This reminds me of Steve Blank’s famous saying “Get out of the building”. In order to understand the company’s users, Maxine had to get out of the building to go where the users and understand how the users are using the system. She discovered the user’s paint points and needs and she was able to relay this message to her team to develop new features like the VIN number extraction.

I also liked the stored away tablets part of the story.

Empathy

@US97FDXDW I've worked at a place where that happend. Got ipads for all the retail branches, course useless because all the apps were fired out via citrix and one of the apps was a vb6 monstrosity, and the main systems was an aging mfc app. But even if that weren't the case, most of the branches didn't have working wifi.

Fast beats slow

"wait, wait, wait. Does it mean we're all going to have to wear a pager?" "Yes" says Brent, adamantly "You build it, you run it". - I've been in the "support" side of IT, both as a service leader on the side of development and as an infrastructure analyst. Being a developer I've had time-consuming set backs trying to push into production the fixes and new functionalities needed at any given time, or finding the right information to get an accurate diagnostic for a particular situation. Also as an infrastructure analyst I've been too many times in a position when nothing can be fixed "on the infrastructure end" and haven't been able to get the development team to prioritize their time so they help pinpoint a problem or implement changes much needed to keep the systems stable. I love this part of the book because I think having the responsibility of keeping the apps running on the same team that builds them enables people to grow the apps while keeping focus on quality and prioritizing the right things.

"If it hurts do it less often, that's their reasoning" ch. 10 p 159

Chp 14 pg 230 😁