A few months ago I was in a design review for a new feature. The designs presented were intended as a best-guess, minimal version of what the feature could eventually become. As the designer went through the prototype, team members…
Somewhere right now, a product team is maintaining two versions of the same feature. One of them, nobody decided to build. It’s an AI chatbot, bolted onto an analytics product. Ask it anything about your data and it’ll build you…
The plan was charts. The AI would sit on top of the data the platform already collected, and naturally, it would visualize it: dashboards, graphs, a report if you wanted one. Nobody thought to question this. A data platform’s AI…
The trend trap Every few years (or less), a new technology comes along and captures the attention and imagination of company leaders and investors everywhere. “Mobile first.” “Cloud-native.” “Blockchain.” “Native AI.” Teams use these terms as a new identity. They…
Last year I participated in a long bike ride (granfondo, if you are familiar) organized by a local bicycle club. They promoted a “bonus” at the rest stop: ribollita (a Tuscan soup). Definitely nice for a cold day. After 30k,…
While many people think user research is expensive, it’s usually cheaper than building a product customers won’t pay for – or won’t use. Research helps you get it right the first time. Even with AI shrinking the distance between ideas…
Three people click the same button on the same afternoon. The first works in marketing at a company you’d recognize. Her employer runs a giving program through Benevity, and it will match whatever she gives. She has twenty dollars and…
Your whole business runs more smoothly if your team has a strong research culture. Coordinating feature or product development, sales, marketing and customer success initiatives becomes much smoother and more aligned. It reduces the need for back-and-forth. When research is…
If you’ve ever shipped a beautiful research report into the void, you’re not alone. You created a robust deck, presented it to stakeholders, got agreement, but that was the end of it. The problem is not what you uncovered or…
There are no stupid questions. But some questions are better than others. Can you think of some questions that were great? What are some examples of great questions? How great do you think this question is? If you don’t see…