Reflecting back on managing Dev-tools products as I transition from IT to Innovation.

My insights of leading an IT Platform last 3 years.

Prior to USAA I had mostly worked in R&D and Core tech product divisions, So when I dipped my feet in the world of IT for the first time (after being in tech for more than a decade), I had little idea about what all goes behind delivering the software I used to develop as a software engineer or manage as a product manager. I have to admit that I have new found appreciation for all the challenges faced in this field :)

Last 3 years have been a roller coaster ride of learning all about DevSecOps, Developer Toolchain, SRE, B2D world while managing a portfolio of products that enable enterprises to modernize development toolchain and practices aimed at transforming the way software is developed, delivered and managed at USAA.

Reflecting back I jotted down some of my key Insights

1. People, Process and Technology all have to come together in-sync to move the needle (People being the trickiest piece of the puzzle). This is much more relevant when your users are internal, arm length away and more than eager to adopt but there are many other obstacles to adoption.
2. Shift-Left sounds great on paper but had it's own overhead which needs to be considered and eased through by equipping the consumer with the right tools and relevant information to really see shift-left in action.
3. Do not forget the Buyers (the Managers, Execs) when developing B2D products. Since no matter how much your users love to use your product the executives needs to carve out time/money/resources for adoption, so start measuring/showing your impact with them in mind early-on and strategizing how to influence this segment in-time for your target adoption plans. Product Management is all about how to make others successful in their JBTD so do not forget about this key puzzle.
4. Measuring developer productivity, DevSecOps is crucial and challenging. Invest early and measure your impact. Crafting KPIs will require planning, coding, alignment and significant amount of investment that will take you away from feature development but aligned , coherent success measures that tell your success story in the end ..will surely pay dividends.
5. Just enabling a feature/capability will not take you very far. You need to ensure that capability is actually integrated holistically with the whole eco-system to really see the objective you set out to achieve. For example enabling vulnerability/security scanning early in SDLC is great but If you do not hook this information in the CICD pipeline, remediation tracking system etc then you are missing out on the real-value-add.
6. Expectations from various stakeholders(developers, managers, security, legal, auditors) vary vastly depending on whom you talk to and achieving the "text book ideals" will take a long time ..so start small and prioritize progress of perfection. (this is probably a general advice but just something that became lot of more apparent here )
7. In general when the producer and consumer of your products are both highly technical while a lot of stakeholders in between are not speaking the same tech/language, PMs play a big role in ensuring things are not getting lost in translation. This is not a problem when you(as a PM) are well versed in that domain but if you are new and do not know the domain then my best advice is to make best friends with somebody who knows the domain well while you ramp up (but continue to offer your fresh perspectives).
8. When helping new product professionals to ramp up and grow your team there lies a tricky balance, it's important to not overwhelm but still nudge new product team members in right direction so that a balance between execution and strategy can be achieved eventually.(This again is a general advice but realized it here since we stood up a team of 7+ new product owners/managers in a short span of time)
9. Devops, Developer Toolchain is a fascinating world of multiple tools, vendors and some are trying to be "one stop shop but not the best for all" while others are trying to "excel in what they do instead of doing it all". As a consumer you keep swinging one way or the other and still end up having to maintain/develop a lot of customizing solutions to glue them all to offer your customers and seamless application development platform
10. With soo many languages and tools out there the consumers develop a preference, liking based on their interest and it gets hard to support such divergence through a common platform and meet all enterprise standards.
11. When you manage, develop a platform, start thinking about the community building early on. The community who will use that platform will come up with awesome solutions, contributions .. find a way to catalyze those solutions and builders in a self-sustainable way since they are evidence of your platform's success.

A special shout out to my manager Bill Reynolds for being a great ally all this time (especially when faced with challenges that came with maternity and pandemic). It was great to see him nurture diverse teams, provide trust, opportunities and flexibility to all his team members equally.

I have had a lot of opportunities for bringing new products to life from initial concept stages in my career, but this was the first time I got an opportunity to bring in the product management culture to the IT world (which was fairly new to this concept) and to help mature our product management practices here. I will plan to write my insights on that experience in another post sometime later :)