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Nobody seems to want to talk about delays. I work at a hard tech startup, and all I have been seeing are delays in launching our product. I keep seeing more wo

by elnik 6y ago

Nobody seems to want to talk about delays. I work at a hard tech startup, and all I have been seeing are delays in launching our product. I keep seeing more work as work gets done. Much of our progress till date has been incremental. It came from either fixing bugs in sprints or unlocking new capabilities by solving hard problems. I have never understood the point of timing work. Work takes as much "time" as it needs for getting done. It can't be accurately estimated with out actually spending time actually working on it. Clarity seems to be the most critical piece for productivity for me. Drive that, and people just can't help but work. Dealing with drudgery seems inevitable. Add on top of this people's incompetence or I should say unreadiness for situation, it irks the managers and people responsible for delivery. Delays cascade up. But I think most delays are due to unrealistic expectations of people higher up. Irony being the expectations set by the ones that are supposed to carry out the work.

robviren 6y ago
It is human issue. Business requires goals and timelines. I agree that the issue comes from a lack of transparency, poor culture, and the human desire to be "right". Not setting a deadline is unacceptable to business though. I can't imagine sales or the end customer would ever accept not knowing when they can expect product delivery. If delays are communicated, engineering is respected, and no one is looking to blame someone for delays then the whole thing runs fine. As long as company culture does not run around making people feel bad about not hitting timelines you get more honest timelines from people. But as a product manager I am forced to ask engineering to try and deliver some things sooner than they estimated. Just like I have to disappoint customers by saying products are delayed, or sales that something is more expensive, I have to disappoint engineering with getting something out there sooner than people are comfortable with. Obvious exceptions are when we are confident we cannot hit the timeline with even an MVP.

by elnik 6y ago

robviren 6y ago

It is human issue. Business requires goals and timelines. I agree that the issue comes from a lack of transparency, poor culture, and the human desire to be "right". Not setting a deadline is unacceptable to business though. I can't imagine sales or the end customer would ever accept not knowing when they can expect product delivery. If delays are communicated, engineering is respected, and no one is looking to blame someone for delays then the whole thing runs fine. As long as company culture does not run around making people feel bad about not hitting timelines you get more honest timelines from people. But as a product manager I am forced to ask engineering to try and deliver some things sooner than they estimated. Just like I have to disappoint customers by saying products are delayed, or sales that something is more expensive, I have to disappoint engineering with getting something out there sooner than people are comfortable with. Obvious exceptions are when we are confident we cannot hit the timeline with even an MVP.