Shipping Greatness


Need a shortcut to a degree in shipping great software? Successful team leaders must have an extremely broad skill set to find the right product, work through a complex and ever-changing development process, and do it all incredibly quickly. In this guide, Chris Vander Mey provides a simplified, no-BS approach to the entire software lifecycle, distilled from lessons he learned as a manager at Amazon and Google.

In the first part of the book, you’ll learn a step-by-step shipping process used by many of the best teams at Google and Amazon. Part II shows you the techniques, best practices, and skills you need to face an array of challenges in product, program, project, and engineering management.

  • Clearly define your product and develop your mission and strategy
  • Assemble your team and understand enough about systems to communicate with them
  • Create a beautiful, intuitive, and simple user experience
  • Track your team’s deliverables and closely manage the testing process
  • Communicate clearly to gracefully handle requests, senior-management interactions, and feedback from various sources
  • Build metrics to track progress, spot problems, and celebrate success
  • Stick to your launch checklist and plan for marketing and PR

Table of Contents
Part I: The Shipping Greatness Process
Chapter 1. How to Build a Great Mission and Strategy
Chapter 2. How to Define a Great Product
Chapter 3. How to Build a Great User Experience
Chapter 4. How to Achieve Project Management Greatness on a Budget
Chapter 5. How to Do a Great Job Testing
Chapter 6. How to Measure Greatness
Chapter 7. How to Have a Great Launch

Part II: The Shipping Greatness Skills
Chapter 8. How to Build a Shipping-Ready Team
Chapter 9. How to Build Great, Shippable Technology
Chapter 10. How to Be a Great Shipping Communicator
Chapter 11. How to Make Great Decisions
Chapter 12. How to Stay a Great Person While Shipping
Chapter 13. That Was Great; Let’s Do It Again

Appendix A. 10 Principles of Shipping
Appendix B. Essential Artifacts Your Team Needs
Appendix C. References and Further Reading
Appendix D. How to Contact Us

Book Details

  • Paperback: 228 pages
  • Publisher: O’Reilly Media (August 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1449336574
  • ISBN-13: 978-1449336578
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