Product and Engineering Wisdom - Issue #11
Product and Engineering Wisdom - Issue #11
Tips and advice on gaining common ground with developers
A free fortnightly email that highlights the relevant tips, advice, and case studies from the world of product and engineering for the SEO community.
Hello 👋,
In this issue, the theme is gaining common ground.
Communication is critical in gaining common ground in product and engineering.
Product managers gain common ground with engineers and other stakeholders by sharing a common goal, creating a common language and developing a solid business case through user testing.
It can help get buy-in, streamline code releases and allow teams to share a common language.
The following articles can help you have a better understanding of how to gain common ground:
Stay safe and enjoy.
Adam
The SEO Sprint Retrospective
Please feel free to leave feedback so I can improve this newsletter.
⚡Post of the Sprint
Gov.uk Improving User Journeys
by Martin Lugton, Lead Product Manager, GOV.UK, Government Digital Service
A blog post on how the UK government is using product and UX practices to improve the user journey of business owners who interact with digital services.
Adam’s Insight: This is a great real-world example from the GDS on mapping out the customer user journey, doing user research to refine the user journey map and using prototypes to identify the next steps for users.
At DeepCrawl user journey mapping was used to better understand customer pain points and visualise new features as a team. They are also a great way to visually break down features or products into the essential steps users need to make to complete an action.
This is a great blog post if you want to see product concepts in action.
✨Product
Engineering Handbook: Product Delivery Framework
by Sri Viswanath, Chief Technology Officer, Atlassian
A mammoth handbook from the Atlassian engineering team on how they build an autonomous engineering team.
Adam’s Insight: If you are in a leadership position and want to understand how developers can work better - this is perfect.
Atlassian give a detailed breakdown from philosophy, delivery and OKRs.
I have narrowed down on the Product Delivery Framework as it provides a concise and clear set of delivery values when building and releasing code.
This handbook won’t be for everyone but if you’re curious about how successful engineering teams work this is a must read.
Demystification for product managers
by Dani Sastre, Lead Digital Product Manager, Amadeus
Dani Sastre talks about how product managers can gain common ground with different teams.
Adam’s Insight: Constant communication and demystification of SEO is something many in-house specialists will understand.
It also happens for product managers as well. This is a great piece on the different practical ways you can help people better understand what you’re working on.
At DeepCrawl constant communication of product and engineers changes was always needed. Regular catch-ups with different teams, individuals and training sessions was paramount to keeping everyone up-to-date with what was happening.
I recommend this if you’re an in-house SEO trying to get others to educate other stakeholders.
⚙️Engineering
How to Review Code as a Junior Developer
by Emma Catlin, Software Engineer
A blog post by a software engineer at Pinterest on how to review code and common tips and tricks.
Adam’s Insight: I really enjoyed this piece by Emma.
I never knew about code reviews and their importance until I began to work with engineers on a daily basis. It is a very common practice which helps improve code quality and increase streamline releases.
This won’t be relevant to many but if you’re an SEO specialist who wants to understand developer code reviews this is great blog post.
What we learned from the iOS app OOMs incident
by Liang Ma, Software Engineer, App Foundations
Another blog post from the Pinterest engineering team on learning to deal with a bug in the iOS app.
Adam’s Insight: I always enjoy blog posts from developers covering incidents which cause critical bugs.
Again, this isn’t likely for everyone but if you’re technical and interested in how a developer identifies and debugs an issue this is quick read.
The SEO Sprint Retrospective
Please feel free to leave feedback so I can improve this newsletter.