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Product Driven: Building Software Teams That Ship Value 🚀 In this special book launch episode, we dive deep into the intersection of engineering leadership, product thinking, and the transformative impact of AI on software development. Join Matt Watson and Craig Ferril as they explore the revolutionary "Product Driven Model" and why traditional development approaches are becoming obsolete. 🔗 Essential Resources: Get the Book: https://a.co/d/100RmwC [https://a.co/d/100RmwC] Newsletter: productdriven.com [https://productdriven.com/] Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson [https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson] Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com [https://fullscaleventures.com/] Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide [https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide] Key Discussion Highlights: 🎯 THE PRODUCT DRIVEN MODEL (FIVE CORE COMPONENTS) * Vision: Understanding the "why" behind every decision * Focus: Keeping customer outcomes at the center * Clarity: Providing just enough context without overwhelming * Shared Ownership: Distributing responsibility across teams * Courage: Creating psychological safety for innovation 🤖 AI'S LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE * Engineering bottlenecks are shifting from throughput to direction * Teams going "2x faster in the wrong direction" create bigger problems * Leadership must evolve from requirement-feeders to vision-communicators * The rise of "low-code thinking" in traditional development 🎯 FROM INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS TO LEADERS * The transition from "doing" to "enabling others to do" * Four types of engineering leadership: Strategic, Operational, Technical, and Product * Why most leaders aren't good at all four (and shouldn't try to be) Chapter Timestamps: 00:00 - Book Launch Introduction & "Find Your Craig" 08:16 - Why AI Makes Product Thinking Critical 15:03 - The Death Spiral of Internal Focus 18:07 - Creating Cultures of Courage vs. Fear 23:14 - The Five Components of Product Driven Model 32:40 - Future of Engineering Leadership 37:22 - Closing the Feedback Loop with Introverted Teams 💡 Key Takeaways: For Engineering Leaders: * Stop being the bottleneck - build teams that don't need you * Create environments where "calling the baby ugly" is celebrated * Focus on making other people more productive For Product Teams: * Shift from feature factories to outcome-driven development * Embrace the "win or learn" mentality * Connect every technical decision to customer value For Organizations: * AI won't solve leadership problems - it will expose them * Culture and strategy must work in tandem * The future belongs to teams that think like product owners The conversation reveals a fundamental shift happening in software development. As AI democratizes code creation, the competitive advantage moves from "how fast can we build" to "what should we build and why." Teams that master this transition will thrive; those that don't will find themselves building faster in the wrong direction. 💬 Join the Conversation: How is your engineering team adapting to the AI-driven future? Share your experiences with implementing product thinking in technical teams! 🎧 Subscribe to Product Driven for more insights on building software teams that deliver real value. Special thanks to Craig Ferril for the thoughtful discussion and early feedback on the book. The future of software development isn't just about better tools - it's about better thinking.

Product Driven: The Book Launch - A Software Leader's Journey to Creating High-Performance Teams 📚 After months of intensive writing and years of industry experience, Matt Watson unveils his groundbreaking book "Product Driven" - a comprehensive guide for engineering leaders seeking to build teams with a genuine product mindset. This isn't just another business book; it's a practical roadmap for transforming how software teams think, work, and deliver value. In this revealing first look, Matt shares the personal journey that led to creating this essential resource for the tech industry. Drawing from his extensive career building and scaling software products, he addresses a critical gap in leadership literature - how to actually build and manage teams that think like product owners, not just code executors. 🔗 ESSENTIAL RESOURCES: Get the Book: https://a.co/d/100RmwC [https://a.co/d/100RmwC] Newsletter: productdriven.com [https://productdriven.com/] Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson [https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson] Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com [https://fullscaleventures.com/] Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide [https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide] Key Discussion Points: * The evolution from developer conference speech to comprehensive leadership guide * Why product mindset separates high-performing developers from the rest * The cultural transformation required for sustainable team success * Practical frameworks for engineering leaders to implement immediately * The 500-hour writing journey and lessons learned Chapter Timestamps: 00:00 - The Big Reveal: First Look at Product Driven 00:22 - The Origin Story: From Conference Speech to Book 01:30 - The Culture Revolution: Why Leadership Matters 02:38 - The Writing Process: 500 Hours of Insights Ready to Transform Your Team? Share your biggest leadership challenge in the comments - what's preventing your developers from thinking like product owners? Let's discuss practical solutions that actually work in real engineering environments.

Breaking Through Requirements Hell: How AI is Revolutionizing Software Development 🚀 In this compelling exploration of technological transformation, host Matt Watson connects with Chris Rickard, founder of UserDoc, broadcasting from Vietnam. Their conversation unveils a profound shift happening across the software industry—one where artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the relationship between business stakeholders and development teams. What emerges is a fascinating paradox: as AI accelerates coding capabilities, the critical constraint shifts from "how do we build it?" to "what exactly should we build?" Chris's journey from software engineer to product innovator illustrates this transformation, revealing how traditional bottlenecks are being reimagined through AI-powered requirements management. 🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):  Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes [https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes]  Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/]  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://fullscaleteam.com/newsletter [https://fullscaleteam.com/newsletter]  Get our FREE Ebook: https://fullscaleteam.com/productfirstteams [https://fullscaleteam.com/productfirstteams]  Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/ [https://fullscale.io/] Download the FREE Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide [https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide] UserDoc: https://userdoc.com [https://userdoc.com/] Chris Rickard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrickard/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrickard/] Key Discussion Points: * AI-Powered Requirements Creation: How UserDoc accelerates requirements by 50-70% while maintaining human oversight * Reverse Engineering Legacy Systems: Converting complex source code (including COBOL) into understandable business features * The Shifting Development Bottleneck: Why clarity becomes paramount when AI makes development faster * Integration with Modern Workflows: Connecting requirements directly to AI coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot Chapter Timestamps: * 00:00 - The Universal Developer Dilemma * 02:28 - Genesis of UserDoc * 07:57 - Beyond Product Managers: Who Really Needs This * 14:40 - Technical Challenges of Code Analysis * 22:44 - The Great Bottleneck Shift * 27:04 - Pricing and Market Accessibility Ready to break free from requirements chaos and accelerate your development workflow? The conversation with Chris Rickard reveals a pivotal moment in software development—where AI amplifies human potential rather than replacing it.  Share your own requirements management challenges in the comments below. How has AI changed your development process? What bottlenecks are you experiencing as coding becomes more automated?

Learning Through Play: How Boddle Built Educational Games That Kids Actually Want In this insightful conversation, Matt Watson talks with Clarence Tan, founder and CEO of Boddle Learning, about their journey building educational games that have reached over 10 million users. Clarence shares how they tackled the classic problem of educational games - how to make them as engaging as regular games while maintaining educational value. By creating fun games first and then "sneaking in" learning content, Boddle has found success in the competitive educational technology space. The most valuable lesson? Get out of the office and actually watch users interact with your product. Rather than spending money on complex analytics, the Boddle team discovered their biggest product issues simply by visiting classrooms and observing how kids used their app. Clarence also shares how they eventually cracked the monetization code by understanding that parents were buying subscriptions not because they understood the educational benefits, but because their kids wanted the in-game items. 🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!): Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes [https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes] Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/] Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://newsletter.productdriven.com/ [https://newsletter.productdriven.com/] Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/ [https://fullscale.io/] GET THE PRODUCT DRIVEN BOOK: https://productdriven.com/book [https://productdriven.com/book] Check out Boddle here: https://www.boddlelearning.com/ [https://www.boddlelearning.com/] Key Discussion Points: 🎮 Building educational games that are genuinely fun first 🧠 How Boddle "sneaks in" learning content after establishing engaging gameplay 💰 The journey from zero users to 10 million through COVID and beyond 📊 Why watching actual users beats fancy analytics tools 🔑 The monetization breakthrough: understanding kids are the real decision makers 🚀 Pivoting from building many games to focusing on the most successful one 📱 How Boddle connects with both teachers and parents Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction and Welcome 00:46 - Origins of Boddle Learning 02:08 - Making Education Fun Through Games 04:17 - Early Funding and Productization 05:36 - Impact of COVID on Growth 07:42 - Getting on the White House Educational Resources List 08:19 - Server Challenges with Rapid Growth 09:04 - Moving to Tulsa for VC Funding 10:30 - The "Leaky Bucket" Discovery 11:21 - Monetization Challenges 13:57 - Finding the Most Popular Game Mode 14:51 - The Pet Battle Game Success 15:58 - NFT Experiment Mistakes 16:52 - Keeping Education in Fun Games 18:45 - The Power of Classroom Observation 20:47 - First-Time User Experience Issues 22:32 - Learning to Sell to Parents Through Kids 25:40 - Tapping Into the Entertainment Wallet 26:45 - Boddle Bucks and Future Growth 27:38 - Impact and Educational Value Ready to transform your child's screen time into learning time? Visit https://www.boddlelearning.com/ [https://www.boddlelearning.com/] to try their educational games that kids actually want to play!

Feedback-Driven Development: Optimizing Your Software Engineering Process In this enlightening conversation with author Ashley Davis, Matt Watson explores the concept of feedback-driven development and how it shapes effective software engineering practices. Ashley, author of "Bootstrapping Microservices" and the upcoming "The Feedback-Driven Developer," shares valuable insights on how developers can leverage feedback loops to enhance their productivity, make better decisions, and deliver more value to customers. They discuss the shifting landscape of software development in the age of AI, the importance of personal feedback systems, and why understanding product priorities is crucial for modern developers. 🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!): Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes [https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes] Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/] Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://fullscaleteam.com/newsletter [https://fullscaleteam.com/newsletter] Get our FREE Ebook: https://fullscaleteam.com/productfirstteams [https://fullscaleteam.com/productfirstteams] Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/ [https://fullscale.io/] GET THE PRODUCT DRIVEN BOOK: https://productdriven.com/book [https://productdriven.com/book] Ashley Davis on Twitter: @ashleydavis75 "Bootstrapping Microservices" book: Manning.com/books/bootstrapping-microservices-with-docker-kubernetes-and-terraform [http://manning.com/books/bootstrapping-microservices-with-docker-kubernetes-and-terraform] "The Feedback-Driven Developer" (Early Access): Manning.com [http://manning.com/] Key Discussion Points: 🔄 The concept of personal feedback loops in the development process 🎯 How prioritizing by "value over cost to deliver" leads to better decisions 🔍 The critical importance of getting clarity before diving into code 🚀 Why prototyping is one of the most effective feedback mechanisms 🤖 How AI is shifting the bottleneck from engineering to product decision-making ⚠️ The pitfall of "moving fast in the wrong direction" with AI assistance 🧩 Techniques for self-review and maintaining working code 🏗️ When microservices architecture makes sense (and when it doesn't) Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Welcome 00:25 - The Experience of Being a Tech Book Author 00:53 - Origins of "The Feedback-Driven Developer" Book 02:11 - Defining "Feedback" in Software Development 03:52 - The Importance of Understanding Trade-offs 05:35 - Ensuring You're Working on the Right Thing 07:34 - Getting Feedback on Implementation Approaches 09:06 - Clarity as the Fuel of Software Development 11:16 - AI's Impact on the Software Development Bottleneck 13:13 - Why the Best Developers Think Like Product Owners 14:54 - Process Theater vs. Value Delivery 16:19 - Building Feedback into Your Development Loop 17:23 - Production Monitoring and Performance Feedback 19:32 - Key Insights and Aha Moments from the Book 22:44 - Developers QA-ing Their Own Code 25:21 - When to Use Microservices Architecture 27:43 - Book Information and Closing Thoughts Ready to transform your development process with effective feedback systems? Get early access to "The Feedback-Driven Developer" at Manning.com [http://manning.com/] by searching for the book title. New chapters are released every month or two, and the first three chapters are available now. Check the show notes for a special discount code for our listeners!