I have been fortunate to have some great leaders along my path. They seemed to have genuinely cared about me and instilled in me a strong trust and loyalty to them. These leaders had empathy, they were good listeners and knew how to inspire a team with a clear vision. “Success is a team sport. … Read more
A mission statement is a written declaration of an organization’s core purpose. Properly crafted mission statements: serve as filters to separate what is important from what is not clearly state which markets will be served and how communicate a sense of intended direction to the entire organization A mission is different from a vision – … Read more
Over the years, I have developed my share of Design vision, missions, goals and strategies. Early in my career, I developed the teams from scratch but now it is more about helping existing teams level up. At the core of any good team, is a clearly understood vision. As I have stated many times over … Read more
The Four Stages of Learning suggests that individuals are initially unaware of how little they know, or unconscious of their incompetence – we don’t know what we don’t know. As we recognize our incompetence, we consciously acquire knowledge (we know what we don’t know). When we are consciously using knowledge then we know what we … Read more
I have grown several UX departments from little or nothing to global highly efficient and effective teams. In every case, it was the same – we had to prove ourselves to the decision makers that we were worth investing in. We needed to get a “seat at the table” with the executives team that determined … Read more
This article first appeared in LinkedIn November 14, 2017. Written by one of my heroes, Tim Brown, CEO at IDEO: Some of today’s most successful companies—Airbnb, Nike—have CEOs who are also designers. And leading organizations across industries, like Apple, 3M, and Pepsi, have highly influential Chief Design Officers at the helm. Making design a priority isn’t just … Read more
Full disclosure, I love Aha! Product Management road-mapping software and have introduced it to several companies. When I saw this post by Brian de Haaff, Aha! Founder and CEO, I had to share it. Here’s what Brian shares on how to create a brilliant product roadmap: Define your strategy. What is the market potential, and … Read more
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill In today’s dynamic markets, teams must be curious, optimistic and thoughtful. Curious to explore new trends and new ideas. Optimistic to keep motivated and motivate others. And thoughtful to have empathy for the people that you … Read more
Over the years, this is the most consistent question I get asked is “How do you hire the right User Experience talent?” Here are my guidelines: Understand Your Vision and Strategy What is your organization’s vision and strategy and how does the experience you deliver to your customers support it? Your vision is probably to … Read more
The term agile was first coined for this in 2001, in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. According to the manifesto Twelve Principles of Agile Software, their highest priority is to “Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” Which is a good thing, especially in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Another one of their … Read more
Marty Cagan gave a talk on The Root Causes of Product Failure at productcamp la. Many things that he shared resonated with me. Here are few ideas about the big difference between how most product teams work and the best product teams work: The Product Team. If you want to make great products, the product … Read more
Jeanne Bliss shares with us in her post Five CX Competencies Transform Your Experience: CUSTOMERS AS ASSETS Your focus is to get leaders to make a defining performance metric – the growth or loss of your customer base. The purpose is to shift to a simple understanding – knowing what customers actually did to impact … Read more