Shea Darlison

Lessons I learned shipping my first product

This week I shipped my first product, the project was one of the most challenging I've ever worked on. There were a lot of lessons learned, here are what I think are the most important.

  1. Always write features from the users perspective.
  2. UX should be done before development starts.
  3. The hardest work should be done first.
  4. The work that touches parts of the product other teams own should be done first, it's often the hardest.
  5. Every feature is a vertical slice with an E2E test that will build on the previous one so that bugs are caught well before a release.
  6. Ship the smallest iteration possible, you'd be surprised at how much you can cut out from v1 when you really go looking.
  7. Don't micromanage, empower people to do their jobs, own their problems and find solutions.
  8. Delegation; Pinpoint what the person needs to accomplish; Create a measurement system for monitoring progress; Provide feedback; Give appropriately timed recognition and reward.

If you're curious, my first product was a Twitter integration for digital signage, here is a photo of it running on a screen and a screenshot of the UX.

twitter digital signage twitter settings