More from @joulee

Julie Zhuo

@joulee

Mar 14

How designers push back against PMs:

1) Moving metrics is not the point; actually solving problems is
2) Let's not just throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks
3) Why don't we innovate instead of copying?
4) Don't you care about quality?

...and how PMs can respond 👇

"Moving metrics is not the point" -> said when the designer feels (or fears) something tests well against goal metrics but is actually a bad user experience.

Root causes:
a) goal metrics don't capture what's bad
b) for most people it's fine, but for some folks it's bad

2/14

Don't argue about whether moving metrics is the point; instead, focus on user concerns.:

1) What's the bad user experience you are worried about?
2) Which/how many people are you concerned it will affect?
3) What evidence would convince you the problem is or isn't bad?

3/14

Read 15 tweets

Julie Zhuo

@joulee

Feb 21

How PMs push back against designers:

"That's not the priority right now"
"We don't have the eng resources for that"
"This design is not going to work"
"The data shows that metrics dropped with this design change"

Here's how you can respond 👇 (1/10)

"That's not the priority right now" or "We don't have the eng resources for that" => usually a response to a proposal that:

1) doesn't directly tackle the team's specified problem (though may tackle a real, different problem)

OR

2) addresses the problem but is too ambitious

The key to debating whether a project is off-topic or not is to focus the convo on priority:

1) "Here's why solving this is more important than doing X..."
2) "Solving this is actually a dependency for X..."
3) "Solving this accelerates our future plans..."

3/10

Read 12 tweets

Julie Zhuo

@joulee

Feb 3

True experts and secret masters have experience:

1) studying the problem
2) proposing solutions
3) implementing solutions
4) experiencing the impact of their solutions
5) owning that impact
6) learning from and iterating on solutions

Armchair Influencers stop at 1 or 2.

The difference between true experts and secret masters is that the former is influential and recognized by others.

Secret masters have the same substantive knowledge, but don't have the desire or ability to influence.

Students,

To traverse left to right (increase your true knowledge):
1) be curious
2) take many swings at actually solving problems
3) reflect to soak up your learnings

Read 4 tweets