I found my first commercial project in a bit unexpected way – a guy was visiting dormitory and literally going from door to door and looking for someone to write a web system for his business. Challenge was accepted, it took some iterations for production-readiness, there were some upgrades of production environment and after some time my client changed business and system was shut down.
One of subsequent projects, this time as trainee, not an independent student, was a commercial product. A product, that according to intention of its inventors, was going to satisfy needs of many clients. A standard, idea-based (legislation, in fact) development, against a backlog.
Two projects with the major difference – time between an idea and real-world verification by customer. It did not bother me at that time, but from the current perspective it was much more enjoyable to work on the first project, with almost immediate feedback and awareness that it is used by real people.
And my current perspective is to the major extent influenced by recent lecture of “Inspired. How to Create Tech Products Customers Love”. This is a wonderful book not only for the targeted audience (Product Managers) but also for anyone that works in the proximity products development. It clearly presents benefits of proper development setup – focused on the outcome for customers – along with many techniques to achieve it.
Of course short feedback loops are not the sole ingredient – and you find other topics in the book as well. The important thing is that having a feedback loop is crucial for improvement of anything (or anyone) and the shorter the loop is the better.
