Bogdan's Shoutout - Issue #2
Hello Team and you friends!
After the positive feedback and some thumb-ups I got last week, I’m in the air with the 2nd issue of my Monday’s Shoutout. Some of my good reads in the last week, some thoughts, some things to remember.
And yes, I’m entering in my 2nd month with you guys. Proud, happy and excited, did I tell you?
Enjoy, Bogdan
I read about, I'm thinking about
🗣️ Voice assistants, a hot topic, isn’t it? Cathy Pearl, Head of Conversation at Google Assistant has some fair points on how to craft a meaningful conversation:
Give just the right amount of information.
Make it clear when it’s the other person’s turn to talk.
Only use visuals when they’re appropriate.
👽 Speaking about conversational design, it was a space we investigated a lot at Woogie. Making a 7 years old kiddo to engage into a conversation is more tricky than providing some factual truths to an adult. Look, here is what do people ask Woogie at a conference…
”What’s the purpose of life?” (adults, 3 times in one hour)
”Can you do my homework?” (kid, 9 years old)
”Who is the next prime-minister of Romania?” (adult, 30 years old)
🔥 But, my most interesting reading so far, is about Jira and how it kills the agility. Jira is an antipattern, published by TechCrunch.
“Implement the Upload button” says the ticket; so that is all that is done. The ticket does not explain that the larger goal of the Upload button is to let users back up their work. Perhaps it would actually be technically easier to automatically upload every state change, such that the user gets automatic buttonless backups plus a complete undo/redo stack. But all the ticket says is: “Implement the Upload button.” So that is all that is done.
What’s the point? Once we, as a team, are involved only and only in closing tickets, we are going deep into The Building Trap. It’s the sole result of lacking product vision and seeing the big picture.
JIRA, alas, implicitly teaches everyone to ignore the larger vision while focusing on details. There is no whole. At best there is an “Epic” — but the whole point of an Epic is to be decomposed into smaller pieces to be worked on independently. JIRA encourages the disintegration of the macro vision.
But the author has a solution. I’ll let you find by yourself, ‘cause the article really worth a read.
Other reads, good reads
Stripe Atlas: Guide to scaling engineering organizations
Lessons learned from scaling Stripe’s engineering team.
Developing product-management leadership | McKinsey
Product managers are critical to software companies but often neglected from a talent-management perspective. Four levers can help broaden your approach to product-manager leadership training.
The Perks of Being a Generalist - Mind the Product
As product owners, it is our honour to be generalists and not specialists – we are incredibly lucky to get to work with all of these impressive people, every single day.
www.mindtheproduct.com • Share
Until we invent something that wouldn’t be possible without voice, we’re just repurposing online content for our ears.
A new trove of internal Facebook emails is a stark reminder: You are Facebook’s product
Your personal data has always been the key to Facebook’s business…
And...
By Bogdan Coman
My weekly picks on product, conversational design and tech. Slightly seasoned with some edgy topics or out-of-the-bubble thinking.
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Bogdan Coman, Technical Solutions || E.ON EDG