I Don't Know (and that's OK)

I Don’t Know(And That’s OK.)

Cindy AlvarezThe Experience is the Product - http://www.cindyalvarez.com

Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez

http://www.cindyalvarez.com

http://www.cindyalvarez.com


I’m here today to promote ignorance.


Product Development Maturity


Product Development Effectiveness


How does “knowing” kill great product

development?

Knowing is static but the world changes


Knowing is apples but the situation may be oranges


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You know but you don’t know enough


ONLINE BILL PAY

average bills paid/month

average $/payment

most likely to pay these types of bills

log in X times/month

pay X bills per session

You know but you don’t know enough


ONLINE BILL PAY

average bills paid/month

average $/payment

most likely to pay these types of bills

log in X times/month

pay X bills per session

BEFORE:put incoming bills in the bill pile

circle due dates on calendar

set up reminders on my cell phone

pen and paper calculations

check when payday is

AFTER:cross it off the calendar

check if I can pay more towards my credit card bill

transfer extra into savings

Knowing makes you lazy and you’ll forget to provide data


“Users need this...The market demands this...Trust me and just build it.”

which breeds HiPPOs.


“As the CEO, I just know this’ll work...”

If you were right, you denied your team the opportunity to learn and feel awesome


And if you were wrong, you lose credibility


“This is all your fault! We built exactly what you asked for.”


For great product development to thrive,


Foster a culture of not knowingbut learning


“WAIT! What do you mean, you don’t know?!”


(This approach isn’t easy on enterprise customers, CEOs, or project managers.)


“I don’t know, but --• here’s how we’re going to find out..”

• my hypothesis is...”

• here’s what I do know...”


+ More work+ More uncertainty

More rigor

= Better odds*

* come on, you know there are no guarantees in product development!


OK, so how do we foster a culture of

not knowingbut learning?


Start with ground rules:


It’s always OK to ask “what is the goal of doing this?”


All brains are good brains.


Limit “heads down” time.


“Ugly data” trumps no data.


Develop your own learning funnel:


interviews

surveys

market research analytics bug reports

competitive research user testing best practices

“what’s important”

A/B testing

summarize (most companies skip this

--> fail)


Teach your team to fish:


How can we ask the customer?

How can we ask the data?

How can we compare ourselves to alternatives?

How can we try “doing the opposite thing?”

How can we gain a new perspective?

Don’t expect people to “just know” how to contribute


Show off:


We learned ____________,

so we didn’t build _____________,

which saved us ________!

We learned ____________,

so we quickly did _____________,

which earned us ________!


Oh, and --don’t try to do this

all at once:


idea this was great

idea this sucked

idea this needs work

idea this was great

(It won’t be this neat, but you get the idea.)


Go out thereand “I don’t know”

your way to your next great product!

Business

I Don't Know (and that's OK)