A Few My Product Beliefs
I've come to believe a few things about how good products get built.
Like any good product this list evolves.
No one size fits all
No one has a product development process that is the perfect recipe for success. What they might have is a perfect recipe for their unique set of circumstances. The best process for you is the one that aligns with the people, resources, challenges and opportunities that you uniquely face. Learn from other teasm and organizations but don't follow blindly.
Organize for the given
You can't solve all of your product problems with a better product org structure. Structure your org for what needs to be "free" and put energy into the rest. What ever is most important to your companies success should be baked into your everyday structure. Then put effort into the edges to solve all of the inevitable "other problems.
Small teams build faster
When in doubt either keep your product team small or figure out how to break it down into smaller squads. It's astonishing what two good developers a PM and a Designer can bring to life and how quickly they can do it.
Iteration is hard but worth it
The desire to iterate and continuously improve your product is rarely in question. In practice this can be very hard to execute on with in an orgnaization. Whether it's a fear of missing the mark out of the gate or pressure to move onto the next thing.
AI is going to change everything
We are on the precipous of a massive societal change. Our little world of software developoment is no different. The impossible is now possible and everything we built before will likley be rethought.
User centric design always wins
A well thought out and simple design will always be more successful than the tool that does it all. Highly opinionated products are the easiest for users to quickly adopt and often the most retentive.
