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1 | | -# Engineering Judgement Workshop |
| 1 | +# Engineering Judgement Workshop 🧑⚖️ |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +👨💼 Hello, my name is Peter the Product Manager. I'm here to help get you |
| 4 | +oriented and to give you your assignments for the workshop. |
| 5 | + |
| 6 | +This workshop is about a skill that becomes more valuable as implementation gets |
| 7 | +easier: engineering judgment. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +You'll work on a lightweight scheduling product and practice the part of the |
| 10 | +job that happens before, around, and after code is written: |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +- clarifying ambiguous goals |
| 13 | +- surfacing constraints and assumptions |
| 14 | +- defining success before implementation starts |
| 15 | +- deciding whether a request is worth shipping at all |
| 16 | +- protecting core user experience as the product evolves |
| 17 | +- evaluating whether the implementation actually matched the intent |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +This is not a workshop about prompt tricks, framework trivia, or shipping the |
| 20 | +most code the fastest. The point is to build durable judgment that still |
| 21 | +matters even when AI can generate most of the implementation. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +## What you'll work through |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +### 1. Building an MVP |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +You'll start with an ambiguous product request and turn it into a focused, |
| 28 | +shippable MVP. The work is to define what "good enough" means, ask better |
| 29 | +questions, choose a reasonable starter architecture, and judge the final result |
| 30 | +against the plan you created. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +### 2. Product Restraint |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +Next, you'll confront a plausible feature request and slow the team down on |
| 35 | +purpose. Instead of rushing into implementation, you'll qualify the request, |
| 36 | +separate evidence from momentum, and decide whether the right move is to ship, |
| 37 | +narrow, defer, or reject. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +### 3. Protect the User Experience |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +Finally, you'll evolve the product without losing the experience that made it |
| 42 | +valuable in the first place. Before implementation, you'll define the user |
| 43 | +flows and UX invariants that must not degrade, then use those guardrails to |
| 44 | +evaluate whether the change was actually an improvement. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +## How to approach the workshop |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +In each exercise, focus on making your reasoning visible: |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +1. Ask clarifying questions. |
| 51 | +2. Write down assumptions, constraints, and success criteria. |
| 52 | +3. Make scope and tradeoffs explicit. |
| 53 | +4. Treat implementation as evidence to inspect, not the only output that |
| 54 | + matters. |
| 55 | +5. Compare the final system against your original intent and critique the gaps. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +<callout-info> |
| 58 | + A strong result in this workshop is not "I added the most features." It is "I |
| 59 | + made the right tradeoffs for the information available, and I can explain |
| 60 | + why." |
| 61 | +</callout-info> |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +When you're ready, mark this page complete and start with the first exercise. |
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