Getting buy-in as a product leader

As a product leader, it’s crucial to get buy-in from your team and your stakeholders. You get more done when everyone is positive and pushing in the same direction.

Shivani Berry, CEO and founder of Ascend’s Leadership Program, has put together a post that covers three tactics for getting buy-in:

1. Co-creation
2. Presence
3. Storytelling

Practical and grounded in personal experience, the post is a handy guide to building your influencing skills.

Buy-in and beyond: Our guide to working with stakeholders

Getting buy-in is just one of the ways Product Owners build relationships with stakeholders on a Scrum project.

We’ve put together a guide to teaming up with your stakeholders so you can deliver maximum value for your organisation and to your customers. It shows you how to set expectations, plan your work together and get the support you need to succeed.

Ten-year-old Daniela gets photo-bombed by a croc while touring Aussie

Say gidday to Daniela, our newest developer

We’re very excited to have Daniela on the team. It’s another example of the way our unusual hiring process is bearing fruit.

By bringing candidates in so they can Test Drive Boost, we give them the chance to see if our culture is right for them, while the whole team gets to see if they’re the Ideal Team Players we’re looking for.

It made all the difference to Daniela.

“After I came to the group evening I thought, that's really cool,” she explained. “I felt aligned with the values and it was so much fun. I really like working with other people, so doing those group activities was awesome. And the pizza was a bonus.

“Then I came back for the working interview. I told all my friends that I had such a good day, I’ll be so disappointed if I don’t get that role. But obviously I made it!

“I’d interviewed for another job, and they were going to offer me the role, but I had no clue what my day-to-day would look like. It was cool coming in and being able to see everything, do some work and interact with people.”

Her previous role had been on a huge project, with all the pressures that brings.

“It was really long hours, I was stressed, I had no free time.”

Now she has time for sewing, her latest hobby. She’s already made a denim jacket, so just needs to whip up the jeans and shirt to go DIY triple denim.

New Identification management standards

The government released new Identification management standards earlier this month.

Designed to prevent identity theft, fraud and privacy breaches, they’re for any organisation which needs to identify people in order to provide them with services. That includes both public and private sector organisations.

The standards are not mandatory, though government agencies are recommended to follow them.

Congrats on a great Javascript conference

Congratulations to the crew who put together last week's sold-out JavaScript conference. It was a winner, and we’re not just saying that because we’re a sponsor.

The first in-person dev conference our team has been to since COVID-19 hit, it was another reminder how lucky we’ve been here in New Zealand.

Oliver singled out Evan Shaw’s talk on migrating to TypeScript as a highlight, Kat rated Ewen Cumming’s tips for long-lasting software and Gus said Michael McGahan’s tale of refactoring a big app in bite-sized pieces was one of his faves. Tim enjoyed the variety of technical and non-technical topics and Daniela liked the way they ended with crowd-sourced lightning talks. Yar summed up the whole event: a great learning opportunity, inspiring and motivating.