you ever tried building software? Not just for fun, or for a hackathon, or for a client. Actually betting your business, and years of your life, on lines of code. It makes you think.
- Your time is expensive. Developers’ time is expensive. Will this money come back? You have limited bullets. What do you aim at? What truly creates value?
- How do you bring a team from zero to launch to orbit (and not crash)?
We decided to get answers. Not just by reading some blog in Medium (ha!), but actually visiting the factories where software is built, and going down to the nitty-gritty of how them sausages are made. We’ve got an all-star cast:
- Oct 8: Clicklabs
- Oct 20: How 3AG Builds Big Business Software
- Oct 27: How Lifebit Builds Global Consumer Apps from Davao
- Nov 11: How Symph Builds Web Apps
- Nov 18: How Caresharing Ships Software from Cebu to Europe
- TBD: How EngageSpark Builds Software with Social Impact
The format is just simple Q&A. We had a great conversation at Clicklabs last night. You really should have been there. Below is a glimpse of the conversation. I’ll be updating this post as we do the meetups. I’ll just dump my notes and hope to clean it up in the future.
Clicklabs (Oct 8)
With Didi, JP, Ian and Vinny.
- Got to read this http://tractionbook.com/ “This is our business bible”
- Based on the book, they have a role for “process and flow.” Originally held by JP (CEO). Now owned by a dedicated person.
- Didi became a Scrum Master years ago. Tried to religiously implement. Eventually adapted to the style of each team. Eg, modified stand-ups for larger teams, post-it or Trello kanban depending on the situation, 2-week sprints w 2x/week stand-ups, themed sprints (eg, per feature). Psychological impact of over-stuffing backlogs. Scrum is best for early iterations of the product (1st to ~6th). Rivalry among devs could be productive :-)
- Management challenges: teaching people how to speak-up, learn to say no. Lots of one-on-ones and seeing teammates act more openly.
- Create accountability for everyone (also from Traction)
- You need a different style to run an outsourcing dev shop vs building a product. Diff team dynamics.
- Never launch on a Friday.
How to improve these… field trips
Rebranding. This was initially called “Product Management Oktoberfest.” This conversation actually happened: “bai, kita ka sa akong gi-post?” “sa man ni, mag-inom mo ani?” Okay, we’ll rebrand. It turns out this kind of thing is also happening in the US (h/t John Yu):
- I’m partial to #Startup032 Field Trips. Thoughts?
- It’s like a distributed conference.
- It would be interesting to also apply this to other domains, eg, #Design032 Field Trips. Any takers?
Schedule. We’ll try to experiment with work hours if it fits the host company. WE WILL CONTINUE TO START ON TIME AND END ON TIME.
Format. Short talk + long Q&A seems to be working well. So we’ll stick with that. Suggestions?
Documentation. Could someone volunteer to take pictures and make videos? I’d watch those conversations again. Hey, artistic photo person — could you stand having pics like these?!
Love to hear from you https://twitter.com/kcorazo
