Part of the reason organisations struggle to switch to managing to outcomes is that its difficult to measure employee performance. Once that becomes difficult, how do we know someone did a good job? How do we know if that person should receive a raise? A promotion?
Metrics Mountain: A realistic visualisation of any customer lifecycle metrics
For as long as I've been working professionally the visual metaphor for moving customers through an experience has been The Funnel. The idea being that we have the most amount of people engaged at the beginning of an experience and as the experience goes on, fewer and fewer people are still participating in it. You've … Continue reading Metrics Mountain: A realistic visualisation of any customer lifecycle metrics
The Hypothesis Prioritization Canvas
How to prioritize your hypothesis so you know what to test first.
The Lean UX Canvas
(Lean UX Canvas V2 is now live) In most of my work these days I don't often use an official canvas. I prefer to pick and choose the assumptions that can be found on the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas and others as appropriate for the client, project or initiative I'm working on and weave them together … Continue reading The Lean UX Canvas
Agile vs Lean vs Design Thinking
There’s an unforgettable scene in my favorite movie, Goodfellas, where Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta pay a late night visit to Pesci’s mom. Despite their best efforts to leave quickly she invites them to eat something. During the late-night meal, they discuss a painting in her kitchen. The painting is of a man … Continue reading Agile vs Lean vs Design Thinking
Leaving Neo
Yesterday was my last day at Neo Innovation. In the last 3+ years my colleagues and I worked to build a consulting company that did more than just deliver powerpoint decks and spec documents. We created a company that built new digital businesses. Along the way we learned how to provide lean startup, agile delivery and … Continue reading Leaving Neo
Lean UX in the Enterprise
I've spent the past 5 years speaking, teaching, coaching and working with teams aspiring to bring a customer-centric point of view to their product development processes. Some have seen great success. Some, despite strong desire and a willingness to adapt have struggled. The challenges the successful teams have overcome have rarely been tactical ones. They've … Continue reading Lean UX in the Enterprise
Agile is not a substitution for vision
In his blog post from 2011, Mike Cottmeyer, an agile consultant and coach, listed off the 13 most common reasons his clients began their agile transformation. The list contains reasons like, “faster time to market”, “early ROI” and “risk reduction and predictability.” My sense is that this spectrum of drivers falls along a timeline … Continue reading Agile is not a substitution for vision
The biggest mistake in product discovery: missing the value
In 2010 we visited Ireland for the first time. My wife and I made Galway our first stop. This was the first time we'd been this far away from the kids so we wanted to make sure our mobile phones worked properly. Sure enough, as these things have a way of working out, we were … Continue reading The biggest mistake in product discovery: missing the value
Agile doesn’t have a brain
My friend Bill Scott once said at a conference, "Agile doesn't have a brain." What he meant by that is due to Agile's software engineering roots many organizations that have adopted Scrum, XP and similar methodologies have done so through their engineering departments. This has led to the creation of amazing software development departments that … Continue reading Agile doesn’t have a brain