The 46th Edition - On Understanding Variables, Executives Who Don’t Get Product and Using Search Inputs To Find New Jobs-to-Be-done

Did you know how ADHD affects people at work?

Sep 24, 2022

Did you know that a study on Adult ADHD by the University of Massachusetts highlighted some key differences in the work experience of someone with ADHD vs a non-ADHD? 17.3% of people with ADHD got fired from a job (vs. Typical: 3.7%) and 32.6% people with ADHD quit due to boredom (vs. Typical: 3.7%).

Read: "Our executives don't get product?! What should we do?”

Today's post is brief.

Don't give a book to senior executives to help them understand product or design.

Show them how:

You could go from idea to revenue in two weeks;
A usability test invalidates assumptions.

More ideas here:

Read (2 mins)

Watch: What Do Accomplished Experimenters Know That You Might Be Blind To?

This YouTube video has 80 million views. It shows something we often miss when designing product experiments.

Prototype testing and iteration requires knowledge of the variables at play.

When we tweak a variable, we need to have a reason why it would make an impact.

See the tagline in every case here, e.g. "increase torque" or "increase breakover angle"?

This assumes a lot of knowledge about what increasing torque can do, or what torque even is.

But that doesn't mean we can't be deliberate without this knowledge.

I used to run A/B tests when I was younger and dumber with no idea what exactly I was tweaking. I didn't know why it was the most impactful thing to tweak. I barely understood how that tweak could change whatever I was trying to achieve.

Despite my limited worldview, I could have tweaked variables more thoughtfully.

Since then, I've learned from my past mistakes. (Read: a thread on experimentation principles.)

I broke a recent hard problem down into its parts and looked for ways to change each variable to gain leverage. (Unfortunately, I got too "mathematical", and the people I was working with didn't get it.)

Here is the crux:

Be intentional about variables;
Do not wait for perfect knowledge (but continuously seek it);
Simplify the thinking for people who don’t think this way yet (the Feynman Learning Technique can help).

Of course, when planning experiments, the scientific method allows for a certain amount of "messing around." Exploratory research and experiments help us figure out what's going on.

Experts often do what they call "tinkering," which is another word for experimenting. Some people refer to it as "night science." Sometimes we can't even make an educated guess about what the values of the variables are.

The point is to be deliberate about what mode you’re in, and not stay in exploratory research mode forever or by default.

Remember

“If you love testing, you should love shipping even more. It's the test of all tests.” - Jason Fried
“Product-led growth always starts with retention.” - Elena Verna

Consider

Every Search Input Is a Sensing Engine: If you have search in your product, it is the best way to find new product opportunities. Look at top queries (quick wins), bi-modal results (indicating a different JTBD within the same dataset), long-tail queries (depth & optionality).

The Fish Rots From The Head Down: A solid list of 16 examples of toxic leadership that are fatal to a company's culture, trust, and progress, including Never Sharing Personal Information and Over-sharing Personal Information. If you haven’t guessed yet… being a leader is damn hard.

20 Universal Story Structures That PR Pros Use To Tell Engaging Stories: A very comprehensive list of story structures that you won’t be able to un-see everywhere from now on. Most importantly, you can learn how to use them for your own communication.

Sunday 1-1-2-3 with George

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