Ian Tien, CEO and Co-Founder of Mattermost, talks about these core principles and their impact on his company. He highlights the importance of customer obsession, self-awareness, transparency and earning trust, just to name a few.

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In this interview we're covering:

• Customer-centric approach and its impact
• Engineering principles
• Following the engineering principles in day-to-day processes
• Stories of the engineering principles in real life
• The role of managers
• Finding the right engineering principles for Mattermost
• Are engineering principles set in stone?

Excerpt from the interview:

“Great companies are always changing and improving. We never reach a point where we say, "That's it, we've learned everything we need to know." Our values and principles are always evolving as we learn more and as our needs change. For example, we used to have a principle called high standards. It was important when we were struggling with quality issues early on. But as we improved our quality and introduced other principles like earned trust, having high standards started to cause confusion.

High standards were sometimes in conflict with our other values. For instance, it clashed with customer obsession when we needed to release features quickly. It also conflicted with high impact when we focused too much on polishing things instead of delivering important changes. So, we decided to remove high standards from our principles. We realized that its role could be filled by other values and that it was causing more confusion than clarity.

This shows that our values aren't set in stone. We're always willing to reassess and make changes when needed. Our goal is to create a culture that meets the needs of our team and our customers both now and in the future.”

Gil Broza, Value Delivery & Agile Leadership Expert, gives actionable advice for leaders who want truly great product development. He emphasizes the importance of putting people first, creating a culture of continuous improvement and a lot more.

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In this interview we're covering:

• Why isn’t product development great yet?
• Improving your software delivery system step by step
• Putting people first in practice
• The right mindset for better product delivery
• Value delivery system - Next steps
• Fitness for purpose
• Revising your value delivery system
• Real-life examples of the strategies

Excerpt from the interview:

"Success in software development requires continuous improvement, yet many companies seem to plateau after adopting certain methodologies. Few actively strive to enhance their practices throughout the development lifecycle. New methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps emerge, but their adoption is often partial and not fully effective. Implementing changes can create unintended consequences, leading to stalled progress. (...)

Oftentimes, there's no unified approach to developing successful products, which is concerning for the industry's future success."

Magda Miu, Senior Engineering Manager at Adobe, discusses the importance of mentoring and shares her experiences as both a mentor and mentee. She highlights the benefits of mentoring, explains how she created a program at Adobe, and offers tips for others looking to organize something similar in their organization.

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In this interview we're covering:

• Magda’s personal experience with mentoring
• How to seek mentors
• Magda’s mentoring program at Adobe
• Key takeaways from the program

Excerpt from the interview:

"Many people view mentoring as a one-way street, and understanding that it’s actually a two-way street only comes after you’ve been on both sides: being a mentee and a mentor later on. As a mentee, you may think your mentors won’t gain anything from helping you, but the reality is different. Being a mentor improves your communication skills, so that you can resonate with all sorts of people. You also gain knowledge, because your mentee will share stories and challenges from their industry. If there’s an age gap between the mentor and mentee, it’s also a chance to get new perspectives from a different age group. Last but not least, the feeling of helping others and giving back is just extremely rewarding. It’s an amazing feeling to see your mentee improve in their career."