No Way To Start A Relationship
So, you’re almost ready to launch. You set up a delightfully intriguing splash page that invites people to sign up for your preview release for forking over their email address. You rejoice at all the...
View ArticleProgram Standards: You’re Gonna Need ‘Em
Program standards must be established corresponding to technical standards. . . . Technical standards are only a means to an end, whereas programs are an end in themselves. . . . Leave this matter to...
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The rotating dessert tray
Object lessons on experience and design can come from unexpected places – in this case an episode of This American Life recorded in a 24-hour period at the Golden Apple diner in Chicago. Picture a...
View ArticleHuman experience
I’m hardly the first person to complain about the word “user” to describe people who do stuff with software. But, in the “User Experience” community it is rare, at best, to see anyone questioning what...
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Un-human experience
A few days ago I advocated using the word “human” in place of “user” when thinking about crafting experiences. In short, such language would make it easier to remember we are making things that people...
View ArticleChairs with wheels
A former colleague once told me a story that delightfully illustrates the nature of business decisions relative to technology: Years ago he was pitching a big consulting project to a major telco. The...
View ArticleMobile app vs. mobile web
We’re often asked about the relative merits of building a native mobile app versus spending the energy on a mobile-specific version of a web site. This question is most relevant when the content of the...
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Strategy and negative space
“Keep your options open,” my mom used to say to me. Perhaps that’s good advice for a 12-year-old, but it’s terrible advice for your new business/product. Every company wants a strong strategy, a...
View ArticleConferences are hard
Having had a week to recover from our first Products Are Hard conference, here are a few lessons learned. Not all of these lessons are generalizable, but giving a flavor for the behind-the-scenes is...
View ArticleChoosing a technology is choosing a culture
Which technology is best to use in launching a new site or web application? There was a time when I would answer this question by getting into the details of the various features and performance...
View ArticleThe five pillars of product management
A few years ago, as I prepared to leave a product manager position, I trained a junior member of the team, someone new to the role of product management, as my replacement. I told him the role comes...
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PAH13 wrap-up
PAH13 is in the books. By all measures it was a success. Thanks to the over 200 people (30% more than PAH12) who made it a great day. Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Particularly...
View ArticleText trumps video for remote teams
Over the last few years we’ve done a fair amount of work with remote development teams. One of our current clients is going through a company-wide transition from waterfall to agile, and they use...
View ArticleThe age of holistic product development
Over the last decade a few major themes have dominated the evolution of product development, particularly software development: a shift towards agile practices, customer-centric decision-making, and...
View ArticleDeconstructing Agile Part 1: The Language of Agile is Broken
The vocabulary of Agile does more harm than good. In helping companies adopt Agile methods we find we need to correct mistaken impressions people have gotten from Agile literature. Our first task is...
View ArticleAgile for Executives
Often when we work with product and engineering teams to improve their processes we also end up talking with executives that aren’t directly involved in building the product. Of course, products are...
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