Product Management Chronicles: Managing the Delivery of Chapters - a Blog App
Playing the Role
Playing the role of a Product Manager in a cross-functional team could be tasking, but yea we did it again this week. This is the final week of our SideHustle 7.0 Bootcamp. We got to be Managers overseeing the creation of a Blog App assigned to the Engineering teams, making sure they deliver, and documenting the process, lessons, retrospectives and challenges we faced.
Management is a key role in Product Management, and with it comes effective communication. We were able to achieve that this week while getting better at the Jira tool. We were also introduced to a new design tool called Dribble. We were to work with the same team we worked with during our week 3 task when we managed the delivery of a Music App called Muzira. So yea, we already had a structure and an effective means of communication established.
DAILY RETROSPECTIVES
Standing on the existing protocol and maintaining the status quo, we had our first meeting (you can call it Sprint Planning in PM language) at our usual time and place. The Front-End team lead went on to notify the house of what their task entails( of course, we got right to business I mean we have been together for a whole week so no need for introductions and getting familiar straight to work no time) and what they'll be needing from the Back-End team. He (FE team lead) went on to let us know they have met as a team and agreed on a design to use and will be needing a name and logo from us. The Back-End team members were surprisingly present, their team lead apologized for last week's absence stating their reasons and he, went on to promise to be available and ready to work this week. The FE and BE agreed to have a meeting to discuss the way forward. When the Engineering team left to continue their work the chairperson threw the choice of name open to the house, after much deliberation and suggestions, we came up with the name; "Chapters". Team lead for group 10 and team lead for group 11 designed a logo and sent it to the house for approval.
On day 2, the meeting started at exactly 8:30 pm on Google Meet; the Logo was adopted. PMs had an in-depth discussion on the features of Chapters App. We came up with very interesting ones. The FE gave a progress report and when asked how they intend to integrate the features we listed, he broke our hearts by saying that for want of time, it will not be possible. The BE backed up the FE and explained that for every feature they'll have to create an API to integrate the UI design and that it will slow the work down and we might end up with unfinished work at submission. You will think the Jira software will be easy on us this week after all we went through last week, dey play. The same issue of not receiving the sent invite/link or not being able to come on board the Jira. We were informed that the use of the Jira board on free mode is limiting which is the reason why we can not have everyone on the Jira board. We agreed to share a screen at every meeting so everyone can view the board and make corrections or suggestions.
On day 3, our team had our daily standup at 8 am on Slack to discuss the progress of the week's tasks. Three people had access to the board and they updated the house. At 8:30 pm the general standup meeting started with the FE progress report; UI is 90% complete and responsive and integration will start as soon as they get the APIs from the BE team; you could feel the joy in the house ( this week will be a good one, having your team working hard to meet the deadline is every PM's dream come true). The BE team reported that their work is 30% done and that they'll forward the finished API to the FE team to start integration. The BE and FE had a meeting within the meeting, with each team stating what they need from each other. At the request of the chairperson, a member of the team shared her screen to show us the Jira board and the work so far. She (the chairperson) assigned tasks to every team and explained them.
At our 8 am stand-up the next day we discussed our assigned task which is to write user stories and acceptance criteria for user onboarding, feedbacks were given by those on board the Jira. That evening at the 8:30 pm stand-up everyone was present and gave reports on their task. It was beautiful to see everyone working hard to make sure this week's task is completed. By the next morning, our App was ready for viewing, they sent the link to the group (our engineering team is no gree this week o). That evening at the meeting the FE team walked us through the app and the responsive features,( the joy of every PM when your team is getting things done) it was beautiful to watch. We were already in high spirits from the PM review earlier in the evening, so yea the odds were definitely in our favour today.
The final sprint review was held as scheduled, FE ticked off the features they have completed, and a screen was shared to view the App and its responsiveness. The Logo we created was swapped for another because the initial one did not fit the aesthetics of the blog. The chairperson requested they send us the new one they used so we can use it for our documentation.
CHALLENGES
Our major challenge was the Jira board's limitation and to tackle this, we shared screens at every meeting and people on the board gave constant reports of the work going on. Another thing is the lateness to meetings, to tackle this 5mins before the meeting time the chairperson will share the meeting link and inform us it's almost time. This week was good, we had our engineering teams working hard to deliver despite their limited number, so yea we did well.
LESSONS AND CONCLUSION
So far so good, we did good work with our management skills this week communication was also topnotch. We were able to get the engineering team to work together and also keep us updated. They also got better with the Jira board moving their tasks. We experienced what real-life PMs do and we didn't flinch, kudos to us. Thank you to my wonderful teammates for being the best.
Team Members: