{"id":54,"date":"2024-01-17T20:22:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T20:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.likeanythingelse.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2024-01-17T20:23:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T20:23:08","slug":"a-painful-first-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.likeanythingelse.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/17\/a-painful-first-step\/","title":{"rendered":"A painful first step"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From all the things that make a development team hate their product manager, one stands out so clearly, that it\u2019s moronic not to address it. Yet, most product managers don\u2019t even bother. That one thing is – – – a deadline.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll get to the project management side of the product management quite soon, but a wrong way of handling business expectations can be so detrimental to the team\u2019s spirit, that you need to start noticing things from the word go. It\u2019s not that there shouldn\u2019t be deadlines, nor changing a priority to accommodate a new client is always a bad thing. You just need to do that in a way that addresses your team\u2019s concerns and doesn\u2019t keep it in \u201cconstantly late\u201d mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how to do that? Well, for one thing you need to grow a spine, that\u2019s for sure. If you allow yourself to shift priorities anytime someone from management looks in your direction, then you\u2019re going to fail\u2026 and suck at this job. But most product managers do, so at least this is not a very lonely lot. For sure a nice and fat savings account and lack of debt has proven to support generally weak spines quite well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately a consistently strong spine, will not do you any good when not supported by convincing arguments. When confronted with an unrealistic deadline demand you are lacking justification then that strong spine not only will not help you, but actually will just get your sorry ass fired.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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So how to build at least an understandable point (which should suffice if convincing is not around)? Well, you could get one from the team as they are closest to solution. But tech teams think in tech terms. Terms that will be too abstract for an average business person. Point in case: code refactor. For any production app as important as a fire safety check of a building – but\u2026 sounds absurd \u201cwe will rework the code, so it does the same thing – but it\u2019s better\u201d. Business team will most likely not get it. So – you need to translate from tech to business. But how to do it when you don\u2019t understand the details of the tech part? Well\u2026 There is one solution. You learn a bit of coding yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s right you lazy little f***. If you think that floating button \u201cis just a little change\u201d – then show your team how it\u2019s done. Just kidding – you\u2019d fail miserably. But in general knowing what your team is going through is good empathy training. Especially for those lacking both empathy and basic technical knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It helps a lot, even if you learn just a little bit. I played with C, C++, C#, VB, Java, PHP, html, Python and if I were to recommend something that helped me the most it was C# and Java. But they all are built on very similar principles, so no matter what you chose, you will end up ok\u2026ish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Internet is full of free stuff that can help you, but to direct you – you can start at freeCodeCamp<\/a> or 3WSchools<\/a>. When I was trying to learn a bit more about architecture and played a bit with Java + Spring Amigoscode<\/a> helped me a ton. But going to Google or YouTube and writing \u201c{technical thing you want to learn} course\u201d usually will set a perfectly fine direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re up for a little challenge I wrote a set of acceptance criteria for a simple app that you could write using Visual Basic and optionally MySQL database. Why Visual Basic? The answer is in its name – it has off the shelf visual components, which makes coding the app less abstract. Grasping the programming concepts without a User Interface can be quite challenging for a beginner. And it\u2019s quite basic – so you can get up to speed in no time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will need two free pieces of software:<\/p>\n\n\n\n