Stage 3 · Lesson 7 of 8

Working with product and design

decide what to build and why. Designers decide how it looks and behaves. Engineers decide how to build it, and point out cost, risk and technical limits.

Good juniors ask product and design specific questions early. What should happen with an empty list, on a slow connection, or when something fails? If part of a design is expensive to build, say so and suggest a cheaper option, rather than quietly building something different.

Share progress early, even a rough version, so surprises come out before review. How this relationship goes shapes how much you are trusted with later.

Common trapchanging agreed behaviour on your own because it was easier, and letting product discover it after release.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

GuideFree
Atlassian Agile Coach
Atlassian · Beginner
Short, practical pages on standups, estimation, sprints and retros, whatever tool your team uses
GuideFree
The Scrum Guide (2020)
Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland · Beginner
The original definition of sprint events in half an hour, so the vocabulary makes sense

Practise

Atlassian Team Playbook
Write your own user manual and read your team's working agreements with ready-made plays
BBC Learning English
Five to ten minutes a day of workplace English if it is your second language

Keep handy

GitLab Handbook: Communication
A real company's rules for async writing, meetings and chat, to compare with your team's
Google Technical Writing Courses
Free short courses on clear technical writing for tickets, messages and docs

Also worth your time

Shape UpGo deeper
A different way to plan work than sprints, useful for understanding why teams choose their process