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Author: Anthony Coggine

  • What Makes Product Managers Effective?

    What Makes Product Managers Effective?

    Product managers can specialize in all sorts of disciplines. Some are better at hardware development while others are better at staying on budget. However, there are a number of traits that are easily identifiable in great product managers regardless of specialty.

    Great product managers share great traits including confidence, compassion and curiosity. Here are the top traits of the top-performing product managers:

    Compassionate

    The personality of a product manager is just as important as their technical skills and professional abilities. They are leaders to product developers, collaborators with clients and liaisons to executives. As such, they must have high-quality soft skills. They must show empathy to the overworked developer and passion to the client, and send reassuring updates to the c-suite. All of this is impossible without an immense capacity for compassion.

    Data-Oriented Product Managers

    Product development isn’t just an emotional journey (even when emotions run high). The team relies on a data-oriented product manager to make informed decisions that lead to satisfactory outcomes.

    While the best must show compassion for others, they also must hold themselves to a precise standard. To excel, they have to rely on objective evidence rather than just their emotional experience and “gut feelings” to carve a successful product path.

    Curious

    The best product managers are endlessly curious people who want to know why certain products work or particular strategies fail. They research obsessively and are always in the know of the latest trends.

    Curious people generally make for good employees who are bound to get better and better over time. The best product managers are proud of their curiosity and use it as a point of reference. A curious product manager will identify problems before they even arise and establish a variety of management styles to see what works.

    Confident

    Confidence is an absolute necessity for a product manager to be considered the best. Confident product managers know their decisions are well-informed and will provide results in a positive way. They are confident people who provide a sense of security and assurance to every level of a development company.

    The confidence that exudes from the best product managers is what allows them to be so effective in their roles. A confident manager enables employees to focus on their jobs and not worry about the plan ahead. Confidence brings out the best in a development team.

    Experienced

    There’s no problem with hiring a talented product manager with only a few years of experience. In fact, it works out for many companies. However, one of the most common traits shared among the best is their tenure.

    The top product managers almost always have a wealth of personal experience to draw from. As professionals, they have spent their lives working on important products, tweaking their product management methodology and learning from past mistakes.

    Conclusion

    The best product managers know that it takes a certain individual to pursue product management. Chief among them is the passion for the skill. The best of them are passionate and skilled individuals who use their acumen to help companies realize their vision. The worst are those who do it for a paycheck or as a hobby.

    Top product managers are those who work their hardest to help a company realize its goal while creating a cohesive environment. They are people who want to know the answer; people who want to find solutions to all problems that arise in development; curious and confident people who use their personality traits to bring a vision to life.

    Elite product managers use data and experience to come up with interpersonal strategies and management plans. This allows them to establish a cohesive base of operations while the development process continues at a steady pace. The best product managers have soft and hard skills to get the job done. And, they have the experience to push forward with success.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • Promoting Purpose in Agile Environments

    Promoting Purpose in Agile Environments

    Agile environments increasingly are becoming a popular option for organizations large and small. Although initially created as a solution for small software development teams with short budgets and complex scopes, it’s been adopted (and refashioned) for all industries and team sizes.

    Agile Methodologies: Why They Work

    The agile approach seems obvious to us now, but back in 2001 when the idea was incepted, it was a revolutionary one: Give employees the room they need to get the job done and let them do it. Throw out extensive documentation and overbearing technical documents for constantly moving, constantly changing, constantly reassessing and growing workplaces.

    “In 2001, a group of experienced software developers got together and realized that they were collectively practicing software development differently from the classical waterfall methodology,” wrote Isaac Sacolick for InfoWorld’s “What is Agile Methodologies?”

    “This group came up with the Agile Manifesto that documented their shared beliefs in how a modern software development process should operate,” he continued. “They stressed collaboration over documentation, self-organization rather than rigid management practices and the ability to manage to constant change rather than lock yourself to a rigid waterfall development process. From those principles was born the agile methodology for software development.”

    How the Framework Works: Higher Purpose

    An agile approach pursues the production of top-tier software. Without an agile framework (or something like it), there is often a distinct lack of purpose-driven principles. From an agile framework, companies can create strong cultures.

    Why is higher purpose so important? After the great recession hit in 2008, we were left with some very important questions amid a financial disaster, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in 80 years. When the economic foundations of our world were rattled, many firms were forced to answer what their higher purpose really was.

    Without the promise of a steady paycheck or a fat margin, there is all too often an absence of purpose. Even when the economy is performing in a spectacular manner, a lack of higher meaning pervades many mediocre organizations.

    “Although a higher purpose does not guarantee economic benefits, we have seen impressive results in many organizations,” reported Harvard Business Review writer Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor. “And other research—particularly the Gartenberg study, which included 500,000 people across 429 firms and involved 917 firm-year observations from 2006 to 2011—suggests a positive impact on both operating financial performance (return on assets) and forward-looking measures of performance (Tobin’s Q and stock returns) when the purpose is communicated with clarity. So, the purpose is not just a lofty ideal; it has practical implications for your company’s financial health and competitiveness.”

    How to Create Purpose With Agile Principles

    Joe Robles, the former CEO of USAA, found this utter lack of meaning to be of immense concern for every level of his organization. Concerned about his employees, he visited them to discern where the company culture could improve. He was surprised to find that his call center employees were happy to collaborate on every level.

    It became his mission to imbue this type of mission-driven attitude to every employee and everyone in leadership, through major cultural education. How can other organizations emulate USAA’s successful purpose-driven culture? There are a few steps to achieving this goal.

    The first step is to imagine the workforce you wish to have. In agile environments, there is a focus on efficiency. There is no unnecessary research, documentation or meetings; there are only results. Successful outcomes, however, only come from motivated, purpose-driven individuals. That means we must ascend above the employer-employee relationship and, instead, swap it with an inspiring mentorship program.

    The next step is to make this dream a reality. Craft an authentic message, promote that message, then promote the supplementation of that message with continual learning, training and dialogue.

    Conclusion

    Agile environments foster meaning and cooperation. Instead of employees that mindlessly listen to the autocratic directives of their superiors, they are part of a task force who shoulder the responsibility of reaching a higher goal together. This means some critical and divergent thinking must be fostered, which can be frightening to traditionalists of all forms.

    In agile environments, you will need to start asking questions that help expand how the team thinks and operates. In addition, listening, analysis and reflection skills must be a primary focus for a higher meaning to be divined.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • 5 Questions to Ask Remote Web Developers

    5 Questions to Ask Remote Web Developers

    Great web developers are waiting to be hired. Your company could seize upon the opportunity—but only if you’re willing to be patient, dedicated and a little creative.

    Don’t scare away qualified remote web developers with a few poorly worded questions or a mistimed probe. Ask direct and concise questions that can help you understand the candidate.

    Be sure to include the questions listed below to ensure you’re interviewing a remote web developer to the best of your ability:

    1. Have You Worked Remotely Before?

    Remote work is different from many traditional forms of work. For a company to properly manage a remote web developer, the web developer must have a solid understanding and knowledge of remote working environments.

    If an exceptional web developer candidate hasn’t telecommuted before, it doesn’t bar them from the pool of qualified candidates. However, it is easier to onboard and retain remote web developers who have had the experience of working remotely beforehand.

    2. Are You Familiar with Popular Web Development Frameworks?

    Remote web developers, like any other web developer, must stay abreast of the latest trends and advancements in the web development field. To master their craft, they must keep a running knowledge of the latest tools, frameworks and web programming languages.

    An experienced web developer should, at the very least, be aware of a large and robust framework such as Bootstrap. They should be able to explain how the framework works, why web developers use it (it’s much better to utilize a framework to save time, in most cases) and the drawbacks of utilizing a premade framework.

    3. How Much Experience Do You Have with Web Programming Languages? Are You Familiar with Server-Side Languages?

    Every web developer should be proficient in HTML and CSS. Scripting languages such as Angular.js, Express.js and JSON are important, too. JavaScript adds interactivity to websites. HTML acts as the skeleton and CSS acts as the design.

    Preferably, an experienced remote web developer candidate will have three to five years of experience with these languages.

    It’s also important to ascertain whether the web developer you’re interviewing has the ability to code the back end of websites. Do they know how to set up a database? Do they understand how to store values in a website’s database?

    4. Which Content Management Systems Do You Use?

    A content management system (CMS) helps streamline organizing, adding and managing content for a website.

    One of the most popular CMS is WordPress. Web developers leverage CMS to utilize built-in structures and architectures to create dynamic blogs and alluring corporate websites.

    Setting a website up with a CMS also makes it easier for writers, marketers and designers to tweak already-developed websites. They can add content without needing the web developer to intervene.

    5. Are You Comfortable with Regular Phone and Video Meetings? Do You Have Experience with Telework Software?

    Remote work has unique challenges. One of the most challenging aspects of working remotely is maintaining communication. Miscommunication can occur more easily for remote workers, so it’s important that you keep communication lines open and stress the importance of speaking clearly and confidently.

    It’s much better if a candidate already has experience with telecommunication software such as Zoom, Skype or Slack. Knowing how to interact via these technologies will lessen the chances of miscommunication in telework environments.

    Conclusion

    How you conduct a remote web developer interview is entirely up to your organization. There are several methods for conducting technical interviews, telework interviews and startup interviews. Each one of them is effective in a unique way; very few are ineffective or harmful. Adding a few questions to your interview script could help make whichever strategy you employ more effective.

    Ask remote web developers about their experience working remotely. Remember to ask about experience with certain telework software programs and telecommunication applications. On the technical side, be sure to ask about programming skill, familiarity with web frameworks and their experience with CMS.

    Companies that seek to hire remote web developers should take note of the interview questions listed above. By asking these five questions, interviewers can gain a great deal of insight into a web developer candidate’s habits, passions and challenges.

    Using these interview questions should make the vetting and hiring process easier for everyone, helping interviewers assess a candidate’s adaptability, experience and dedication.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • What AI Could Mean for Developers

    What AI Could Mean for Developers

    Artificial intelligence has been dominating the tech news headlines for a few years now, as the innovations in the sector keep rolling out at increased rates. The technology is, for lack of a better term, awesome, and when used correctly, it can have tremendous effects. We have already begun to see artificial intelligence in the consumer sphere take off at lightning speed.

    Artificial Intelligence is in More Things Than You Think

    Smart assistants, such as Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri, have all dominated their share of the market with intuitive daily assistants that can keep track of your schedule and tell you the weather. They can even tell jokes—which may or may not leave you in a state of disrepair.

    Looking to the future, we also have autonomous vehicles, which will change our lives undoubtedly by potentially limiting traffic collisions and deaths. That is the true endeavor of technology: to change our lives in such a way that they are never quite the same.

    Artificial Intelligence Development is Open to All

    Development of AI programs is being accelerated due to the availability of AI libraries. With these powerful libraries, development teams are able to build custom code on a complex pre-built infrastructure. Google, IBM and Microsoft all have their own AI APIs that programmers can use to create better products.

    Using paid APIs, developers can use advanced programs developed by tech giants in their own applications. Google Cloud AI provides a suite of machine learning services. You can venture into other APIs also powered by AI. For example, you can use Google’s Cloud Speech API, which uses AI to dynamically convert audio to text in an existing application.

    TensorFlow is freely available to help programmers, developers and engineers use machine learning algorithms to better manage and classify data. All of these APIs empower development teams to dig deeper into deep learning.

    What Advancements Mean for Developers

    The goal of the openness of AI development is to create a new normal brought to life by the endless innovations of the tech industry.

    Without hesitation, we can call AI the next great invention. It has an ability to completely reshape the face of our world in such a way, that this current life will become one of distant fondness and inelegant trite labor. Indeed, the developers of AI will be contributing to the total revolution of life as we know it and the consequences thereafter.

    This is why it is so important to get it right. Using a guideline to build the future will ensure that it can handle the weight of use, without failing itself into obscurity.

    Innovation Means Opportunity

    Ultimately, AI is at its best when it fixes a common problem and is developed with best practices. Because the technology is so new, developers must work around the clock to create applications and get them to market so that their impacts, if any, can be registered and used for analytics. Developing AI is much bigger than a simple web application or smartphone app.

    The pure potential of the tech alone is enough to incite the most lethargic to action, but development will be in vain if not for best practices. Once developers around the world start to follow a development guide, it will increase the fluidity of innovation and knock down any barriers in its way.

    This ensures that developers can share ideas and technology easily, without being in the dark when it comes to the shared development process. Artificial intelligence is an ongoing innovation that may never cease to improve on itself.

    Conclusion

    In this article, we examined the best development practices in AI so that you and your team can create AI applications with the future in mind.

    In fact, the pursuit of humanoid AI, upon its completion, will most likely give us its own revolution in the tech industry as it slowly becomes pervasive in all industries. There is a beauty in contributing to grand goals. You and your team should not be limited or sidelined by a lack of knowledge about best practices when developing AI applications.

    There’s a wealth of resources for developing AI programs through the use of existing AI libraries. There’s plenty of help from the AI community, who are all pursuing a greater utopia with AI—and your team should not be left in the dust.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • VR Development Guide: Choosing the Right Engine

    VR Development Guide: Choosing the Right Engine

    Creating virtual 3D worlds has been a dream of programmers for many decades. Virtual reality, once a faraway fiction, is becoming a reality. Failures such as Nintendo’s infamous Virtual Boy are now a distant memory, and major successes including PSVR and Google Cardboard have become the norm for the emerging technology. In fact, Statista projects incredible growth for virtual reality, estimating that the market will expand to $40 billion by 2020.

    Creating Your Own VR Apps is Possible

    Creating your own virtual reality applications is more possible now than ever. The cost to participate in virtual reality, for both consumers and developers, has lowered dramatically in recent years, and a plethora of tools is now available for new development teams to enter the fray.

    One of the most important elements to your virtual reality development process is the engine you use to build with. Unless you have unlimited time and unlimited resources, it’s in your best interest to use a commercial engine rather than create one yourself.

    Developing VR Apps with Premium Engines

    Akin to other development environments, there are many free-to-use and open source engines at your disposal. You’ll have plenty of options to choose from, but you’ll need to educate yourself about these tools to ensure you’re making the best project in regard to your specifications.

    The Unreal Engine and Unity have been used for myriad 3D video games and virtual reality applications. They have been classic choices for video game development and even for mobile app development.

    The Unreal Engine is free to use and allows development teams to create their own interactive applications at no cost. Once your application is developed, however, you’ll have to share a small percentage of your profits with the Unreal team.

    How to Build VR Apps Without Coding

    Interestingly, you can code your entire application with simple logic alone through the use of their Blueprint Visual Scripting functionality. With Blueprints, you can design programmatic actions, methods and computer behavior without writing a single line of code.

    This design feature isn’t available on any other major engine. If you have a design-heavy team, filled with more analytical designers and artists than programmers, you may want to consider using the Unreal Engine.

    Why Unity is a Developer Favorite

    Unity, a similar engine yet underpowered when compared to Unreal, allows developers to use their engine for a small upfront fee, but you won’t have to pay out any royalties once you’ve purchased the program. To use Unity, you’ll need to have a team with strong C# skills.

    If you don’t have a strong background in C# and don’t have the funds to bring on a more experienced C# programmer, you should strongly consider using the Unreal Engine. If your team has the programming ability and design ability, Unity can be a great and relatively low-cost option that sacrifices little in terms of quality.

    There are Great Open Source Options, Too

    If you’re looking for the lowest cost possible, you’ll want to investigate completely free engines. Video game engines such as Godot may be serviceable, but virtual reality compatibility is not completely assured. You’ll have to devote more time and resources into editing the engine your needs.

    Completely open source virtual reality-ready engines are also available for use. Apertus VR is one such example. It’s a set of embeddable libraries that can easily be inserted into existing projects. OSVR is another virtual reality framework that can help you begin developing your own virtual reality games. Both OSVR and Apertus VR are fairly new creations, however, and you may experience bugs and other issues you would not encounter with Unity or Unreal.

    Conclusion

    Developing virtual reality applications is incredibly hard work, but with a bit of persistence and with some help from experienced developers, you should be able to get the hang of the virtual reality development process.

    While you can’t control a great deal of what happens within the development process itself, you should make absolutely sure that your framework is well laid out.

    Selecting an engine or virtual reality framework that works for your team is a decision that requires a great deal of time and effort. Take your time weighing the pros and cons of the tools available to you. Moving forward will mean you’re committing yourself and your team to a specific engine. That sort of decision has a lot of weight in the development process.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • Why Hiring Top Web Developers is a Good Idea

    Why Hiring Top Web Developers is a Good Idea

    Web developers are a great addition to every organization. Having your own web developers to help you create web applications and websites can be invaluable to companies of every size. If you happen to be a software development team, they are indispensable members of your team.

    Because web developers are in such high demand, hiring the best of the best can be an extremely expensive endeavor. However, hiring them is more than worth the investment, as web development is one of the most valuable activities of any company, especially tech companies and web design agencies.

    With top web developer talent, you’ll surely make more than your initial investment. Investing in quality is always a sound decision, especially for software teams, where a lack of expertise can spell doom for the end product.

    Facilitating Communication

    It’s good to have a team of both frontend and backend web development specialists. The top web developers can help specialists with weak points or blind spots. They can help other, less-experienced members of the team implement a piece a source code, an algorithm or a create a better-optimized database.

    Premier web developers have extensive knowledge and experience with web development, which can help other members of the team better communicate their concerns with other specialists.

    With an in-depth understanding of web development, they know how to translate backend issues to frontend specialists, greatly facilitating communication and collaboration.

    Improving Team Morale

    The best web developers aren’t only technically adept, they are also great communicators, collaborators and leaders. They know how to speak empathetically, compassionately and honestly and openly. They are active team members who voice concerns, questions and comments in a way that everyone can understand.

    When communication and collaboration are facilitated and when constructive criticism is encouraged, team morale is impacted postively. When team morale is boosted, productivity increases, miscommunication decreases and passion for the project can be revitalized. Talented, team-oriented web developers can provide your team with extra motivation and much-needed mentorship.

    Bringing Perspective

    The top web developers have the experience necessary to bring in a fresh perspective to organizations of all sizes. The best web developers likely have worked on extensive projects for important clients, encountered a great deal of strife and come up with unique solutions to intimidating problems.

    While attracting top talent isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, it is worth the time and effort it requires. Young companies, especially tech startups, can benefit from bringing experienced web developers onto their teams.

    Exceptional web developers can act as managers, mentors and liaisons for young, sparsely populated companies. The most experienced web developers can inject knowledge, quality and direction to small companies.

    Keeping a Consistent Pace

    The best web developers maintain a consistent pace, leveraging lean and agile project management principles to do their job to the best of their ability.

    One big mistake young companies commit is biting off more they can chew. It’s a good idea to keep a steady, consistent pace. If your team is using Scrum to help maintain pace with sprints and project retrospectives, experienced developers can be of great use.

    Their experience can help the team establish a successful sprint schedule, helping other team members get acclimated to turning in project deliverables in a consistent and sustainable way.

    Conclusion

    The best web developers on the market are difficult to attract. Hiring dedicated web developers requires organizations spend the time and money carefully to find, vet and hire the best in the business.

    Why are the best web developers worth the investment? They can enrich your organization with their expertise, their talent and their communication skills. It’s important to remember that the top developers are not only technically but also socially gifted. They exhibit leadership skills, easily communicating ideas and encouraging collaboration.

    If your organization is looking to hire a web developer, seek out top-caliber candidates, especially if your company is young or understaffed. While you may not believe you can afford the best web developers at this junction, it’s well worth the risk to invest in them.

    — Anthony Coggine

  • Leveraging Automation for Your Business

    Leveraging Automation for Your Business

    Artificial intelligence (AI) has the capability to change the way we work, the way we manage, and the way we conduct research. As automation processes improve, businesses increasingly are looking for ways to leverage the new technology to help with their own goals.

    There are certain risks posed by the advancement of artificial intelligence, and the automated applications AI creates are in contrast to the many benefits using automation may bring about. The rewards of automation, when managed properly, are the relief of burdensome activities such as mundane tasks and other minutiae, improved productivity and increased participation.

    Consequences of adopting automation for your purposes must be thoroughly thought out to leverage it to the best of your ability.

    Automation, once used for only a few specialized tasks, now can be used for data mining, marketing, medical research and building financial models. These are just a few of the applications the technology can be used for, and it’s far from a comprehensive list. The details of automation are specific to the industry that employs it, the organization that manages it and the managers who oversee its implementation.

    Why should you consider using automation to help achieve your business goals? Quite simply because utilizing it properly could result in a more efficient, more effective workforce and could even create job opportunities. By freeing up mental resources and enhancing the capabilities of your workforce, your organization will be able to operate at its peak efficiency and efficacy.

    “Machines can attend to vastly more information and more complex processes than human beings, and try out more drugs or vaccines than we can in the lab,” Pedro Domingos, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington told National Geographic. “Machine learning is used to discover drugs by simulating the process on a computer, which takes a fraction of the time and cost.”

    After you begin analyzing where your organization needs help, you can start the process of using automation that makes sense for you. Your business may need help with routine marketing tasks, creating models for the data metrics you bring in. Or, perhaps you need help organizing large amounts of information related to research and development of a product you’re about to roll out. Whatever the application, there are automated applications made to benefit your business.

    “Faced with a constant onslaught of data, we needed a new type of system that learns and adapts, and we now have that with AI,” Arvind Krishna, head of research at IBM, said in a recent blog post. “What was deemed impossible a few years ago is not only becoming possible, it’s very quickly becoming necessary and expected.”

    With automation, you can achieve things you may not have thought possible before. As Krishna makes clear in the quote above, the capabilities of leveraging automation are untested and virtually limitless.

    To truly leverage automation, you’ll need to manage the results of its implementation and have your team perform synthesize and arrive at conclusions through critical thinking and social cooperation—skills yet unmastered by even the most powerful artificial intelligence. Pairing automation with skilled social thinking will result in a highly productive and effective organization. This can result in some ancillary benefits such as increased cooperativeness between team members.

    For companies interested in rapid growth, automation can help propel your processes. From manufacturing to marketing, automation can help boost your efforts in research, analysis and production. Automating repetitive tasks can help free up workers allowing them to work on more complex and pressing problems within the company. In addition, workers learn new skills through the adoption of automation and managers can more effectively understand how to manage complexity within your organization.

    However you decide to use automation, it’s important to do a thorough and objective analysis of your organization. Where can you improve? Where do you need help? How can we empower workers to better perform? How do we measure performance? These are key questions that can help guide your analysis of your organization and well as your adoption of domain-specific automation applications.

    — Anthony Coggine