Do this the next time you want the developers to build a new feature

Avoid the awkward silence after presenting your requirements.

You did a walkthrough on your story that you spent two days writing. After talking for ten minutes straight, you faced awkward silence. You had no idea whether the developers were thinking or were completely lost. Then, one developer spoke up and said ‘This will take us an entire year to build”.

Get early feedback from your engineer

You can avoid this sinking feeling if you run your idea by one or two developers in private first.

Before wasting hours writing detailed requirements, get a pulse check on whether your idea is feasible at all. Your engineers can weed out the impossibles and tell you what workflow needs more details.

Ask the developers what other scenarios, examples and data would help them understand what you want to achieve.

Most people spend too much time researching competitors’ products. They end up coming up with too many ideas or large features that are impossible for developers to build.

Every product has its own unique architecture and constraints. Just because this feature exists in other products, it doesn’t mean your developers can build the exact same thing.

Who should you run your ideas by?

Choose an engineer who has an overarching knowledge of the entire product and can describe the trade-offs using various solutions. This takes both communication and technical skills. Typically, that’s the architect or tech lead in your company.

If there isn’t one, test this out with various individuals. The goal is to look for someone whom you can give you actionable feedback to refine your story. The other side also needs to be willing and interested to invest that time with you.

If it is an enhancement on an existing feature, bring in the developer who coded that feature. That person with a deeper understanding and risks of changing that part of the application.

Why is it important to have the developers with more intimate knowledge? Let’s use the doctor as an analogy.

The tech lead is a general practitioner who can give you a high-level diagnosis. The developer who works on that feature is the specialist.

A good tech lead would be aware of his or her knowledge gap and know when to bring in the specialist.

Last review before presenting it to all engineers

After you refine your story, have the same developers review before them before presenting it to the rest of them. If other team members have technical questions that you cannot answer, you can defer them to the same developers to do the translation.

To break the awkward silence and get the creative juice flowing, I will also purposely ask the same developers for their thoughts. This is especially helpful when the team thinks the idea is impossible to execute. The developers you spoke to have time to think through the solutions — and can likely back you up. Because it is coming from their peers, their opinions carry weight.

Sum it up

Getting your developers involved during ideation only avoids you getting into a rabbit hole. It also makes them feel that they come up with that feature and are more committed to push it forward. Best of luck in turning your next idea into reality!

Comment below if you have specific scenarios that you would like advice on.