Ask Your Developer is Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson’s advice to Businesses looking to survive and prosper in the digital age. In short, Jeff argues that:
(1) Businesses need to embrace technology (esp. web technology) to compete;
(2) Rather than buying them ready-made (e.g. from a consultancy), businesses do better by buying “software parts” and assemble a custom solution. For example, Twilio excels at providing tools for integrating mobile phone text-messaging to software programmes; Cloudfare specialises in protection from DDOS attacks. Rather than paying a consultancy to design the whole IT system for them, businesses do better to hire their own software engineers to put together the best tools for their business.
(3) But to succeed in doing so, businesses need to empower software engineers to make real business decisions. Programmers should be in the same room as the decision-makers to allow for immediate feedback and input: not given specifications after the event and told to implement it. In Jeff’s own phrase, tell the programmers the problem, not the solution.
The text reads very fluently and has a wealth of examples, from the exploits of solo-entrepreneur Patio11 to how lawyers and software engineers sat in the same room to quickly create a feature to help clients pay taxes in Delaware.
I have not made up my mind about the merits of the argument, but I look forward to re-reading it in the future.
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