Doc Norton
An Experiment Canvas

The Experiment Canvas is a simple means of planning, tracking, and responding to your experiments.

An Experiment Canvas
Doc Norton
Create simple things in small steps

Simple Things

When I say simple, I don’t necessarily mean easy. And I certainly do not mean crude in form or incomplete. Simple indicates something that does not have superfluous parts or multiple responsibilities, is easy to understand, is as independent from the rest of the solution as possible, and meets a need as is.

Simple may not address all use cases, but it does address some use cases.

Create simple things in small steps
Doc Norton
The Behaviors

Over the past several years, as I’ve been helping teams and organizations improve their ability to deliver software products that are desirable, viable, and feasible, I have been experimenting with a Behavior Framework that has proven to be rather effective. And I’d like to share it with you in hopes that you find it useful and that you provide me feedback on your experiences with it.

Announcement
Doc Norton
Beginning a New Book

My plan is to write a series of blog posts all related to the behaviors framework. Some of them will be about a specific behavior. Some of them will be about tools or techniques that help teams express one or more of the behaviors. Some of them will be my own experiences. And some will be damn near complete fiction.

Doc Norton
What is Velocity?

In this excerpt from Escape Velocity, we take a more in-depth look at Velocity and try to answer (at least in part) the question, “What Is Velocity”?

What is Velocity?

Frequent releases improve outcomes

Frequent releases improve outcomes

Whether you’re still figuring out your general product offering or you are enhancing and adding capabilities to a well established product, the ultimate test of whether or not you’ve hit the mark (or are at least trending in the right direction), is how your audience engages with what you’ve created. Yes, you can (and should) do market research before designing and coding up a potential solution to an identified problem, but the only way to know for certain, is to see what happens when your concepts come in contact with your audience.

Before you Judge and Jettison, Compare and Combine

So you’ve got some problem you’re trying to solve (Know the problem you are solving). You’ve agreed to work together on coming up with a solution. So you call a meeting and ask everyone to bring some ideas.

The objective of the meeting is to select the “best” option among the ideas presented.

In my observation, most folks tend toward an approach I call “Judge and Jettison”.

Opportunity Solution Trees

Opportunity Solution Trees

In this article, I want to go more in depth on Opportunity Solution Trees; what they are, how they are used, how to create one, and how I think about them slightly differently (but only slightly) than folks like Teresa Torres who really introduced them broadly to the Product community in her book “Continuous Discovery Habits”. This book, by the way, is a must have for anyone who works in software product development - not just folks in product-specific roles.

Be Meticulous about composition

Be Meticulous about composition

Composition refers to the way in which something is put together. Composition is a key element in many of the things humans create. Whether it be a musical piece, a painting, a garden, or a building, the way we assemble the core components — the composition of them — has a significant impact on the overall experience.

A large group, little time, and a gnarly problem to solve?

A large group, little time, and a gnarly problem to solve?

If you are not familiar with Liberating Structures, I suggest you take a look at them. I use a few of them now and then as circumstances warrant. In future articles, I will discuss some of the others, but today’s installation is dedicated to the Liberating Structure I most often use — 1–2–4-All.

Create simple things in small steps

Create simple things in small steps

Simple Things

When I say simple, I don’t necessarily mean easy. And I certainly do not mean crude in form or incomplete. Simple indicates something that does not have superfluous parts or multiple responsibilities, is easy to understand, is as independent from the rest of the solution as possible, and meets a need as is.

Simple may not address all use cases, but it does address some use cases.

Work Together

Work Together

When I say, “work together”, I mean just that. Do the actual work together.

Every aspect of the product lifecycle is an opportunity for collaboration - Identifying problems to solve, user and market research, design and architecture, formulating experiments, development and testing, deployment, monitoring, maintenance, and gathering user feedback.