Working With Developers, Contracts & Budgets
Monday, February 4, 2019
3:30-5:00
Hawes 203
Guest: Abby Fichtner, Hacker Chick
Assignment:
For this session, there's reading and the following deliverables:
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NEW STUDENTS: Student Participation Agreement - To be signed by each student and sent to Tom Finan (cc: Jacey Taft)
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Development Budget & Contract posted in the Assignment Master in the appropriate tab by 10am Feb 4
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Break down budget requirements by item and by tranche over a timeline. See example budgets in the link on the assignment master.
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Contract currently in process or an example you are working with to discuss terms among your team members (see Codementor blog below). For contracts in process, it's ok to do comment access only for Prof. Austin if there are any confidentiality restrictions between you and your developer.
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Please come to class with questions on both budgets and contracts!
Required Reading
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Working with Developers at Startups, Abby Fichtner
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What Your Freelance Developer Contract Should Cover, Codementor
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Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule, Paul Graham
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5 Best Practices for Working with Developers, Stella Garber
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How to Work with Freelance Software Developers, Greg Jorgensen (a typical programmer)
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For fun: How to Work with Software Engineers, Ken Norton
Recommended Reading
If you want to delve deeper into how developers think and work, these are good choices.
BOOKS:
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Frederick Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month is a timeless classic on software project management by the "father of the IBM 360" -- one of history's riskiest and most successful tech product development efforts
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Paul Glen, Leading Geeks, discusses how developers think, what motivates them, and how to manage them
BLOGS:
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Facebook's Julie Zhuo has written a trio of posts on how to work with product managers, designers, and engineers -- in each case, from the perspective of one of the other disciplines (Julie has worked in all three). We assigned these for an earlier session, but it's worth re-reading the post on working with engineers
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Michael Woloszynowicz on how non-technical managers should give feedback to developers
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Ellen Chisa: Engineers: So your PM Sucks? Here's How to Fix It
Session Prep
In next week’s session, we will talk about best practices for working with developers - from freelancers working with founders to full time engineers working with PMs at mature companies. Drawing from the readings and from past/current experiences, come to the session with questions about your search for developers, the contract and negotiation process and about working with developers in general. We will also answer any additional questions about budgets for PM102.