I tell ya, it’s a lot easier working on my own stuff than someone else’s. They expect results!
It’s also a lot easier giving opinions about startups than building them. It’s not nearly as rewarding though.
I’m relearning that communication matters. So do lists with dates, not just lists. I’m mindful that I’m not organized the same as the anal retentive, and have to work a bit harder on that to be effective.
But not too organized. Sometimes you actually have to do something, not just organize everything.
For train time today, I’m taking a step back and deciding what will create the right work balance for the work and management I have to do.
I’ve decided on daily progress updates to the CEO and product team, simply because it keeps me in the discipline of communicating where we are. They’ll be brief–nobody wants to slog through a lot of prose every day.
Weekly I’ll summarize where we’ve been and where we need to go, and make sure we’re still aligned with our dates. I’m not a product manager, though I’ve played the role from time to time, so it’s a bit of a stretch. But stretching is good.
If we keep it lightweight, focused, and fluid we should be able to make great progress with lots of productive, quick iterations.
It’s easier to work as just one dev in a lot of respects–set your own pace, be your own PM, fix your own code. Working in a team takes good communication, which simply means effective communication–just enough at the right times. Stay out of the way as much as you can without dereliction of duty.
I’d love to hear your input on running teams–it’s been a while for me but I’m enjoying it so far 🙂