Eight questions about your product development process
Things that cost very little while the system is young and a great deal to retrofit once devices are in the field. None of them are the product, which is why they lose every scheduling argument they are ever in.
Eight questions, about five seconds each. Answer them the way the system works today, not the way the plan says it will work next quarter.
Nothing leaves your browser. No email box at the end, no score sent to me, no follow-up sequence. Your answers persist between visits, and the link at the bottom carries them, so you can compare notes with someone else on the team.
0 of 8 answered
These are simple, obvious things, but sometimes the hardest things to find the discipline to do and get right.
In the rush to get the features shipped and the hard things done, we skip the basics that let us do it again and again, with ease and confidence.
What your answers add up to
Answer all 8 questions and the summary appears here. Reading it on paper works too: print the page and take it to the next planning meeting.
Lowest group:
Most of the foundation is already there
The remaining answers are a conversation rather than a project. Take the lowest group below and check whether fixing it now is still cheaper than retrofitting it later. In my experience it almost always is, and the gap widens every month.
A solid foundation with a soft spot
One or two of these are usually carrying the weight for the rest, and the soft spot tends to be the one nobody owns. Start with your lowest group. Each item there is small on its own, and each one gets more expensive the more units are in the field.
Most of this is still ahead of you
This is where a lot of teams are when I meet them, and it is not a failure of engineering. Nothing here is the product, so none of it ever wins a scheduling argument on its own merits. The first one is usually the cheapest thing you will do all quarter, and it makes the next one easier.
Thoughts, questions?
Is something missing, tell me about it. If the answers pointed at something you want to fix, the first conversation is free and there is nothing to prepare.