High-quality software is built by small, interdisciplinary teams aligned to a shared outcome. Teams that have a shared context, tight feedback loops, and free-flowing communication—attributes that are even more critical for a project with seemingly impossible requirements. 

In this episode, Jerome met with 8th Light team members Mike Danaher and Hani Kruger about a recent project to create a prototype intended to attract potential investors. The constraint of an extremely tight timeline acted like a crucible for quality software practices, leaving little room for error. In this discussion, they dive into the project details and explain how a small team working closely together delivered an ios app as a high-fidelity prototype in 3 short weeks. 

• (02:09) - The idea
• (06:26) - Project kickoff
• (07:27) - Bringing in Design
• (12:04) - Communication across timezones
• (17:20) - Centering outcomes over outputs
• (19:28) - What was built
• (26:52) - The client as Product Manager
• (28:16) - Good, not great
• (29:40) - Lessons learned
• (35:04) - The result

Mike Danaher is a project director and long-time leader at 8th Light. He joined the company in 2014, and he’s gone from a crafter to a project director with experience leading dozens of projects, legacy and greenfield alike.

Hani Kruger recently joined 8th Light as a UX designer. She has a background in research and usability and has worked in startup environments as well as big tech.

Jerome Goodrich leads amazing software teams to design and develop thoughtful solutions to complex problems as a principal software crafter at 8th Light. He loves pairing strenuous hikes with deep conversations and is always trying to see things clearly and with an open heart. Jerome lives much of his life off of the internet, but he occasionally writes on his website.

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This podcast was produced in partnership with Dante32.