Pride and the Pressure Cooker

Giff Constableinnovation, startups

Last night I watched Morning Glory, a cute movie about a plucky, underdog tv producer who makes her dreams come true. All in all, it is not a terrible metaphor for innovating new products. She succeeds by applying creative thinking, willingness to take risks, good management, metrics-driven feedback loops, and sheer hard work. However, she doesn’t step up her game …

Experiments (what are MVPs?)

Giff Constablelean

I recently gave a talk to LUXr New York about MVPs, or really about running experiments. Instead of using the term “MVP”, I find myself using the word experiment for a few different reasons: less jargon; a clearer connotation of lightweight, learning, and not necessarily tied to digital product, and a clearer signal that this is about bringing the scientific …

Business Assumptions Exercise

Giff Constablelean, startups

I recently updated my “startup assumptions” deck to the below version (link), and took the team involved with my current project through the exercise. It was a great way to get hypotheses on the table and see if people are on the same page. The next phase is prioritizing the assumptions and starting to run experiments to de-risk the important …

Strategic UX vs Tactical UX

Giff Constabledesign, lean, startups, UI/UX

There are strategic UX leaders, and then there are tactical UX implementers. To be a strategic leader, one needs to broaden thinking beyond design and usability, and start thinking holistically about critical business goals and risks. As the broader UX profession moves from being artifact-based to results-based, this is going to be critical. However, I see the online UX community …