Tweet

Andy Budd

22 Nov, 8 tweets, 2 min read

@gilescolborne

I’m really liking @gilescolborne’s formulation that design research (aka discovery) is about charging the opportunity battery, rather than delivering value. I think is explains a lot of behaviour designers find frustrating 🧵

cxpartners.co.uk/our-thinking/m…

Designers have been taught they need to understand the context of a problem before they can come up with the ideal solution. The whole “understanding the room to design the chai, understanding the house to design the room etc”

However I think a lot of designers get hit by discovery inflation. Essentially for every piece of research they do, they discover a new unknown. As such you often find designers getting draw into understanding problems at a city wide level, forgetting about the chair altogether.

@gilescolborne

Using @gilescolborne’s analogy, I believe designers spend a lot of time trying to charge the battery to 100% before using it. By comparison, a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders are looking to charge the battery just enough to be able to deliver a small amount of value.

You don’t need to fully charge the battery on your EV before taking a local shopping trip. This desire for designers to charge the battery more than may be necessary becomes a big source of tension.

Designers would argue that it’s much more efficient to charge the battery up front, and would get range anxiety if they didn’t. On the other hand business stakeholders want to set out with minimal charge, not caring if they run out, because they’ll be partway there.

The logical approach is obviously to charge the research battery slightly more the business stakeholders think they need, but slightly less than the designers feel comfortable with. When both parties feel slightly uncomfortable you know you’ve hit the optimal compromise.

This all comes down to the fact that designers generally enjoy exploring the opportunity space, so love spending time charging this particular battery, while business folks are much more focussed on capturing the value already held in a partially charged battery.

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More from @andybudd

Andy Budd

@andybudd

23 Nov

The primary role of company leadership is to create alignment 🧵

Most companies go through several phases of growth, each with their own predictable challenges. In my experience most startups slowly move from being clans or adhocracies towards more process oriented companies.

hbr.org/1998/05/evolut…

This happens because alignment is usually implicit within smaller groups, but needs to become more explicit as teams grow and develop their own perspectives.

Read 16 tweets

Andy Budd

@andybudd

16 Nov

I see a growing disconnect in our industry between companies wanting to hire the most talented people, and the experience the most talented people I know have during the interview process. A short thread 🧵

I see a lot of company leaders complaining that they can't find people with the right skills and experience to fill their open roles. Roles will often go unfilled for months, and when they do finally fill those roles, the person will be a poor fit and leave within months.

At the same time I hear from so many objectively talented people about being on the job market for 9 months, having countless interviews and being continually ghosted by companies.

andybudd.com/archives/2019/…

Read 28 tweets

Andy Budd

@andybudd

29 Oct

Please complete the following sentence.

"I know I'm listening to a 'thought leader' because..."

I'll get you started.

"I know I'm listening to a 'thought leader' because they've included that William Gibson quote in their talk"

"I know I'm listening to a 'thought leader' because they've referenced Moore's Law"

Read 4 tweets

Andy Budd

@andybudd

29 Oct

One of my major frustrations over the years has been people's natural tendency (mine included) to spend more time coming up with reasons why something will fail than why we should go ahead. Essentially demonstrating a "no, but" rather than a "yes, and" mindset 🧵

This is most commonly seen in meetings where one person presents and idea, and then the rest of the participants then come up with reasons why the idea won't work.

If the person who has come up with the idea has organisational power (e.g. CEO), they'll often move ahead with conviction, irrespective of any raised concerns. Often holding the perspective that the concerns are largely theoretical and can be overcome with effort.

Read 27 tweets

Andy Budd

@andybudd

28 Oct

It's amazing how much of management (and by extension, coaching) is asking people whether the thing they've just shared with you, they've also shared with the person they're talking about. Ideally in the same calm, even mannered and non-judgemental fashion.

What they've shared is almost always some perfectly rational concern, pitched in a way that makes them sound reasonable. Largely because people want to be seen as reasonable by their bosses (and coaches).

If they shared this concern in the same reasonable, rational and caring way with the person they're referencing, things would almost certainly work out fine. However they've almost certainly not tried this.

Read 26 tweets

Andy Budd

@andybudd

27 Oct

One if my friends says “Don’t worry what’ll happen if you fail to meet your goals. Worry what’ll happen if you hit them”

We often spend our time chasing goals without thinking what a icing said goal will actually mean.

I want to be a VP.

6 years later. I hate spending so much time recruiting, bouncing between meetings and dealing with team infighting and company politics.

I love design and want to start an agency.

6 years later. Nobody told me running an agency involved so much sales, writing endless proposals, and dealing with disgruntled staff and customers.

Read 4 tweets

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