Product manager and software coder – nobody else is needed
I was participating in online seminar which considered start up management. Seminar was delivered by University of Stanford eCorner. Main topic was – what is needed to fire up start up when it comes to people and teams.
The speaker, who came from meetup.com, was talking about the issue which is very close to my approach so I decided to share some thoughts with my readers.
When start up team has 8 – 15 people there is no real CEO inside. Basically, the main functions which need to be covered are (the rest like finance, hr are just on back side):
- product management
- software development
When you are thinking about firing up company, one of the serious thing to consider is: who is the product manager and who is the software development manager. This pair works like wheels in motorcycle. One person needs to keep coding and needs to organize coders work (personally I use scrum, agile approach because it is fast and flexible but still keeps priorities on the table). Another person needs to prototype, think about features and keeps the web app really simple, easy to use and easy to understand.
If product manager takes over software coding, the balance will be flawed. If software engineer takes over product management, the balance will be flawed again. To keep the balance is hard job which demands:
- constant coordination
- constant discussion
- constant processes improvement
I will try to write some more about teams in the next posts.
Have a great day !
By the way check this link – my friend introduced it to me and I decided to try. If you want to have cup of coffee and have nice time, join us.
