How to overcome your and your teams ego during product development

1. Remove your Ego
How not to burn out during product
development
@byteadventuresup.front - 11/09/19

2. Meet the team
Britney - Backend
Matt - Product Owner
Tom - DevOps
Tessa - UX/UI Louis - Frontend

3. Meet the FEATURE team
Britney - Backend
Matt - Product Owner
Tom - DevOps
Tessa - UX/UI Louis - Frontend

4. Behind the faces
- 8 years
- Worked for big brands
- Had a talk about next-gen UX
- Joined the team a few weeks ago
- UX lead as an option
- 1 year experience
- First job after university
- Started with React and feels comfortable in it
- Works for 5 years in the company
- Got put onto the product mid-way
- Has worked a bit with Scrum
- 12 years experience
- Read all the recommended
programming books
- Blogs in her free time and goes
to MeetUps

5. BASIC CMS
Matt - Product Owner
“
We need to create the
following functionality:
- A user can create a new
page to show its latest
product
- The user can put the
page in draft mode to let
reviewers read over
- I can afterwards
deactivate/publish the
page
“

6. Tessa - UX/UI
BASIC CMS
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”

7. Problem #1

8. Problem #1
Everyone is right

9. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY SAID
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”

10. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY THOUGHT
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“This company clearly didn’t develop for bigger brands
yet, their ideas about the product are so outdated. I have to
take the lead here and show them how it’s done.This might
increase also my chance to become the design lead.”
“My gosh, how many more times do I need to tell them to
start from a MVP? Its basic product development. I wish I
would find just ONE company which respects the best
practices. I have to do the hard job again and tell them how
pragmatic thinking and simple design works.”
“Oh my… I have no idea how an auto save feature would
work.Tessa seems to come up with fancy new features
ALL THE TIME. At least I might solve the sharing with this
tool I’ve read about last week. I think I have to put in more
time at home to get better fast, or they will fire me…”

11. Problem #2

12. Problem #2
The “EGO” (👿)

13. The ego tries to product us,
sometimes even from the truth

14. The missing part: Meaning of life

15. Putting it into perspective
“Human capital” <=> Slavery

16. Putting it into perspective
You are renting out your work
power for a limited amount of time
for a specific set of actions

17. Putting it into perspective
If the product is successful,
you most likely won’t see
the gains and benefits

18. Putting it into perspective
All you can gain is improving
your skill set and then pricing
it higher on the market

19. Solution #1
Go see a therapist

20. Solution #2
Company as a “skill gym”

21. Solution #3
The map is not the territory

22. Solution #4
Form follows function

23. Solutions 1/2
1.Go see a therapist (accepting the self)
2.Use the company as a “skill gym”
3.“The map is not the territory”
4.“Form follows function”

24. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY SAID
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”

25. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY SAID
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”
“Form follows function”

26. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY SAID
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”
“Form follows function”
“The map is not the territory”

27. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY SAID
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We can’t make people save nowadays, it has to definitely
be autosave. Also, we should be able to share this post via a
menu so the user doesn’t need to copy the url and send it
via email.”
“Why should the user change its product details? Can’t we
do this for now until we find out if they actually change
information? Handling three states of the page is way too
complicated (draft/published/deactivated).”
“People don’t expect auto-saving on the web just yet. I like
the idea of sharing it automatically with the team mates, I
found a cool new tool which lets you do this.”
“Form follows function”
“The map is not the territory”
“Use company as skill gym”

28. Tessa - UX/UI
WHAT THEY ARE SAING KNOW
Louis - Frontend
Britney - Backend
“We should first figure out what the users really want to do.
I can create a workshop were we get together and figure
out the basics. I will create three different options and
then we decide which one we want to implement.”
“Based on the information you gave me, it’s not a big
problem to implement three different states for the page.
We have to alter the user table a bit and create a new one
for pages. I will create a first concept.”
“I have never created an edit functionality, but I will take
the rest of the day to figure out how to do it with React and
what best practices are. Afterwards I will talk to Tessa
about which components we need.”
“Form follows function”
“The map is not the territory”
“Use the company as a skill gym”

29. Solution #5
Use a physical “Scrum” board
+
Magnets with your faces on it

30. Solution #6
Talk as a the feature/story in the
daily

31. Example
“I found the bug from Alex last night and fixed it,
so now finally the categories are shown after we
login.Today I have a bunch of code reviews to do
but I think I can manage the detail view of the
categories - if you finally leave me alone with your
meetings”

32. Example
“I found the bug from Alex last night and fixed it,
so now finally the categories are shown after we
login.Today I have a bunch of code reviews to do
but I think I can manage the detail view of the
categories - if you finally leave me alone with your
meetings”
“I….I…..I….I…I”

33. Example
“The categories can now be listed after logging in.
To finish this feature the categories need to be
clickable”

34. Solution #7
Have a “problem” board

35. Solution #8
Always talk about the feature
in the grooming sessions,
not your experiences

36. Solutions 2/2
5.Physical (white) board and magnets
6.Talk in the perspective of the feature
7.Create a “problem board”
8.Talk about the feature, not your experience

37. Thank you!