Whether your team is using an agile, waterfall, or some other development method, it is very likely that you have a roadmap. Roadmaps are a great tool for team members to answer some very important questions, such as what they should work on, how much time do they have to complete it, and what’s next for them and the team. They’re also a great communication and sync channel between the all the team members. For a single member, an accomplishment means to complete a task and move on to the next task. Completed tasks are good signs for progress, both for the ones in charge of it and the entire organization. It is great for team spirit, as there are many tasks and the end-of-the-year checklist would show we’ve done a lot. But it tells nothing about user satisfaction, and even after 50 completed tasks there’s still a high chance that the users are not happy at all. For example, the core feature could be buggy, the UX could be inconsistent, or the site could take too much to load. Great products are born only when the core features are the team’s main focus, and iterations and improvements are part of the team’s culture. The key is adding value, and not just marking more items in the checklist as ‘done’. For a single member, an accomplishment means to complete a task and move on to the next task. Completed tasks are good signs for progress, both for the ones in charge of it and the entire organization. It is great for team spirit, as there are many tasks and the end-of-the-year checklist would show we’ve done a lot. But it tells nothing about user satisfaction, and even after 50 completed tasks there’s still a high chance that the users are not happy at all. For example, the core feature could be buggy, the UX could be inconsistent, or the site could take too much to load. Great products are born only when the core features are the team’s main focus, and iterations and improvements are part of the team’s culture. The key is adding value, and not just marking more items in the checklist as ‘done’.
