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Communication in standups: watch the team, not the speaker
You can gain a lot of insights about people’s mood and reaction to news and disucssions just by watching them. One habit I have picked up is during the daily standup, instead of watching the person speaking, I look around and watch the other members of the team. If I know the speaker is discussing…
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Software’s worst enemy: consensus
A vote for everybody is a vote for nobody. Photo from here. The best software and products dazzle out of the box. They set new boundaries and exceed expectations. And they don’t settle for less than outstanding. Designing software with lots of stakeholders is complicated, but when the product manager prioritises reaching a compromise between…
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Focusing on your product vision
In agile we promote working in small iterations, and building just enough to solve your problem today. I try to encourage my team to avoid designing a problem to the very end, but to focus only on what is necessary to solve the first; most basic problem. BUT: focus and iterative execution should not be…
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The dinosaur might be the solution
What happens if you start building a castle and you end up with a dinosaur? That’s ok – maybe in the end the dinosaur is the solution to your actual problem. What happens if you build a castle, but it turns out you really needed a dinosaur? Well, then you’re in trouble. With any creative…
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Another reason working in silos is wasteful and inefficient
We had some tradesmen in our apartment building this week to renovate the stairwell. It was a bit depressed looking and the old carpet was a bit naff; so time for a refresh. So the first tradesmen on the scene were the ‘stairs guys’. These guys pulled the old carpet and re-laid some new stuff,…
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Better scrum user stories: Split stories horizontally, not vertically
Teams often run into trouble in a sprint when they’re trying to work with poorly split stories. Stories that are too big, too small, confusing or that mix the problem with the solution… We should split stories into small, discreet chunks of functionality. A single story should generally be the smallest discreet piece of functionality…
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Get it over with
I recently wrote about the Satir change curve, which is a model for describing the impact of new processes on the performance/velocity of a team or organisation. In short, your velocity is going to go down before it goes up. Understanding this curve, and having the courage to stick it out, is the key to…
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Stick it out
You can’t change your shoes while you’re running. Have you ever heard the expression “it’s gonna get worse before it gets better?” If you’re talking about improving processes or ways of working in your organisation, then chances are this expression’s probably true. Any new process or change in ways of working has a wearing in…
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Copywriting is interface design
Your product’s user interface is its window to the world. It’s how your users interact with you, and how you interact with your users. The words on your interface are central to the user experience, and crafting perfect copy is every bit ‘User Experience Design’ as designing the user flows, choosing colours and designing screen…
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Don’t be evil (product designers)
Today, for the first time in what seems like ages, my PC caught the flu. This time it was a particularly annoying piece of malware called HDD Low; one of those fake system config utilities that spams you with fake warnings about your hard drive or memory until you give in and buy their special…