The 47th Edition - On Helping, 59 Contrarian Observations About Humans & North Star Metric Prompts

Did you know what has happened in the last 90 days of this newsletter?

Did you know that in the last 90 days, this newsletter has grown 4X, while also increasing/maintaining the open rate? 😍

That’s all you! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

To say thanks, I would like to do a book giveaway. But I need your help.

→ Reply to this email with any free-from ramble about a topic you’d like to learn more about. I’ll find the best book to give away.

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Read: “Helping: How To Offer, Give, and Receive Help”

My workplace can no longer support a Reforge subscription, so instead, I opted to buy books. Many books.

One of the first ones I read was “Helping: How To Offer, Give, and Receive Help” by Edgar H. Schein.

You might think that this is one of those common-sense books. On the surface, it seemed so. But as I dug in, there were definitely a few gems I hadn’t considered.

Watch: How To De-risk Meetings?

You may have listened to a few of Lenny’s Podcast episodes. But in the sea of content, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had missed some or all of them.

This episode has a few great points on preparing for meetings better. As a PM in a large org, I still took many notes. (This video should start in the middle, when Casey talks about this.)

Remember

“A functional prototype is probably worth more than 100 brainstorming / design thinking workshops, but this is only possible if design & engineering collaborate more fluidly.” - Hà Phan

“‘I've tried nothing, and I'm all out of ideas.’ The most popular management technique.” - Ben Mosior

Consider

Planning for Days, Then Shipping Every Day Is Not Waterfall: There have been a few revelations from behind the scenes of how Apple, Amazon and other titans develop products. At first, it sounds not really “agile”. But the problem is that most people’s “agile” is more of an excuse not to plan at all and let fate decide. That’s a recipe for disaster.

59 Contrarian Observations About Humans: A great thread by Michael Girdley reflecting on his having interviewed and managed over 2,500 people. Includes such gems as “Most people asking for advice don’t want to have their minds changed.” and “People naturally teach the way they learn. So, watching someone teach a skill can tell you how to teach them.”

North Star Metric Prompts: A very comprehensive list of questions designed to elicit great conversations about what matters to your product. Once again, big thanks to Amplitude & John Cutler. Use these if you’re designing a workshop.

💡You can even set these up as Reminders in Slack, and crowdsource answers throughout the week.💡

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Have a great week ahead & see you next week.