ruminations

I read this fantastic blog post by Brent Simmons, the author of NetNewsWire about all the decisions that go into making even a “tiny” feature. You can read his blog post here:

http://inessential.com/2009/07/30/anatomy_of_a_feature

It explains all the scenarios you have to think through when designing a feature and how those decisions can make or break the user experience.

This post really resonated with me because it’s exactly the kind of thing I have to do on a day to day basis as a PM at Microsoft.

Brent’s job is a bit different in the sense that he’s both the PM & the Dev. He only has to convince himself that his idea is correct and then go and implement it. When you’re working as part of a larger team, you have to also convince other people (including your manager) about the decisions you’ve made.