3 Tips To Work With Your Developers In Harmony

Q: "When working on a new feature, my developers get really annoyed when I keep making updates to the spec.

I always seem to miss out on something like an edge case. How do I manage this? How do I get the perfect spec the first time?"

Ans:

I know the feeling.

Listen, it's natural to discover obscure aspects of a problem with time.

But you can minimize the changes/friction you incur.

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Some tips:

• Mind maps

During ideation, host a mind map session (I use Xmind) with a BA, QA, dev or support rep. This involves a collective brain dump of all the sub-features, stories & relevant use cases.

Collect as many angles as you can before pruning this down to necessary MVP elements.

• Involve devs early on

When designing the solution, collaborate closely with tech. Explain the goal and the why. Motivate them on what's at stake and make them part of the solution process.

Not only does this position them to highlight easily missed scenarios, it softens their stance when you do bring those edits later on as they've been part of the process.

• Make trade offs

Devs hate it when additions are made with no change in deadline.

So, add the update but then also take something of lower priority out from the sprint. This makes the conversation easier.