Empower developers

In his Substack, John Cutler talks about how developers can be more effective when they have firsthand experience of a problem and have direct access to validate with customers. There's more energy and motivation.

I've worked with engineers who don't want to be involved in Discoveries. But looking back, I think this might be more because they didn't feel like they were equal partners in a process. What if they led the process instead of me? In my current role, some members of our engineering team are organising our team retreat. There's nothing to differentiate their organisational skills compared to say a product manager. They're enthusiastic, self aware. Why wouldn't they be? Well, if my assumption is correct, if we provide real ownership to people, because they're people the reactions are human, predictable.

If we confine people's experiences purely through the microcosm of their roles, we'll also get predictable behaviours.