Hallway Studio

Unlocking potential with scaffolding

Graphic with teal in the background with blue, red and green rectangles that look like balconies

As leaders, we need to nurture our team members’ growth and help them develop new skills. Too often we toss them into the deep end and hoping they swim, or micromanage every move they make. Neither works that well. By borrowing a powerful tool from the education field we can enable team members to soar […]

Don’t want to be an order taker? Stop taking orders

Boone Drug in Boone, NC

When you sit the chair and ask your hair stylist for a certain style of cut or color chances are they listened carefully, considered your face shape, hair type, how much time you spend your hair (not much if you are me) and your skill in doing hair (none if you are me). Hopefully at […]

Mysteries of Product-Engineering Disfunction

I’ve seen a similar pattern pop up in three different companies and I’m writing this to see if anyone else has seen it too. Each company is in a different industry. One is small, one is medium and one is massive. The leaders are frustrated with the lack of progress and the amount of friction […]

How to avoid a $32M flop: Inside the Hertz-Accenture Lawsuit

Last week, Hertz sued former marketing partner Accenture LLP for failing to deliver a promised redesign of their website and mobile apps. While the complaint is still in dispute, companies can learn from what we know about this alleged breach of contract. Where does a big project like this go so wrong it ends up in a […]

How to plot your next career move

Child looking at rocks in Zion National Park

I’ve spent my career wandering. When the path seemed interesting and scary, I followed it. If I needed a skill I didn’t have, I chose a path where I could learn it. It’s easy to get lost on the path. It’s easy to get distracted from what we really want by status, money or comparisons […]

Rebooting our UX and Product Management career path

Sketch with colorful lines

Last year we merged our Product Management and UX teams. We operate as a single team now with  shared management so some of our PMs have managers who are UXers and vice versa. One of the main concerns we heard from the team was the career path wasn’t clear so we got right to work […]

The product development leadership gap

A few weeks ago I met with the product and design team members from a big company. I asked them what they were driving towards. Their first answer was to say they need reduce the metric for the amount and effort a customer needed to put in to make a purchase. After doing some work […]

How the orange juice test can teach you how to manage a tough situation

Market in Barcelona

I’m a huge fan of the content Intercom puts out and through them I discovered Gerald M. Weinberg’s The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully. It’s full of amusing and good advice. One of the best bits is about the orange juice test and it’s something I’ve used to teach my team how […]

My favorite posts of 2016

2016 was a big year for me. I was asked to lead and transform the Product Consulting team at 3Pillar. It’s been great to bring such a talented, adaptable and fun group of people together and learn from them. Here are a few of my favorite posts from this year: Determining the First Release The […]

Why you should use outside product managers

Airplane Wing

Note: This was originally published on the 3Pillar blog and has been republished with permission An engineering candidate asked me why a product development services company like us has product managers. I loved the candor and directness of the question. Here is an expanded version of my answer. Why product management? Increased return on investments […]