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For this podcast, we wanted to celebrate our 10 year anniversary as a digital development company, not so much with a focus on talking about our company (we do a little bit about that in the beginning); but more on a focus about the state of technology in the development industry, and how we think business is going to evolve over the next 10 years.
To do this, both your podcast hosts Dave Erickson and Botond Seres are joined by some of our fellow ScreamingBox team members who can add to the conversation from their perspective and their area of expertise. Partners Balazs Beregnyei and David Levai, as well as Mariann Farkas and Anni Pecznyik give their views on the state of digital development; what is important to them from the perspective thier roles, and what they expect for how the industry will evolve in the next 10 years.
To catch up with all our Podcasts, please go to https://podcast.screamingbox.com/
Show Notes
This month is the 10th anniversary of the founding of our digital development company.
This podcast is something separate - I mean we are not doing it with the expectation that it will generate lots of business - it is because we enjoy furthering the discussion about Technology and Business which are subjects we are passionate about and making a contribution to the global knowledge base on the subject we cover.
For this Podcast, we wanted to celebrate our 10 year anniversary as a company, not so much with a focus on talking about our company (we do that in the beginning), but more about focusing on the state of technology in the development industry, and how we think the business will evolve.
To do this, Botond and I are joined by some fellow ScreamingBox team members who can add to the conversation from the perspective of their expertise:
Balazs Beregnyei (Bereg) is one of the original co-founders of ScreamingBox, and is a EE specializing in software, firmware and hardware development.
David Levai is one of the owner/partners of ScreamingBox, and is a very experienced full-stack developer and an advanced technologist.
Mariann Farkas is a seasoned HR expert, and handles the recruiting and developer relations at ScreamingBox.
Anni Pecznyik is an experienced Project Manager and is one of the best PM’s here at ScreamingBox.
Listen in to our circular interrogation squad, as we explore the current state, and future direction of the development industry.
02:14 - How did ScreamingBox Start?
02:51 - How did we get the company name?
04:43 - Why do you think that it makes sense to have embedded skills in a company which mostly does web and mobile development projects?
06:28 - How does it make sense to start embedded projects while we are in the global supply shortage?
09:23 - What is your dream project?
09:46 - What are the challenges around having fully remote teams?
13:50 - What do you do in HR to have remote devs and team members in general?
17:26 - What is the technology that has had the biggest impact on development in the past 10 years?
23:13 - Mobile development?
27:12 - 10 years from now, what do you think digital development will look like? Or maybe five years?
34:13 - What new technologies do we find interesting now?
37:59 - What are the most important parts of managing projects?
42:35 - What kind of technologies are important for project management?
44:07 - How do you think that project management will change in the future?
47:03 - How would you describe your day of project management?
49:18 - How will the development industry change in the future, not in the next 10 years but in 100 years?
53:59 - Wrap up.
If you have questions for our Podcast Hosts or Guest, you can reach them here:
Dave Erickson = https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveerickson1/
Botond Seres = https://www.linkedin.com/in/botondseres/
Balazs Beregnyei = https://www.linkedin.com/in/bereg/
David Levai = https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdavidlevai/
Mariann Farkas = https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariann-farkas-8414381a7/
Anni Pecznyik = https://www.linkedin.com/in/annipecznyik/
To catch up with all our Podcasts, please go to = https://podcast.screamingbox.com/
You can find the video version of this Podcast here = https://sbox.bz/PC20vid
Creators & Guests
Host
Dave Erickson
Dave Erickson has 30 years of very diverse business experience covering marketing, sales, branding, licensing, publishing, software development, contract electronics manufacturing, PR, social media, advertising, SEO, SEM, and international business. A serial entrepreneur, he has started and owned businesses in the USA and Europe, as well as doing extensive business in Asia, and even finding time to serve on the board of directors for the Association of Internet Professionals. Prior to ScreamingBox, he was a primary partner in building the Fatal1ty gaming brand and licensing program; and ran an internet marketing company he founded in 2002, whose clients include Gunthy-Ranker, Qualcomm, Goldline, and Tigertext.
What is ScreamingBox Technology & Business Rundown ?
Join us for interesting conversations about technology and the business of IT.
SPEAKERS
Balazs Beregnyei, Anni Pecznyik, Botond Seres, Mariann Farkas, David Levai, Dave Erickson
Dave Erickson 00:31
Welcome to the ScreamingBox technology and business rundown podcast. I, Dave Erickson and Botond Seres are your hosts for this month's exploration of technology and business. This month is our 10th anniversary of founding our digital development company, ScreamingBox. This podcast is usually something separate. I mean, we're not doing it with the expectation, it’s going to generate a lot of business for us, but it's because we really enjoy furthering the discussion on technology and business, which are subjects we are very passionate about, and making a contribution to the global knowledge base on the subjects that we cover. For this podcast, we wanted to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, not so much with a focus on talking about our company, but more on a focus about the state of technology in the development industry and how we think business is going to evolve over the next 10 years. To do this, both Botond and I are joined by some of our fellow ScreamingBox team members who can add to the conversation from their perspective and their expertise. Balazs Beregnyei, also known as Bereg is one of the original co-founders of ScreamingBox and is a double E (Electronic Engineer) specializing in software, firmware and hardware. David Levai is one of our own partners and owners of ScreamingBox and he's a very experienced full stack developer and an advanced technologist and Mariann Farkas is a seasoned HR expert, who handles our recruiting and developer relationships at ScreamingBox. And Anni Pecznyik is an experienced Project Manager and is one of the best PM's here at ScreamingBox. So to start off, is there anyone who has something they want to kind of ask a question about?
Anni Pecznyik 02:14
Yeah, let's start with the fact that how did ScreamingBox Start?
Dave Erickson 02:20
Well, it started when four of us kind of got together, and we were looking to do development, I had found some needs in it. And we decided, okay, we knew developers throughout the world, so let's see what we can do to improve the way development is done. We all had experiences with working with development companies and developers, and we kind of wanted something a little bit better. And so that's how we started ScreamingBox.
Mariann Farkas 02:51
Dave, when I'm talking to candidates, I often get the question how we got the company name? Because it's a rather unique one. Can you share something about this?
Dave Erickson 03:00
Well, when we started, I kind of was the one everyone volunteered to do the marketing and my, my philosophy on that was we wanted something that stood out. And there were a whole bunch of development companies, you know, with names like expert, soft, and in great, soft and fast, soft, there were all kinds of these boring corporate development names. And I wanted something that stood out. I also needed something that was a good, you know, website or URL. And I was in the gaming industry for I don't know, 15 years. And early on in that we did a business proposal to build gaming computers. And I reserved the website or the URL ScreamingBox. And after that business plan didn't go through and it didn't work out, we still did gaming, but we didn't do that, that store, of selling gaming computers. So I had this URL left, and we went through a bunch of names. I'm like, you know, this is really a name that stands out and we already have the URL so coincidence, and everything kind of came together. And that's how we did it. And I've had several clients throughout the years, who said that one of the reasons they really looked at us was from our name; they just thought our name was interesting, and it was something that they wanted to be involved in. So it really does kind of stand out. And you know, obviously it makes for a great podcast name as well. So it all kind of came together.
Mariann Farkas 04:39
I think it was a good choice.
Dave Erickson
I do too.
Mariann Farkas
So Bereg, your area within the company is quite specific as you are dealing with embedded technologies. Why do you think that it makes sense to have embedded skills in a company which mostly does that and mobile development projects.
Balazs Beregnyei 05:03
Yeah, it absolutely makes sense. So the reality is that you cannot solve every problem with apps or websites or databases. So sometimes you need additional devices. Sometimes you need sensors, variables, IoT devices to collect your data. So you still need the web or mobile app to show the data,but the infrastructure is more than that and we already had some projects where we needed to prepare our software to communicate with embedded devices. More than that, we have a few embedded projects as well. And, and, I like to have a variety at ScreamingBox, where we can mix those skills together. And there are many development companies out there, and one of our ways to differentiate is the embedded skills. So, I hope we can close more deals with mixed technology.
Dave Erickson 06:03
I'm going to add a little bit to that, my background is contract electronics manufacturing. And even in the gaming industry, I was licensing our gaming brand to large manufacturers in Asia. So between Bereg and I, we actually have a lot of hardware experience. And so yeah, we've gotten some good hardware projects and we'll see what happens in the future.
Botond Seres 06:28
That's, that's some interesting points to bring up guys, but something pops into my mind. Like, you know, we recently did an episode on the global supply shortage of semiconductors. So it makes me wonder, like, how does it make sense to start embedded projects while we are in the global supply shortage?
Balazs Beregnyei 06:48
Yeah, sure, the short answer is, to prepare for the end of the global shortage. So just imagine what will happen without preparation. So, if you would stall your development at the same time, when the global supply chain finally starts working, you will need a significant time to produce anything. So your competitors will pass on you. So I know it is hard to pick a different process or a different power supply chain every time you produce some prototypes. It makes mass production almost impossible. But if you know that already, you can plan ahead. You can make the embedded forever flexible enough, you can test the data exchange between your, your hardware back end, and you can validate your project. So in general, it is still possible to develop good prototypes during the global shortage.
Botond Seres 07:46
So to expand upon that’s a bit hopeless, you want to prepare for the end of the shortage? That's, that's a great thing to do. What I'm wondering about is the shortage effect, the geographies that you regularly use in projects. So we know that, I think there is a push on something, something millimeter, but we have plans for at least eight previous generations. So is there any effect of maybe using older nodes more often these days or anything like that?
Balazs Beregnyei 08:18
Fortunately, it does not have a huge impact on us. So in embedded technology, we, we use old, we use old technology. So we are not in the industry which needs the highest transistor density. So it's not a problem at all.
Dave Erickson 08:39
Yeah, a lot of the surrounding circuits, you may have the latest and greatest processor, which is hard to get because it's new or whatever, but all the surrounding circuits are probably going to use really older technology, not so much because of the technology. But from the cost. The older technology is much more cost effective. And a lot of the surrounding circuits don't need that latest technology. They can use an older technology to support the newer technology.
Balazs Beregnyei 09:11
Yeah, I still have lots of friends who are using 8 bit processors for their project. It works really well.
Anni Pecznyik 09:23
Okay, and now that'd we learn about using the old technologies and the industry . So to say, let's go back to the future. What do you think, like, your dream project would be and would you still use the old technologies for that?
Balazs Beregnyei 09:36
Yes, sometimes old technology is the best choice. In general, my dream project would be a mixed embedded mobile project. And the beauty of this type of project is that there is no need to involve separate development partners for the different technologies, no need to have endless calls between the two important sides as defining the interface between the hardware company and the backend company. So we could solve all the problems in house, and we could co-design the hardware to fit the user interface perfectly. And it would be so interesting to do that with who we know. So it isn't only an IP challenge, but an HR challenge as well. But I guess Mariann has more thoughts on this. So, So Mariann, what are the challenges around having it fully remote?
Mariann Farkas 10:38
But, you know, just to point out, first, I think what type of work have their own challenges, so it's natural, that remote work also has its own challenges. I will only highlight a couple of those, and you can tell me how much it resonates with you or not, or if you would pick the same one. But I guess one of the one of the most important challenges is, is, in the in the, in the area of effective collaboration, and, and communication. So in the case of remote companies, you can really make use of the superpowers of async communication. And of course, you are packed with a lot of technology, a lot of, lot forms; in most of the cases, you have the knowledge about these, but you know, the challenge lies in making the right decision, which channels to use when you communicate your current co workers, and what if what is the most effective. So just to recall my own memories or, you know, rely on my own experience, when I joined ScreamingBox, it was my very first time being with a remote, fully remote company. And before that I was fully office based. And I remember that when we started working together, we dabbled in a lot of different topics. And the situation was like that. We were really busy, we had a lot of topics in common to work on. And in most of the cases, we were even in different time zones. So that was, that was a situation which we had to solve. And, you know, David started to socialize me, resocialize me with new platforms and new channels of communication. And I think I just really got accustomed to it. And I think this is one of the, most of the challenges to just to socialize your team members if they were not, or to improve, you know, the choices of the effective communication ways. I think, this is ,this is one of the challenges. I don't know how it resonates with you. Another thing I wouldn't think about is probably, you know, the little bit of loneliness, which can sometimes happen at remote companies. So you have to be much more mindful of how you socialize with your coworkers, how you communicate with them, because you know, the ad hoc element is missing. It's not like you just drop in someone's office and you just pull someone aside to discuss your current topics. But you really have to plan ahead a little bit. David is nodding. So maybe you, you are with me on this topic. But definitely, you know, the typical remote workers who we work with, they just enjoy, enjoy the flexibility, the possibility for focused work, and normally they don't suffer from loneliness, but some other people have a higher need for socializing. And I think we really have to have a special attention for those people as well.
David Levai 13:50
Yep, I can, I can relate as she said. What, what do you deem important when dealing with the remote devs of us or any team members? So what do you do in HR to have remote devs and team members in general?
Mariann Farkas 14:11
It's a couple of things to help and foster the work of remote teams. So I really think that you have to have the foundations right. So you know, you won't have satisfied and contented co-workers, developers, if you are not having the hygiene factors set right. So basically, first of all we tried to do, we try to build up the processes, the systems in a way that developers can always get the clear and direct information about the you know, basic inquiries, which they normally have inquiries like, you know, info about the running project, info about next or upcoming projects, accounting or payments related type of questions. So I think this is one of the most important things, to get the basics right. And then you can build everything else on top. We see, we pay special attention for, you know, trying to document ourselves and trying to provide context. It's especially important when we are onboarding our new colleagues. And I think we can really be efficient with using some knowledge sharing platforms, just to try to maintain a little bit of human touch. We also include videos, greetings, tutorials, which are just more recorded videos, and try to create the feeling of inclusion for newcomers from the first moment.
Anni Pecznyik 15:53
We can always turn to you with any questions.
Mariann Farkas 15:57
Yes, actually, on the, I think is, this is, this is very important. So my philosophy is that, even if you are a fully remote HR person, that it's absolutely important to be available, to be responsive and, you know, just, just, just, as I said, have the human touch, because my experience is that it always pays off. So you always, you know, receive the same attitude and behavior in return.
Balazs Beregnyei 16:28
Yeah. So, David, I'm just curious, what were you doing 10 years ago?
David Levai 16:35
That's a good question. I was graduating from high school. I mean, yeah, I was graduating from high school like 10 years ago. In the meantime, I was working with small business clients on a WordPress project. So I started, suddenly, the website and WordPress development around the age of 14 or something. And when I was at the end of high school, I already had some pocket money out of these small projects. And it is interesting to see how the development world evolved since then. It feels like it was a decade ago.
Mariann Farkas 17:26
Yeah, David they know that you always have your eyes set on the technology trends and you know what is the hottest technology on the market. So looking back, what do you think? What is the technology that had, had has had the biggest impact on development in the past 10 years, let’s say.
David Levai 17:45
Oh, you're gonna stick to the 10 years? Oh, yeah. On the, on the website side, probably moving to React JS and Angular first, that was the biggest step from the classic JavaScript word. We said 10 to 5-ish years ago, we still used Knockout JS, and these pre SBA, like frameworks for JavaScript development, and then React and, and, and Angular came. And those were pretty huge changes compared to how you wrote web applications in general, so much more. JavaScript got involved in the creation of just a simple website, that nowadays even for a static website, you almost like, almost necessary to use JavaScript at the point is some kind of JavaScript framework. ES 6 ECMAscript 6, that was another huge change. It was in 2015. It was a huge, and that was kind of how JavaScript measured. Before 2015, it was the same, hard to use language. The only thing that made it easier was JQuery. Now JQuery looks like an obsolete thing from 30 something years ago, but in general, it was the 2000s and early 2000s and 10s. But again, in 2015 ECMAscript 6 came. ECMAscript 6 changed everything in the JavaScript world. So JavaScript became a fully major usable language in itself. With ES 6 changes, then angular react, that kind of changed the whole front end and in general web development work. And so many great companies and open source projects started building on that, like, for example, next year, yes, that's my, that's my current favorite and 100’s of 1000’s of other developers favorite because they just make website development as easy and as accessible as it can be, at this, at this point, developing websites, you can develop much more complex websites compared to 5,10, 15, or whatever years ago. On one hand, it's so much easier. I'm so excited because to set up a new complex dynamic website with, with dynamic stuff like user authentication, different user roles, dynamic data connecting to different API's, it is, at this point, you can set up a whole SaaS company in it over a weekend or something. It would never be possible earlier. And we never thought that it's going to be possible. But with so many great third party API's, with so many great open source projects to set up a website that accepts new users, accepts payments, subscription payments, and you get something in return from the website, it is, it is less than a couple of days of work. And on the web, I think this is much more exciting and interesting compared to the generic idea of Web3 and Blockchain. That three, Blockchain is going to be exciting. Both of them are going to be exciting in the next couple of years, probably. But at this point, I feel like web three is trying to solve a problem that didn't exist right now. It is kind of moving backwards, we have a solution. But for what, we don't know it yet. And they try to use web three and blockchain for everything is going to be the Uber of, of Web3, Blockchain, AI enter another random buzzword, and you get anything that's new, which is going to be cool eventually. We're going to find problems to solve it. And what about Currently, it is much more important that with the third party solutions, No-Code tools, local tools. Next year, and similar companies, everyone has the option now to build MVPs, to validate ideas, to even build small sets that they can scale for hundreds of 1000’s of dollars of revenue per year, in, in days, or just a couple of weeks. That is something really exciting.
Dave Erickson 23:13
But maybe you can start talking about mobile
David Levai 23:17
Hoo, it's, it's a completely different topic. I feel like when I started developing for mobile, I, that was the years when we had to use Eclipse for, for Android development I think it was like 20, until 2014 or at that point, I did not develop iOS. It started a little bit later, but still not with Swift but Objective C. And then because I was using React, it made sense to try out React Native. Then I got up on the hype-train and started using React Native in 2017. And it felt like it is going to be the way, how to develop, how are we going to write mobile apps in the near future? It looked like that cross platform was the way to go. There were some solutions before React Native, it was PhoneGap and Cordova, Ionic, maybe PhoneGap and Cordova were the same, I don't even remember right now. But those solutions were hybrid mobile apps when you only get a native app and a web view that only showed you a website. So it was a completely different thing than React Native, and Xamarin completely changed the game. And React Native started to dominate the, the cross platform scene. Then Flutter came in couple of years later and started hammering React Native in every single place where React Native had issues. Flutter was more stable, it was easier to develop. Futter somehow felt more major in less time than then React Native Flutter felt more natural in like what, two years compared to the five years of React Native. But I do feel like it is like we are five to six years in now to different cross, cross platform native solutions, more than five to six years. But I do feel like it is still the wildest of, of cross platform stuff. I'm not sure about the, about the future. We're moving to. React Native goes on, like a complete, almost complete rewrite now, the full architecture and underlying stuff. Flutter feels like it is a lot more stable and a lot more usable for developers currently compared to React Native. And then the native platforms came out with their own cross platform like development languages. So for Android, there's Kotlin that could be able to do cross platform for iOS or Swift. It is an open source language that is kind of similar to either Courtland or TypeScript and there’s Swift UI for iOS now. You can almost drag and drop an iOS, a basic iOS app at this point. I do feel like, for, for mobile apps, we're either going to go for a really long way to find the most efficient solution to work with or the mobile devices are going to be out of, out of out of, the strength before we find a way to write more by code efficiently.
Dave Erickson 27:12
So David, what do you see is kind of the future development trends? So 10 years from now, what do you think development will look like? Or maybe five years? What do you think? Is it going to be different from where we're at now? Or what do you think it's going to be? You're gonna…
David Levai 27:30
Earlier I always thought people always said that AI is going to take over all of our jobs, especially jobs from developers who made the easier part of the, of the development. So for those who only do front end or only do like pretty common business logics and pretty common applications and nothing really serious and specific, and well it is, it is undergoing right now, not like we imagined, so it is not like you at this point, it is not like you write a message to some AI chatbot that I need a website with green buttons and I want it to look great I want it to pop and they wanted to sell millions of dollars in a day. But with low code and no code tools, we're pretty close to it at this point. Using Baba or similar, not good, no good tools, it is like using Sketch. I think Sketch is the, is the app where you can have beginner developers to learn to code by putting together like, puzzle-like code pieces one after another. So building an app with no code tools is like that, at this point, getting different images or copy. So if you want new images to your website, if you want a landing page copy, if you want blog articles or videos, you can ask different API's. That is something we should really take seriously we should really consider either using or developing them because AI generated content and almost made easier, less complex. Business applications are a real thing now and I think in five years we will be able to be at even more complex stuff with local tools, and AI generated stuff. Again, I feel like traditional site builders or traditional website or front end devs are more in trouble at this point. But in five years, it might be a bigger struggle for, for more developers in more places. But it's so much better for clients. So like, if, if we just decide to consult with a client that helps them to use these tools to their advantage, at this point, there's no need to spend half a million dollars to build something that is not as unique, but that is just similar to other apps. There's a reason for that. Why would they spend half a million dollars on that, and they can spend, like, what 50 to 100k, and spend the rest of marketing?
Dave Erickson 31:19
I agree with you, David. I think that that's where it's gonna go in five years. And as a development agency, we obviously will have lots of developers who are there to help clients figure out what parts of the project that they can have input on and use the low code tools for that, and then pass on whatever they've done to us so that we can do the stuff that you can't do through those tools. And I think that's going to make for a much better kind of client, developer relationship. In the end.
Balazs Beregnyei 31:54
I have a little bit different opinion on AI. So you know, for example, 40 years ago, the biggest challenge was how to write a chess application, which can beat a human per champion. And it is easier, it is a much easier problem. When it comes to replacing a developer with AI, it is more like human-like software. And, and it is always, we always need 50 more years. And it was the same in the 1960s and it is the same today. So of course we can, we can do some easiest, easy challenges, we can solve easy challenges with AI. But you know, like, thinking it's a bit more.
David Levai 32:48
Right, right. I think the role of AI here is not to replace a developer and work like a traditional developer. The role of AI here I think, is rather helping out a real developer. So instead of, of me having to write the same code for authentication, as I wrote in the past 10 years in every single year with little to no modifications, did all of the ways that I can completely outsource these routine tasks, and instead of spending another 40 hours on something I built for 40 hours a year ago, now I can just outsource it to an AI that already has a solution for that. So it's not like real bad programming partner.
Balazs Beregnyei 33:42
Yeah, I would like to have an AI which would be able to refresh my browser to the inverse. I don't want AI to write the code instead of me. But,
Botond Seres 33:59
That's how you get AR pricing, fuel to get your first job. So,
Dave Erickson 34:08
Long live Skynet.
David Levai 34:13
So what about you Botond? What do you think? What new technologies are you interested about? What are development technologies that you find interesting right now?
Botond Seres 34:29
Well, that's an excellent segue from the topic that you just touched on earlier. And it is AI, but not in the way that you or Bereg think, really. I do use an ID, which is a bit more expensive, but much heavier on the EA assistants, and I find it incredibly helpful that I practically never write variable names anymore, because it just knows like, what, what I would name my variable suggested just give some name, it's fine, every time. Now, it also drops in code snippets, like, for each and is the same for stuff. whenever it's needed, it also gives me recommendations that, like, hey, maybe you don't want to use these functions, maybe you want to use these because these are better, newer, stuff like that. And what I'm really excited about is when we get to a point where it's not just the same static AI for everyone. But when it is a very shallow, but very detailed copy of your own coding style. So everyone has their own style. I'm sure David you have yours, or you have your own, I have mine. And it's essential that we want an assistant that can help us out to remind us of the best practices that we used. So, for example, if I could tag a solution, like this is the definitive way to process many, many entities. Right? So whenever I do a piece of code that goes through a list of entities, then it just pops up, like, with recommendation like, hey, use this before and mark that as your preferred solution, would you like to apply it here? It doesn't even need to convert it, just like, recommend that like, Hey, I know you want to use this, but maybe you forgot.
David Levai 36:49
Yeah, I do something similar. I do use GitHub copilot sometimes, not always. The main difference, what I've heard is that GitHub copilot doesn't use my code specially to give me recommendations, but rather, everyone's publicly available code from GitHub. And over the time, it learns, what are those code snippets. Which is great to recommend, because most people have started to accept that and use that. I love that because it kind of sometimes it just challenges my thoughts. I have an idea how to solve a problem, and GitHub co-pilot just jumps in with a completely different one. Sometimes it's better, sometimes I'm the smarter one. But it's not it's not gonna be for so long.
Dave Erickson 37:45
Well, maybe we can talk to Jeff Bezos, and he can do Alexa for developers. You're just coding, you just ask Alexa a question and it'll give you the code that you should use.
David Levai 37:59
Yeah. So Annie, we, I feel like we do work really great together. And I feel like your ideas from project management made the company in itself better, not just the efficiency, but like client handling and, and every single place that touches project management. How do you do this? What do you think, that are the most important parts of managing projects?
Anni Pecznyik 38:33
Okay, so you already mentioned the client part in the developer part so I would say like, for me, the most important one is communication and people management in general. And when we talk about people management, within the scope of project management, I think we're always talking about like, developers as your own, own team soo to say, and the clients’ team. And you have to like, communicate differently with them. So with your own team, like Botond already mentioned, like as the development style, everyone has their own style, everyone has their own, especially in remote working and freelancing, their own timelines, their own like preferred way to work on things and you have to like really know your people or the people on the project. And you have to like, as a project manager of course, you have to, like stay on top of everything, have an overview, you know, what comes after what, what are the dependencies? And of course, what I experienced in the past that sometimes like, Okay, I'm the developer, I'm developing the code and I am developing my part you're developing your part and it's not meeting and communication wise. As a project manager and like, seeing the whole picture, the bigger picture you have to like, always know where to come to what and where. And for people to like, talk with people to know that people have to get updates from them. For example, some of my developers like to like send me an update or send me on Slack a note, another one prefers “Okay, I will call you tell you in two minutes, note it downplay and then I'm done and then go back to coding”. So you have to know the communication with the developers to like, stay on top of the project. And then come to the client management part where you kind of have to, like say everything, of course to the client, do the reports for them, or do the status for them or just like, have a daily call with them. And especially for bad news, you have to like, use a different kind of communication. So you can't, can't just say to them, “okay, this is not going well, the whole staging environment is wrong”, you have to like, wisely choose your words to, to specialize “Yeah, we have kind of a bit of an obstacle with the staging environment, but we're already working on that and you will get, so you have to like always use the positive aspect by finishing finishing off to them. So like, the communication and the people management and knowing what everyone like, requires personally is really important. In it, of course, like the basic project management, like hard skills, so to say like know, the methodologies, know the, know your projects, know what would like, benefit the best from it. So for example, for a lot of projects, it is really complex, it's hard to use Agile, which is like, really trending now see Scum, uh Scrum and Kanban. But like, for a really complex project, where for example, there's a lot of backend side or like a whole backend rewrite, you can’t use Agile, because there are, are just simply Agile, because there are so many dependencies that you can just like put a little part on it. So you have to like, know, how to execute, have to like, mix the methodologies. For example, you have to know how to, monitor the progress that we're okay, we're doing Waterfall in the backend, but frontend wise we can do full Scrum. There are like, the little user stories, which you can use here at a task. And we can like, deliver constantly. Whereas in the backend side, it's possible that the client will not see, like so to say the next step for a few weeks, because it's a whole backend rewrite, and and they just don't see the variety in front end and UI, they can see the little things, for example, okay, this, I don't know, this Button is red. And you have to like, learn to,how to communicate these things, have to like, mix those things together so they always get something, so they always feel like, okay, it's going forward. The client is happy and the team, as the client is happy, the team has like, so to say, the space and safe environment to improvise, to innovate, to use their own style, and own methods, as the developers. So I would say yeah, maybe this, these two things are the most important ones.
Balazs Beregnyei 42:35
So Anni, what kind of technologies are important for project management?
Anni Pecznyik 42:39
Okay, so for project management, the technologies are mainly on, on the hard skill part . So by planning by executing a project, or organizing it, and what tool I use the more often or like, I think it's the most important to kind of use either Gantt charts or like any kind of roadmaps to, like, follow the project and visualize them , because it's easy to like, show the clients and they just kind of have a deadline, kinds of help like, the little things. Okay, what comes after what . So I would say like, the Gantt chart is the generally the top tool to use in either which one, for example, like Trello, or like any Kanban board, we could use, like, Click Up, we could use Height , we could use one thing where we can like, show visually, the progress where we are, what's, what's in to do, what's in progress. Okay, where are we blocked, for example, it's really important to say, like, see where the project is blocked, where we like having a backfall , currently, I would say for Sprint set like features, I really like using Height . That's one of my favorite ones and there are really, like, good tools, for example, like airtable or Height for like, a safe for scum environment to see. And as a communication tool, it's of course, like Slack, Google Meets, Zoom, any kind of communication tools.
Dave Erickson 44:07
So Anni, how do you think that project management will change in the future? Like, what do you, what do you think are, is kind of the future vision of how project management will work, say 5 years, 10 years from now?
Anni Pecznyik 44:25
Okay, so David already mentioned the parts where AI comes in some development, and I would say in project management, there's gonna be like, kind of the same shift happening. Like the machine learning driving automation technologies will like, improve a lot and and it will like spread over the 1000s of tools we already have to follow up on the project. And I think a lot of like, basic management stuff, so to say, will be automated because like a robot can do that. For example, which I'm thinking of right now is like, Google Meets. When you record the meeting on Google meet, it's already like doing the transcription if you turn it on, so it can automatically right now, only English, but it automatically put the transcriptions for the recording. And I'm thinking like, it's just the baby steps away for basically writing a meeting notes for you, right after the project to like, have the code words that say, and just like put the meeting notes in it. And I'm thinking, a lot of management will be done by this, for example, like using your reminders, using meeting notes or using any project management tools, to follow up. The thing I think, it's, like, even more automated than it is now.
Dave Erickson 45:41
Yeah, I think, you know, the most important part I see of project management is that communication with the project owner, and the team. And I don't know how much automation will help in that. I think the automation will help project managers have the information they need. But the project managers are always going to have to figure out how to communicate things to the product owner so they understand it, what's important and what they need to focus on. I think AI will have a hard time doing that, but I’m sure it…Yeah. All right. So,
Balazs Beregnyei 46:30
I would like to see an AI, which would flag a situation, the exact day when the project can go south. And it will be quite easy to train the AI for that because more than half of the IT projects are not finishing really well.
Anni Pecznyik 46:50
Yeah. Or just like showing the alternatives. If it's, I don't know, something isn't delayed, and this will happen, but the other part of it, I think AI can do that. Hopefully it can do the communication part.
Botond Seres 47:03
How would you describe your day of project management?
Anni Pecznyik 47:12
Oh, that's an interesting question. Well, it always depends. But I would say in the morning, you always, like, have to be working in different time zones. It's often like, I wake up in Hungary and for example, I have like five emails already from Australia from one of our clients. And so each day, which is fixed for me, is to like, go over them, to like go over what happened the time, in the other time zone when I was sleeping peacefully. And, and it's like, just happens. So, so, the first thing for me is always like that, then get the status from the developers. Sometimes when we have daily stand ups, that's always in the morning, so that's two or three times a week, depending on which projects we're working on currently. So that, that's kind of fixed like after standup, I always have to like, write the, write the meeting notes to like, send the questions to like, get back on the client. Okay, we need this from you, get on the developers. Okay, you promise this to the client yesterday, are we still on track? Is this still happening? Did something happen within the last hours that will just like, change the things that, that I have to communicate for the client? So like, then comes the administrative part of it. And like, like I said, with the time zones, like everyone's working on their own, on time zones, or methods , on everything, so it's always like, Okay, I finished my task, and then someone pings me with something, which is like, another project. But I would say like the normal, Hungarian, 9 to 5 is mostly filled with the administrative tasks to follow up the thing, to create the user stories, to like, maybe watch some recordings. To go over the user stories, go over the requirements, go over the changes, talk with the developers to see if we're still on track or not on track? And at the end of my day, my day, there comes the American timezone and there are the meetings again. Yeah. Well, they have communication basically.
Botond Seres 49:18
Nice, that's, that's really nice for people who really enjoy just having meetings all day. Well, Dave, if you don't mind me asking how do you think the development industry is going to change in the future? And I'm gonna throw your curveball here, not in like the next 10 years but then like 100 years?
Dave Erickson 49:43
Well,I if, Okay, in 100 years, um, you know, you'll, you'll put on a headset and it will read your brainwaves and it will see kind of the product vision that you have in your head and then it'll feed all that to an AI, who will interrogate you and ask you a bunch of questions. And then it'll go off and write the product and make it work and test it. And then there'll be a finished product. And you can go through and verify that it was built the way you want it to. So if I had to say what will happen in 100 years, that's what I'm thinking, right? Because if you think about it, you know, 120 years ago, we didn't fly, and we didn't drive cars. And that was 120 years. So 100 years from now, why not? Right. And as far as in more of the our lifetimes, and in the near future, I think development is going to change, because I think the emphasis of development will no longer be focused so much on the tech stack and the code. I think it's really going to be focused on, how does the technology solve business problems? Like, for us, our best clients, are the clients where they come to us and say, Well, I think I need to update my website. And after we have a conversation with them, it becomes clear, they have a bunch of business challenges. And what they're really looking for is solutions to these business challenges that come from technology, whether it's automating manual processes, automating their workflows, making it so their workflows integrate into their website, or their e-commerce or their back end, things that make solutions for businesses. I think that's really the focus. And that's kind of what we've focused on, right? And yes, we have to focus on the tech stack and the code. And sometimes we get clients who come to us and say, hey, I want to build this tech stack. We're already building it, we just need developers, we need you guys to handle this tech stack. But our best clients are ones who come to us and say, Look, I know I need something, I don't quite know what I need, but I need a solution. These are the problems that I'm having. And then we figure out how to use technology to solve those problems. And I think that the focus in the next 5 to 10 years, that's going to become more of the focus. Not so much. How do I make my website pretty, but how do I solve this business challenge? How do I get more business? How do I handle the business that I already have? How do I, you know, make it more cost effective? How do I become more profitable? Those are really the, where the focus of development is going to kind of shift to. I'm already seeing that in the conversations I have with potential clients, that they're really looking for solutions to business problems. And development just happens to offer those solutions, right. But part of those solutions are project management, like Anni and part of those solutions are quality and UX and and, you know, who are the right people or business analysts or doing a lot of exploration about what the market needs are marketing solutions, right. So I think the future of development in 10 years is that the clients are going to go through a business process versus a development process. Well, I want to thank you, everybody who's been on the podcast, and again, Happy 10th anniversary, and may we have another 10. And to our listeners, next month, we will have another interesting podcast. Thank you. All right.
Dave Erickson 53:59
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