Developing Native Product Vision in Teams and Individuals

Have you ever wondered how teams and individuals form a product vision? What soft skills do people with product vision have, and can these skills be nurtured and developed? Does company culture affect the personal qualities and values ​of its employees? Do our mindset and personal qualities affect our level of happiness?

I have analyzed how various teams at JetBrains work and come up with a list of common qualities and values shared by all of our teams. Based on this experience, I will try to prove that the key factor in our products’ success is the mindset of the people who create these products.

I will describe the special qualities that our people, teams, and the company as a whole exemplify, and how these talents can be cultivated and nurtured. I will also touch upon the dark side of such a flexible and informal process and illustrate the concept of a meaningful life as a part of happiness at work.

At my session you will discover:

a set of practices that you can apply to your team;
a set of personal soft skills that team members need to have product vision; and
a recipe for nurturing these skills on the individual, team and company levels.

Transcript

1. Developing Native Product Vision in Teams and Individuals Valerie Andrianova Product Marketing Manager, JetBrains Devoxx Ukraine 2018 1
2. Андрианова Валерия Продуктовый менеджер по маркетингу, JetBrains 2
3. How We Work • Flat structure • No Product Managers in most teams • The whole team is involved in Product Management • Mostly create products to relieve our pain • Native Agile company 3
4. The Agile Manifesto says “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” 4
5. The development of personal qualities increases the effectiveness of the team 5
6. Common mindset shared across our teams 6
7. I. Professionalism 7
8. II. Self-management 8
9. III. Creativity 9
10. IV. Involvement 10
11. V. Shared Vision 11
12. 12 VI. Trust
13. How JetBrains product teams work 13
14. Rider Team 14
15. Product Manager Role in Rider Shared among all: • Team Lead — mediator • Subsystem owners — locally • Each team member to some degree 15
16. Release Planning 1. Team Lead formulates a raw plan. 2. Communicates with the subsystem owners and separate groups. 3. A minimum plan of required features is created. 4.Small features are added in the process. 16
17. How Rider forms their backlog • Their own ideas • Feature requests from the issue tracker • Conferences • Meetings with clients • Hackathon • Slack channel • User group meetings 17
18. Feedback • Feature prototype demo to the team — internal feedback • Personal communication between the Team lead and the developers during the development process • Weekly EAP builds — external feedback 18
19. YouTrack Team 19
20. Product Manager Role in YouTrack Shared among all: • Team Lead = Product Owner • Scrum Master — “balance of forces” • Subsystem owners — locally • Each team member to some degree 20
21. Yearly Planning • Multi-day retreat • Exchange ideas • Synchronize product vision across the whole team 21
22. Backlog is formed after the yearly planning session and being constantly expanded by the team 22
23. Two-phase sprint planning • General part • Technical part 23
24. Sprint Demo Motivates the demo performer and the whole team 24
25. Retrospective Everyone may suggest a small feature for the next sprint 25
26. Company values vs Personal values 26
27. What are the company values and where do they come from? “… company values aren’t something that need to be written down in an employee guide.” Maxim Shafirov, CEO 27
28. Does company culture affect the personal qualities and values of its employees? “Values are best shared by setting an example.” “Our decisions are not always driven by financial considerations, and that's good.” Eugene Toporov, VP of Marketing 28
29. Are we looking for specific people with a predefined mindset? “JetBrains is a set of subcultures, which organically coexist together.” “It’s important to make sure that people do what’s really interesting for them.” Natalia Chisler, VP of Human Resources 29
30. What is psychological safety on the company level? “Caring for people and trusting them to do their job, brings out the best in them. But trust and care is a two way street. You need to receive it. Not only give it.” Hadi Hariri Developer Advocacy Team Lead 30
32. The dark side • Discipline, self-management, and responsibility can be challenging • Routine may kill creativeness 32
33. It may lead to… (like with the romantic relationships) • Lack of excitement • Boredom • Tiredness • Burnout 33
34. How we solve these problems • 20% side project • Switching the team • Switching the role • Hackathon 34
35. Happiness at Work 35
36. Happy employees are 12% more effective 36
37. After a certain level, income no longer correlates with one's level of happiness. 37
38. The concept of meaningful life is becoming the new mainstream 38
39. Meaningful life comes from connecting and contributing to something beyond yourself. 39
40. Involvement, empathy, contribution, and finding a purpose make us more happy in the long term. 40
41. And you get 12% more effective employees 41
42. How to develop product vision? 42
43. I. Develop personal qualities 43
44. I. Professionalism II. Responsibility III. Self-Management IV. Creativity V. Involvement VI. Trust 44
45. II. Build a shared vision 45
46. III. Involve the team into the product domain. 46
47. IV. Create an environment that encourages employees to absorb company culture and values. 47
48. Transformation always starts in our heads, values, and beliefs – not in processes that we follow as a team or a company. 48
49. jetbrains.com Thanks! valerie.andrianova@jetbrains.com facebook.com/valery.andrianova 49