Signal > Noise

Source: Minimalism Life

Why did I choose this article?

  • Good parallel with the crypto space
  • I recognize myself inside, and this year I tried to establish more clarity about what I do and consume, why I do it, and whether I really need to consume it.
  • Is it valuable for me? Can I use it right now or later?

With our world brimming with constant distractions, how do we figure it out?

  • Valuing signal over noise
  • Recognizing and prioritizing clarity and purpose in our communication and thought processes

Noise versus signal is a metaphor for the distractions and irrelevant information that cloud our decision-making, thinking, and understanding.
Noise can manifest as irrelevant or low-quality dialog, overshadowing the signal and valuable information.

Focusing on the signal amidst the noise is a skill that needs to be worked on:

  • Discerning what is truly important
  • Allowing these insights to guide or act We enhance our own understanding and decision-making and elevate the quality of our interactions and discussions.

That benefits us, but also for people who are sensible enough to see this.

Personal thoughs

As a city with uncreasing traffic, the crypto space is a constant flow of information, innovations, and bullshit. Participants are confronted with an overload of information that can obscure the more meaningful information.

Finding a deeper sense of peace and focus in quieter environments was my mission during Q3-Q4. I made a lot of progress with radical action, and I still need to make more to reach a good equilibrium.

I wanted to change my behavior, consume less, and produce more. Ask myself, why do I like that or not? What does this term mean, and what’s this product and how can I use it?

My goal with that is to build and consolidate my process to learn for the next few years. Of course, that requires constant adjustments and questioning about the present moment.

Product - Engineering relationship

Source: Gergely Orosz

Why did I choose this article?

  • It’s an important cross-team relationship for a product person
  • This relationship directly impacts the end product, user satisfaction, and team health
  • Learn external feedback

Feedback and feelings from a tech lead abouthis relationship with his PM

  • It seems to overlap on who is doing what, but some things get dropped as well
  • Feel doing work that they really should be picking up
  • Missing having a product vision coming from them A natural tension exists between deciding what and why to do (a product) and how to do it (engineering). (I already wrote a TL;DR on it from Simon Sinek)

What a healthy product-engineering relationship looks like

  1. Two people, one voice inside and outside the team
    • Constant alignment of the product and engineering teams
    • It requires a dedicated moment to work on it
    • Each action is good to bond and grow this relationship
  2. Frequent communication
    • Schedule recurrents talk to share and express the needs of each party
    • The idea is to express why individual teams work like that and build their own bridge of communication
    • Suggest a new way to work together.
  3. Empathy towards the other person
    • Each team must work to understand what it means to be in the other’s shoes
  4. A clear understanding of where the roles start and end - and where they need to lean on the other person
    • Each party needs to communicate what they expect from each other. Communicate about the important information they are confronted with
    • mention if one party is not in a position to provide X exception and how to work on it

How does the process look?

  1. Product teams shape the product spect before it is finalized
    • They drive the product strategy, roadmap, and tactical part to have a blueprint on what the engineering team should build
    • That requires a huge amount of work ahead with other teams to estimate their impact on the company, coordination with designers, etc.
  2. Finally ring the engineering team to finish parts of the spec to be sure they don’t define something that is too hard to build.
    • The engineering lead is responsible for executing on the product ideas and ensuring the team stays healthy

How can I improve it? Which activities are possible?

  • Figure out what the problems really are on the list
  • What and where do these problems have an impact?
  • Set up dedicated time to talk to the engineering and product teams if it is not already setup

Activites

  • Have a regular 1:1 meeting with your PM
    • define a topic
  • Define where each role starts and where the other ends
    • Who is responsible for getting the spec together?
    • Who should communicate with business stakeholders?
  • Lead the team together and be aligned with what you said
  • Build empathy for each other
    • What are the challenges and responsibilities of each team
    • That can be your personal goal inside the company
    • Ask about the current problems of each other’s teams

In my opinion

One of the pain points for the engineering team is missing the product vision:

  • The product team should involve the engineering team early on in the process (same as all stakeholders)
  • The engineering team should take time to understand the product vision, allocate time to highlight shadow points, and communicate it to the product team

That ensures the good understanding of each party before starting production.

Advice for person who want to have an impact

Interview between Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman.

Mark advises not turning your idea into a company until it’s working:

  • Start to work on something you care about
  • The risk of directly wanting to build a company is to be locked on a local maxima a lot of the time

What do we need to start a startup?

  1. an idea
  2. cofounders

“Don’t waste time” thinking of startup ideas; they will be bad and plausible-sounding.

Take a step back. Instead of making a conscious effort to think of a startup idea, turn your mind into the type of startup idea from within without any conscious effort.