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Ask HN: Head Of/VP/CXO at a startup? Help me validate this idea.
A common question that seems to get asked of product teams, especially in early & growth stage startups is: "when is <insert feature> shipping?" or "did <...> already ship?". A similar thing that happens is non-prod/eng teams not being aware that a thing they were waiting on is already shipped.
I know many of you will say this is a communication problem and not a tools problem. While that's largely true, I believe that tools can make this better visible.
I have an idea for a tool that connects the dev team's code repos to the project tool they use and in a neat dashboard answer the above questions. I also have ideas for how to abstract one level up from just tickets.
I need help understanding if I'm thinking of a solution looking for a problem or if something like this could actually help deliver value to some stakeholders -- especially non-prod/eng folks in a company, execs, and possibly even customers.
- vivegi 3y agoRelease Notes? VSCode is a good example. After the latest updates, the Recent Changes are surfaced when we open the editor. That combined with a What's New? link should answer this question any time. If the issue is customer/end-user view versus internal view of changes, you could put them in a separate section of the Recent Changes release note. For status tracking in the pre-release/dev/testing stages (for eg., to answer your when is featureX shipping? question, wouldn't something like GitHub tags suffice?
- v1l 3y agoHow much of what you're suggesting is kept manually up to date?
- vivegi 3y agoAll of it. It comes down to process followed by the dev team. But, it is done at the time of writing the PR or requirement. For eg: "Add paid subscriptions" feature request. If you have, say, a markdown document that outline the feature request, it would be a simple matter to have a script pull specific tags to build your release note. A ProdMgr would own the release note anyway. So, it doesn't really matter. My 2 cents, anyway. Others might have a different view.