Ask HN: Is keeping others in the company informed of what shipped a challenge?

3 points by blizkreeg 5y ago ↗ HN

I hear something over and over, often from higher-ups, but also from sales and marketing functions in an org, and occasionally from other eng teams. They really don't know what has shipped and when. This is especially true in small and mid-sized companies where things are moving fast and systems/processes are weak.

Before you pounce on me, yes, in most orgs, it is the job of the product or engineering manager to keep everyone informed and in the loop on this. But it falls through the cracks - sometimes they're late or forget, other times they may have shared but the slack message or email gets lost in the weeds.

Have you faced this? Is this even a problem at your company? What's your current process to remedy it? Also, what form does this take in your company (eg email?, slack?, wiki?)?

1 comment

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[dead] draw_down 5y ago ↗

It should be mandated that all ships have a summary email written (what was shipped, why’d we ship it, who worked on it, how do users like it, metrics etc) and sent to a “shipped” list. As in, it’s not optional and the thing is not really shipped until the email is sent. You can also syndicate this list in a slack channel or something so that people can discuss.