One thing I've strived to maintain as engineering has grown, is the involvement of engineers in support. Why? Andy hit the nail on the head with his recent post on "All of our developers start in support". In it he said,

You can’t get a good feel for what customers want when you’re sitting behind your IDE listening to product managers. Only on the front lines can you hope to understand what people want to do with your product and how you can make it better.

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Before Easter, on a visit from the States, Andrew (the CEO) restructured the engineering team by moving two of the senior engineers into product management roles. The aim of this restructure for the business is to bring a dedicated focus into building successful products to the product development part of the company. Andrew has discussed some of his reasoning behind the change in "Organizing for Innovation (Part 1) – Why?"

While talking about the proposed change and how it would affect my team as well as myself, my wife Helen reminded me of a book I'd read many years ago. Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Johnson talks about how change affects people. Presented in the form of a parable, it features "Sniff & Scurry" and "Hem & Haw" whose cheese one day disappears. As Haw goes through the process of finding "new cheese", he provides insights into how to handle change in a series of "writings on the wall". The following one

Enjoy Change! – Savor the adventures and enjoy the taste of new cheese!

got me thinking about what opportunities the restructure would bring.

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