Working on a greenfield project with a great team of developers is probably the best thing that can happen. You’re engaged in shaping and molding your ideas into code. Better if you’re an agile team, continuously improving and adding value.
But as the project nears completion, something happens in other side of the company, a place the developers are usually not familiar with - the marketing department. From thousand horror stories on The Daily WTF and the ever-so-true Dilbert strips, a time honored cliché is formed about the marketing department: a bunch of evil people, who will sell their soul (along with non-existent features and promises) to the customers, completely ignoring the actual product. Oh, and they make PowerPoint presentation with words like synergize.
It’s important to realize that marketing is a necessary step towards releasing a great product. Everything from branding, logos, icons and content on the webpages can make or break your software. It’s imperative that the marketing department understands the product and the target audience for it. It is especially true if you’re building something other than a twitter client - a software development tool perhaps. Marketing should be absolutely clear on what the product does, how it does it, and most importantly, what problems it is designed to solve. Only then they are free to create the best campaign to make a great product awesome!
As developers we know best what our product does. It is our job to make sure everyone else in the company knows as well. Don’t be afraid - talk to your marketing department and/or product manager. Make sure you’re both synchronized, and if there are concerns or issues - raise and fix them, before it’s too late.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject, please leave comments below!