Building a Research Flywheel: A Helpful Guide for Product Managers & Their Teams
Product Management Today Webinar – March 2022 You’ve heard of Amazon and Vanguard, two of the most successful customer-focused businesses in the world, but have you heard Jim Collins’ Flywheel Effect? You might be surprised to learn that neither of these businesses would be where they are today without it. Every step of the product […]
3 questions that will help you hire the right design leader
Attracting candidates, finding the right fit and helping your chosen design leader them launch successfully is hard and often ends badly. As a former consultant and the first design leader in an organization in more than one organization I’ve seen that companies fail when look for a magical being to solve all their problems. Instead […]
Don’t want to be an order taker? Stop taking orders
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 […]
Helping a CXO let go
I’ve seen CEOs who are deeply involved in color schemes, CTOs who want to control every architecture decision and product leaders who are very particular about agile rituals. I’ve written before about how to manage up. If you want to manage a CXO (CEO, CPO, CTO or one of the random other ones) and get […]
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
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 […]
So what does an ideal UX team look like?
Last week the head of product for a small company asked me what the right size, skills and make up was for his UX team. Across the industry we’ve seen a trend towards smaller ratios of UX designers to engineers. My team serves about 30 clients with User Experience and we typically run at ratios […]
Rebooting our UX and Product Management career path
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 […]
My favorite resources on customer and user psychology
Last weekend I taught a workshop at DC Web Women‘s Code(Her) Conference and I mentioned a couple of my favorite books or resources on customer and user psychology. These have helped me and I hope they do the same for you. Please share your favorite in the comments. Product Psychology Some of the top talent […]
Research vs Experimentation
I’m not much into to fishing but the few times I’ve gone out on a charter with friends it’s been pretty fun. This might be because the captain knows where the good spots are or can find them using fish finder technology. They also know what bait may tempt the fish. When planning new client […]