In my previous post, I said that teams need to stop shipping features and focus on creating value. I promised a tactical view of how an existing organization (i.e. not a ground-floor startup) could bring about that change. I will start with a little tl:dr summary: 10 Characteristics of a Lean* product team: you are composed of small, goal-driven, cross-functional …
Innovation teams need generalists
Startups need execution-oriented, “whatever it takes” generalists. After my talk at the AgileUX conference a few months ago, a soon-to-be entrepreneur came up to me explaining their intent to hire the best UX, best visual designer, best copywriter, best SEO person, best node.js person, etc etc and put it all together to make magic. Because it’s all about team right? …
Pride and the Pressure Cooker
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 …
Free Your Mind
A core concept in “lean startup” is that validated learning needs to be your initial measure of progress, not deliverables of other kinds. However, I suspect that many people struggle to internalize this and fully put it to work. Learning doesn’t feel like traditional measures of success. It’s not a line up and to the right; it’s not a successfully …