Shipping Greatness by Mey, Chris Vander -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Shipping Greatness Preface

Shipping Is Greatness Acknowledgments

One. The Shipping Greatness Process

1. How to Build a Great Mission and Strategy

How to Find the Right Need to Meet How to Construct a Great Mission Statement How to Build the Right Strategy

2. How to Define a Great Product

Step 1. Write a Press Release

Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar

Step 2. Create a Living Frequently Asked Questions Document Step 3. Draw Wireframes and Flowcharts Step 4. Write the One-Pager and/or Build a 10-Minute Pitch Step 5. Add API s to Your FAQ Step 6. Write the Functional Specifications Document

Introduction Goals and Nongoals Use Cases or User Scenarios Mocks or Wireframes APIs Capacity Plan Dependencies FAQ and Open Issues Key Milestones

Step 7. Uncover Edge Cases and Get Buy-in from Your Team Step 8. Test on Customers Step 9. Figure Out the Basic Business Stuff: Name, Price, and Revenue Step 10. Sell Your Completed Product Idea Upstairs Your Product Is Ready to Build—Go Build It!

3. How to Build a Great User Experience

Understand Design Roles: UX, UI, IA , VisD, UXR … and Personas Understand How to Evaluate Designs

The Six UX Questions

What’s the most important task the UI asks your primary persona to accomplish? Is this the simplest solution? Is the information organized logically? Is the design usable and discoverable? Are the standards consistent? Can you reduce the number of clicks?

Understand How to Communicate with Designers Learn How to Communicate with Pictures

Create Simple Wireframes in Omnigraffle Make Production-Quality Mocks Quickly

4. How to Achieve Project Management Greatness on a Budget

Build and Maintain a Simple Schedule

How to Get Estimates

Track Your Bugs and Build a Bug Burndown Managing Dependencies

5. How to Do a Great Job Testing

Insist on Test-Driven Development Build a Test Team Around a Test Lead

Option 1: Maintain a Lower Hiring Bar, and Hire Managers Option 2: Maintain a High Hiring Bar, and Work with Vendor Testers Option 3: Maintain a High Hiring Bar, and Don’t Use Contractors

Review Your Test Plan and Test Cases Automate Testing Dogfood How to Run a Bug Bash Triage Bugs Properly Use Trusted Testers Parting Thought: Use the Entire Product as a New User

6. How to Measure Greatness

How to Collect the Right Metrics and Only the Right Metrics The Three Classes of Metrics You Should Collect

Progress Toward Goals Business Performance Systems Performance

Focus on the Goal, Not the Minutiae

7. How to Have a Great Launch

Just Say No Run a War Room Instill a Sense of Urgency Complete the Launch Checklist Write the Blog Post Roll the Software Out Verify the Software Yourself Respond to the Positive and Negative Effects of Your Launch In the Case of Problems, Roll the Software Back Handle Any Production Crises

Crisis playbook: Minutes 0–5

Crisis playbook: Minutes 0–5 Crisis playbook: Minutes 5–30 Crisis playbook: Minutes 31–N Crisis playbook: Coping with the aftermath and writing a postmortem

Demo Your Product Handle Press and Customers Celebrate Your Launch!

Two. The Shipping Greatness Skills

8. How to Build a Shipping-Ready Team

How to Start a Team

Program Managers Product Managers Project Managers Engineering Managers How to Hire a Product, Program, or Engineering Manager

Hire people who are smarter than you Look for Candidates who Understand that they are not the Boss Look for Clear, Data-Driven, and Specific Communications Hire Quantitatively Inclined Candidates Hire People with Gumption

How to Acquire a Company

Intellectual Property Acquisitions Talent Acquisitions Customer Base Acquisitions Defensive Acquisitions Gotchas and Best Practices with Acquisitions

Plan to Embed Part of Your Team into their Team Plan to Integrate the Product Understand all the Prior Deals and Liabilities

How to Work with Offshore or Remote Teams

Don’t Rent an Engineer—Build an Engineering Team Overcommunicate Try Very Hard Not to Outsource Design or PM Roles Appreciate Cultural Differences Build Clear Requirements Suck Up the Time Difference Establish Great Leads Travel a Lot or Not at All Drink with the Remote Team How to Join a New Team

9. How to Build Great, Shippable Technology

The First S: Servers The Second S: Services

Drawbacks to Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs)

The Third S: Speed The Fourth S: Scaling How to Ask the Right Technical Questions

10. How to Be a Great Shipping Communicator

How to Write Great Email

Write Email Like a Journalist Use the Great Delta Convention Punctuate Your Email with Bullets as Reasons Stop Writing Now, Because You’re Done Try Suggestions Instead of Questions Remember Your Audience

How to Handle the Five Types of Meetings

The Team Meeting The Standup Meeting The 1:1 Meeting The Product, UX, and Engineering Design Reviews The Brainstorming Meeting

Don’t criticize when you’re brainstorming Say, “Yes, and…” Prompt discussion with structure Be clear when the brainstorming is over

How to Run a Good Meeting

Send Headline Notes Immediately Allow Your Meeting’s Objective to Change Stamp Out Negativity in Team Meetings; Embrace it in 1:1s Use Tools Like Fishbone Diagrams to Solve Problems

How to Build and Give a Great Presentation

Limit Your Presentation to 15 Minutes Always Have One, and Only One, Message Tell a Story Build the “Deck in One Slide” Lead with the User Experience Listen Like Crazy Bonus Presentation Tips

11. How to Make Great Decisions

Postponing: “We’ll Finish It Tomorrow” Negotiation: “OK, 10 More Minutes”

Stage 1: It’s Not About You Stage 2: Being Fair and Using Data Stage 3: That Data Didn’t Close the Deal…Let’s Make Up New Data! Stage 4: Searching for Things That Are Free to Give Stage 5: Walking Away and Thinking Stage 6: Agreement, Paperwork, and Recriminations

Dealing with Conflict

Don’t Use “You” or “I” Focus on the Personas, Not the People Use Objective Measures

12. How to Stay a Great Person While Shipping

How to Balance Shipping, Quality and Impact, and Your Team How to Handle Randomization How to Manage Your Energy While Shipping How to Use Escalation as a Tool, Not an Excuse How to Eat the S#!@ Sandwich and Survive

13. That Was Great; Let’s Do It Again

A. 10 Principles of Shipping B. Essential Artifacts Your Team Needs C. References and Further Reading

Product Definition Managing Management Engineering Management UX Metrics Communications

D. How to Contact Us

We’d Like to Hear from You Safari® Books Online

About the Author Copyright

← Prev
Back
Next →

← Prev
Back
Next →