A random collection of thoughts from this week.
Thinking
I’ve been pondering learning skills from other disciplines. It’s potentially a killer feature. My hunch is that knowing unexpected things outside my field gives me an edge, and helps me remain a high performer.
Think of the project manager who codes and has a little more context around technical decisions, the developer who can give critical feedback on design, or help do user research.
I could be a function of the smaller organisations I’ve been in but it’s often been useful to work outside my role, and I’ve seen other succeed doing the same. It might be supporting your coworkers when they’re swamped, or picking up jobs no-one on the team actually has experience doing. It can earn respect as a high performer, and potentially make the whole team faster too. In the best case it can build a sense of cohesion and a team where everyone helps each other out.
The pitfall - which I have seen too - is that people with a little bit of knowledge start to second guess their coworkers. Imagine the developer with a little bit of product knowledge repeatedly second guessing the product direction. Judgement and humility are essential.
Reading
Some from further back:
A minimal viable product needs to actually be viable.
Research questions are not interview questions.
Thanks to @tmcw for inspiration to just do something simple each week