Test-n-Tell - tiny apps, Big ideas

  Nir Eyal’s Hooked made a huge impression on me. It shaped a large part of how I think about product creation. Not because I wanted to “hook” users at any cost, but because the book made one thing very clear: if you understand how to influence behaviour, you also become responsible for how you use that power.

  How's an old song by Paul McCartney and a famous quote by William Blake relevant to product management and business in general? Yeah, it's one of "those" posts.

  That's the first question you should ask when joining a new team or having a new team member.

  And start leading. This article is for product leaders who are not individual contributors. In other words, this is for people who manage other people. Please, dear managers, stop doing things yourself - it is not helpful.

  In " Empowered " Marty Cagan described how the best teams work. This way of working is challenging, but a reachable ideal we should all strive for. However, while on the way, we often find ourselves in less than ideal conditions. And sometimes, when we really unlucky, our ways of working might be in total opposite to the empowered ways.

What hurts your productivity the most? Below I'd argue it's context switching. PMs are asked to do a lot of different things. Interview customers, write reports, discuss with developers, analyse competitors, present to stakeholders and many others. Often, we asked to do many of those things at the same time. Sometimes we try. And we fail.

Your chances to innovate, create something new or solve a problem with multiple unknowns are higher when you have a diverse team . Such a team, that consist of individuals with various backgrounds, interests and cultures, given the right environment, will produce better ideas and solutions. But what if you don't need to innovate? What if you need to execute effectively?

Throughout the human history, information was the critical tool. Knowledge was equal to respect and influence. Access to information was pivotal to success. Knowledge was hard to obtain and therefore was regarded as the highest value. Then came the Internet.

- Don't tell me how to do my job! You had this thought reading professional books and blogs. Maybe even that one. Certainly that one! That's OK. Nobody likes to get told how to do their job.

Here's the most straightforward innovation recipe: Outline a process people currently follow to get things done - Remove some steps = Profit. The more steps you remove - the happier people are. Easy, right? Why then is the real innovation still so difficult?

If you have ego-driven product development - data will magnify it. If data serves your confirmation bias - you will always be right but your product will fail. Data is a magnifier of both good and bad.

Hello {user_name} is not a personalization. Yet lots of companies do only that and believe they have a personalized product. But where is the real personalization?

All products could be divided in ... numerous categories. One of the most useful splits is the "painkillers" and "vitamins."

Simplicity was the mantra most UX designers followed in the last 10 years. " Don't make me think ," the iconic book by Steve Krug, popularized the concept of simplicity in digital product design. This concept helped a lot. To make computer interfaces actually usable for the broad audience. It's so easy today to order a cab, buy tickets online, find an answer to any question, connect with people around the globe, spend money... Is there a limit to simplicity or we should carry on simplifying any product?

Remember Kathy Sierra's concept of a "badass users" ? A user doesn't care about your product, user cares about his context. He doesn't want to be better at using your product. He wants to be better at what he's doing. A user of a digital camera doesn't want to be the best at using this particular camera. He wants to make stunning pictures.

- We don't have competitors. - There are no existing solutions to this problem. You often hear those kinds of statements from young product teams or entrepreneurs. It's often an argument for success. Experienced product teams know the absence of an existing solution is a worrying sign of a non-existent problem.

"The HOOK is an experience design to connect the user's problem to your solution."

The Web Psychologist Nathalie Nahai is a Web Psychologist and best-selling author of ‘ Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion ‘ (Pearson).

Modern enterprises are huge and complex. They are the superorganisms. Some of them are not really effective. What if you want to change your company? What can you do? image was taken from this presentation

15 years of research in social sciences sounds massive. What could it reveal about who we are and how do we respond to fast changing world around us ? Genevieve Bell , an anthropologist and a leader of Intel Labs’ interaction and experience research. In the following video, she shares gems of results that come from 15 years of research about us, humans.