November has been a crazy month for us here in R&D. We have been working on quite a few projects simultaneously, launching new releases on our beta site almost on a daily basis. And we have been successful! The introduction of Create-A-Cookbook with Allrecipes.com, personalized PlayBooks with YAVarsity.com, and personalized FanBooks with JumpTV Sports (Georgia, James Madison and Penn) are just a few of our projects.
What is the secret behind successfully launching so many projects simultaneously? The answer is simple: people. Finding good people, who can work and can work well together (I already wrote about this here: How Fast is Fast? It Depends on the People) and learning to trust them!
Allow developers to take the lead on projects. Martin Fowler, described this beautifully in his monumental column The New Methodology: “Such an approach requires a sharing of responsibility where developers and management have an equal place in the leadership of the project. Notice that I say equal. Management still plays a role, but recognizes the expertise of developers.”
Here is a short anecdote about one of the projects we will be launching soon that demonstrates this beautifully.
During the initial discussions about the partnership regarding the requirements and the timeline my first thought was, “This is impossible.” The project required introducing flexibility that we hadn’t originally considered in our application. But I was clever enough to keep this to myself. I went back to my team here in Israel, and asked for their opinion. Ze’ev and Nir gave this some thought, came back and said, “We can do it.”
Sure enough, after a few brainstorming sessions, careful planning, tight coordination with the other departments in the company and great team work, the project was done and right on time. Once again I learned the important lesson of shared responsibility.
And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Nir, Hagit and Ze’ev for making the impossible possible (once again …).
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