A supplement to Neysa's 2019 SXSW PanelPicker submission.

1. Getting to DoneThe human interactions that make or break a product

2. Build a foundation of
honesty in your team.
This isn’t an abstract concept.
Honesty is hard. It takes courage
and intention to build honesty with people.
But without honesty, you lack information.
Without information, you will make bad
decisions.
We’ll look at specific questions and
communication tactics to help your team to
talk more openly.
How do you think things are going?
Are the dates we’ve set realistic?
What’s your biggest challenge right now?
Why do you think we’re building this product?
Are there challenges I’m not talking about?

3. It’s in the simple interactions
where work gets done.
It’s not enough to ‘do’ agile.
Agile taught us is that processes don’t matter.
It’s what you do with them that count. Take
stock of your team meetings. What are you
getting out of them?
We’ll move past the basics of agile meetings
and look at what you need to accomplish
with each interaction in order to keep a project
moving forward.
For example…
1. Stand-ups are NOT status meetings
2. Sprint planning is NOT Project planning
3. Retrospectives need a goal to be useful

4. Admit when it’s broken.
Product development should
have momentum.
If you’ve missed deadlines, had to pivot
unexpectedly, faced lots of resistance, or
things just don’t feel right, then most of the
time something is probably wrong within the
team.
We’ll look at how to diagnose common
problems in projects and how to begin finding
a solution.
You might be surprised when I tell you to
STOP doing the solutioning yourself.
Common Problems:
1. The goal is wrong
2. The people are wrong
If the goal is wrong, your team needs to fix it.
If the people are wrong, you need to fix it.

5. Product work can make
you a better person.
Learn how to talk and listen openly and
without judgment.
Assume people are doing the best they can
with the tools they have.
Be open to hearing things you don’t like.
We’ll talk through why these behaviors are
important and how you can start
implementing them. Hint: it takes practice.
This not only makes a better product
and a better business, it makes you
better too!