Daniel Miller’s Post

It's almost your big launch day! One last hurdle to clear ... And that's when you hit the feedback iceberg. Tons of stakeholders who weren't paying attention all along suddenly chime in with project feedback that threatens your launch timeline entirely. The thing is: This always happens, and has very little to do with the quality of your project. Learn what triggers this phenomenon, how to reframe your thinking about it, and how to deal with in this week's essay for software engineering managers. https://lnkd.in/gDKiwext (Today's art: A close up of "Ugolino and His Sons" by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. https://lnkd.in/gWsFQWee That dude's having a worse day than you) (Final aside. This post is made with No AI. More info: https://noai.omg.lol/)

🚨 Dear PM Are You Building Trust or Breaking It? Product management isn’t just about creating solutions, there's a major part of it just like in other professions that demands we build trust with every decision we make. I've made research, asked questions and don't forget that product management is already a part of my life and so, I've come to the conclusion that the following ethics are invaluable to us as a professionals: 1. 🔍Put people first Remember, your users are more than just data—they are humans with unique needs. Design with empathy and build products that genuinely serve them. 2. 🔑Keep it 💯 Be clear about how your product works and what users can expect. Confusing fine print and hidden terms erode trust faster than you think! 3. 🔒Protect user data like it’s yours Data privacy isn't optional; it's a must. Implement strong security practices and respect users' data like it’s your own sensitive information. 4. 🌍 Practice inclusion and accessibility Products should be for everyone, not just a select few. Think inclusively to reach more people and create a positive impact. 5. 🚫Ditch your “sharp guy” skills Tricking users into actions they wouldn’t normally take might boost short-term gains, but it comes at the cost of long-term trust and loyalty. 6. ⚖️Make mistakes; Own them Accountability builds credibility. When things go wrong, be transparent and act quickly to correct them. 7. 🌱Think beyond profit Ask yourself: “Is my product making the world a better place?” Strive to create solutions that contribute positively to society. 💬 Your turn What other ethical considerations do you think are essential in product management? Let’s keep the conversation going. Remember: Ethics is not an addition; it’s the foundation of lasting success. Let’s build with purpose, integrity, and trust. 🙌 #ProductManagement #Ethics #Transparency #Inclusion #UserFirst #DataPrivacy #Leadership #BuildingTrust

Paul Graham once articulated that a startup should aim to be a "black belt" in one specific area while achieving at least a "brown belt" level of proficiency in all other areas. At Early our unparalleled expertise lies in generating high-quality, working unit tests that help developers code smarter and launch faster. We excel at both small scale, such as at the PR level, helping developers complete their tasks more efficiently and with higher quality. We also do it at scale. Check my latest blog to learn how we picked a famous OSS project ts-morph, and generated close to 1000 working unit tests, and more than 17,000 lines of test code, 60% coverage, in less than an hour.   Follow us at Early or check our website. Find a link to my blog in the first comment

As an Engineering Leader, get good at being curious. As Will Larson writes: "Operate from a place of curiosity rather than conviction…This is a perspective that gets more valuable the more senior you get." And I couldn’t agree more. Next time you're struggling to influence peers, consider that you might be missing critical context. ------------ ♻️Feel free to repost if you found it useful. 👋 Hi! My name is Niclas. Sharing advice daily for new Software Engineering Leaders who wants to grow and prevent software project failure.

A video article of mine was curated by groCTO today on their Substack. Thank you! I want to say thank you and recommend following this publication—very well-assembled articles. "𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗔 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵" is one of my favorite topics, resulting from learning from other failing approaches to develop this successful one. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝗖𝗧𝗢'𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲: https://lnkd.in/esk9GKME Have a nice Sunday. Adrian #cto #softwareengineering #development

Action alone won't crown you the next tech Jeff Bezos. Product development is full of uncertainty. Of course. Attaining perfect knowledge of everything isn't realistic. Of course. Getting paralysed by indecisiveness is poisonous. Of course. Having to make difficult decisions is the name of the game. Of course. But sometimes our action bias becomes too much. At the cost of our thoughtfulness. In our rush to solve a problem we might lose sight of the objectives. As Ralph Keeney puts it: "Values are principles for evaluating the desirability of any possible alternatives or consequences. Alternatives are relevant only because they are means to achieve values. The principle should be values first." This goes to the root of many dysfunctions and sources of software development failures. If current frameworks and methods aren't useful - try implementing "values first". If you need help getting better results earlier, I might be able to help. I help my clients build a value hierarchy for their products. I help my clients never lose their focus on the critical results. I help them make rational choices and swiftly move to delivering results. The values you need. --- Want to see how this works for others? Happy to send you some examples - just DM me. #softwareengineering #productdevelopment #engineeringmanagement

“Have standards and tools that let developers accomplish what you think their outcome is and make the tools flexible enough that developers can create something that you couldn’t envision.” 🎤💥 - Scott Johnston What exactly does it take to build a sustainable and high-performing developer culture? Our CEO answers that (and more!) in this episode of “McKinsey on Building Products” from McKinsey & Company with Rikki Singh. Listen now:

Start with the destination, not the map: Where to, Where From, Where Next. At last year’s PRODUCTIZED conference, Tami Reiss shared a fresh take on product strategy: focus on where you 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to be before assessing where you 𝘢𝘳𝘦. This mindset shift encourages makers to think, "𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯?" instead of focusing on what we THINK is possible and creating roadblocks in our minds. She introduced us the thinking of "Where to, Where From, Where Next". The same “maker-thinking” is what I use in my “Effective Product Discovery” trainings. Being exclusively in-house, we take your product team’s real idea, product outcome, or discovery challenge. We work on this challenge in two parts: 𝟭. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (”𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼”) Using Impact Mapping with my own twist, we start with the business goal & context, identify relevant actors, map their desired outcomes and only then ideate solutions. 𝟮. 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (”𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺”) We make underlying assumptions visible, find the riskiest ones, formulate precise and testable hypotheses, and define experiments to test the assumptions. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 At the end I introduce the team to my “Gating Principle” in Lean Startup style experimentation to explore and validate a hypothesis. This helps to create an experiment chain (”Where next”) and also find the right timing to move from assumption testing to solution testing. 👉 This is the maker’s mindset: Aligning business goals with product goals by focusing on customer outcomes to build products that customers love and work for the business. And the best part: With this technique even advanced product teams with mature product discovery practices have identified why their solutions don't move the business needle. Curious? Wanna know more for your product team? Let’s chat 📩

Follow up on the below, here’s a couple of insights on how (managing) risk and experimentation can come together as useful lenses for product development: - The higher the perceived risks, the earlier I might need to consider starting and designing experiments to learn more and reduce uncertainty for certain pieces of work. - Thinking of different dimensions, with a risk lens, can be a more robust way to filter and select priorities (since stack-ranking is often misleading for being unidimensional). It can allow to balance your ‘bets’ as well, by selecting some with higher risk profile and many with low risk profile (filtering out mediocre options - too much risk for not so much opportunity). The ones with higher risk profile most likely can benefit most of experimentation (increasing the chance to get it right, and do just about what’s needed to ‘move the needle’ and build on top of that).

📚 I've just finished reading The Engineering Executive's Primer by Will Larson, and I have to say it’s a must-read for any aspiring engineering leader. Here’s why: 💡 Actionable insights: Each chapter is packed with principles and strategies ready to be implemented in your organisation. 🌍 Relatable stories: Will brings his concepts to life with real-world examples from his time at leading high-growth tech companies such as Uber and Stripe. ✂️ Conciseness: This book is free from fluff, a rarity these days. Every word adds value, making the content easily digestible. 🔄 Consistent structure: The uniform format across chapters helps you quickly absorb and understand the material. This book isn’t just a good read; it’s also a superb resource to refer back to when tackling specific challenges. It's destined to become a go-to reference for me, much like the seminal book Accelerate: The Science Behind DevOps. On a recent podcast with Lenny Rachitsky, Will mentioned he’s contemplating writing another book that will delve deeper and broader than this one... I for one would love to see this move forwards! 🙏