Christin Gorman kick starts Product Tank Oslo’s February event with an animated discussion of what product managers can do to help developers in their day-to-day work. Gorman is a programmer at Kodemaker and voted the most popular lightning talk from Javazone 2011. Here are some key highlights from her talk:
Eye on the prize
Ideas and requests come from all over and the hardest thing a product manager can do is say, “No.” But developers need time to make the great features and constant demands can derail development and waste time. A strong product manager knows how to prioritise and stay focused.
Brush up your Shakespeare
There was once an ode to the non-technical product manager, but that’s no excuse to not take the time to understand the basics of product development. Take the time and effort to understand the development team so you can have a better concept of development time, costs, and technical feasibility.
Have you met Ted?
Perhaps putting your developers in charge of customer service for a week isn’t the best idea, but you can introduce your developers to your product’s customers through feedback or behind the mirror in user research sessions. This will give them a better idea of customer challenges with the product and how to produce better user experiences.
Watch Christin’s talk to learn the other 8 things that will make your development team love you!
