Monthly Archives: January 2022

3 People in a Room

Sometimes in Software development, the organization is not quite mature enough to know what we’re going to do. In other organizations there are tons of ideas about what to do, but it’s not written down.

Three People in a Room is a tenet that I coined back in 2012 to describe what needs to happen as a feature/story is generated.

To put it simply, three groups need to be in the represented whenever a decision is made about a feature. Those groups are:

  • The idea Owner (typically a product manager)
  • The Doer (typically development)
  • The Verifier (typically a tester)

It is imperative that these three (3) groups are represented in EVERY conversation and participate in EVERY decision about a feature.

Communication Part 2: Don’t waste my time

Do not send meeting invitations for a meeting in the next hour (or early the next business day) if you haven’t directly contacted me beforehand.  I won’t be there.

Do not invite me to a meeting in which I do not actively participate.  Instead,  just send me a recap via email.

Do publish meeting minutes and include Action Items with assigned responsibilities for meetings.

Do not invite me to daily status meetings.  I will be sending my status via email.  Better yet, I will be show you how use your project management tool of choice and run the canned report.