 In a previous post I discussed the famous amazon “press release backwards” technique for product teams - designed for customer-facing “product” teams — teams that create a product or service to be consumed by either B2C or B2B customers, the technique is in my opinion a valuable exercise that forces teams to consider the value of the thing they’re making for their intended audience BEFORE they start working on it. Indeed, the idea behind this process is that if the teams can’t tell a super compelling story about the product, then the concepts they’re considering are too complicated or probably not worth the effort developing. It also forces the team to start with empathy for the customer rather than a set of features. It forces the team to understand the purpose of the work they’re doing rather than just the building and delivery aspects. A few suggestions to enhance the technique Obviously there isn’t a “one size fits all” for product development teams, and while working on a hard digital transformation effort for a global non-tech company, I found that the following had to be addressed: Suggestion 1: More focus on key outcomes, which are the measurable changes in customer behavior that tell us we’ve delivered something of value, designed and implemented it well and that it solves a real need for a real customer. Suggestion 2: Add in the FAQs a discussion of the collaboration challenges the team needs to overcome – for example projects usually don’t see the light of day without direct contact from legal, marketing, brand, risk, compliance and multiple other teams. As a result, here are a few additions to the “Amazon press release backwards” famous template for product teams to consider when working on new initiatives and products – let me know what you think!
Let me know what you think!
DM me @philippemora on IG and Twitter My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. Head of Digital Product thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader
0 Comments
 Data is the new oil! But truly data-driven cultures require an overarching data culture that encompasses a few fundamental elements, such as high-quality data, broad access and data literacy as well as appropriate data-driven decision-making processes. This is the second part of this note posted a few weeks ago. Leveraging Data as a Strategic Asset (Part 2)
Another win can come from data visualization skills. It doesn’t make any sense to spend a huge amount of effort on data collection and analysis, only to fail, and lessen the data’s impact, at the finish line. Just a small amount of data visualization training goes a long way and can greatly enhance people’s presentation skills and make insights clearer, more digestible and ultimately likely to be used. Too often, charts are full of visual junk and unnecessary clutter and annotations that detract from the key point. Or, inappropriate chart types are used — such as multiple pie charts each with a large number of segments — or, a color scheme is chosen that makes it near impossible to interpret.
Let me know what you think!
DM me @philippemora on IG and Twitter My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. Head of Digital Product thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader  Data is the new oil! But truly data-driven cultures require an overarching data culture that encompasses a few fundamental elements, such as high-quality data, broad access and data literacy as well as appropriate data-driven decision-making processes. A single source of truth A single source of truth is a central, controlled and blessed source of data from which the whole company can draw. It is the master data. When you don’t have such data and staff can pull down seemingly the same metrics from different systems, inevitably those systems will produce different numbers. Then the arguments ensue. Or (and more dangerous for the business), some teams may unknowingly use stale, low-quality or otherwise incorrect data or metrics and make bad decisions, when they could have used a better source. A single source of truth, that is hopefully refreshed in real-time (if possible) will provide superior service to the end users as well as decision makers. In large organizations, there are often historical reasons why data are siloed. For example, large organizations are more likely to acquire data systems through company acquisitions, thereby resulting in additional independent systems. Thus, a single source of truth can represent a large and complex investment. But in the interim, a central data team or office can still make a big difference by providing official guideposts: listing what’s available, where it is and where there are multiple sources, the best place to get it.
Let me know what you think!
DM me @philippemora on IG and Twitter My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. Head of Digital Product thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader  Here are the 5 top elements of the most boring presentations (rings a bell?):
But wait! There’s something so painful that we should all work to put an end to this cruelty, so agonizing for audiences that some decide to give up on the corporate life rather than have to face another day of meetings with this type of presentation - so unfailingly bad that medieval torture techniques are too light to punish the inflictors… It is the Data Dump presentation. The data dump is an excessive, meaningless, shapeless outpouring of data without purpose or plan, with not one single moment’s thought from the presenter about the existence of a listener, a human being with a life, needs, goals, dreams… How to clarify a communication objective First of all, define your objective prior to starting to prepare any communication. This might sound too basic to be important, but it’s fairly guaranteed that more failure in communication occurs because the requester really has not clarified what they want and thought about whether it is realistic to expect. Finish this sentence: “When I have finished speaking the listener will _________________” The sentence must be completed with a call to action. “meet on thursday”, “phone me immediately”, “vote for me”, “visit my web site” are all CTAs. “understand more about the situation” is not a CTA. Honestly, most communication fails at this step – a lack of clarity of the realistic, do-able, specific next action that will move you closer to your overall objective. When you write this sentence, it will force you to think about the audience. What do they need to know, feel and believe in order to take this action? This immediately puts you in their point of view and clarifies what is important. And Please. No more Data Dump Presentations. Let me know what you think!
DM me @philippemora on IG and Twitter My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. Head of Digital Product thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader |
head of product in colorado. travel 🚀 work 🌵 food 🍔 rocky mountains, tech and dogs 🐾
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed