Expertise without a purpose — Issue #16
This week’s I decide to dig deeper into a topic that I’ve tweeted about a few time’s in the past around how product organisation seem to be having some issues around moving their products into a place where they deliver real quality and value.
I’m constantly marvelled by the amount of resources and opportunities that exist now-days in comparison to when I was starting out professionally.
The quantity of books and how easy it is to access them, online blogs and publications, training, workshops, conferences and networking events.
You want to find out how something works or how to do something?
A quick search online and we’re flooded with resources and options.
Everyone has read a book, done a bootcamp or workshop.
Everyone is an expert
We tell young professionals that the best way to get exposure is to write, so they do their best to write articles and contribute to the community.
Everybody wants to build their personal brand, so they setup their social media, Medium account, personal site or newsletter. (Yup, I know I’m describing myself, the irony doesn’t escape me)
What happens is we now have so much content online that is basically different angles of the same topic. We now need to sift through much more content to find what we’re looking for.
Dangerous advice or points of view get more exposure than they should and do more harm than good.
How often have we seen an argument ensue online, simply because of extremist ideas usually based on uninformed experience rather than mature understanding of the issue?
A misinterpretation of what someone has said or reading a book and accepting its teachings as law, rather than a complement to other resources.
All talk, no action
All of the points above culminate in a world overloaded with experts. Everyone has strong opinions about how things should or shouldn’t be done. What works and what doesn’t.
I have two questions that I’d like you, the reader, to take back and think about:
- How often have we seen groups of people talk and talk about what’s wrong and how things should be done, but we never see it going anywhere?
- Equally, with so many experts and so much existing know how, why don’t we see more improvement in the way product orgs work and how they build their products?
Both questions are connected to the fact that we as an industry have become masters at arguing and challenging the norms. We’ve been incentivised to become the creators of the next big framework or the disruptors.
There are so many organisations that have become so user centric that they forget to build the product for those customers.
I may be exaggerating, but I do think it’s a real problem we’re facing as industry.
Getting shit done
I want to suggest challenging a few things. But I want to add a disclaimer that this isn’t a law I expect anyone to follow blindly. I expect others to challenge me… but only once you’ve tried it. 😉 (See what I did there)
#1 — Drop stupid discussions
If a topic has been discussed more than 2 times and hasn’t moved in any direction, either drop it or change strategy. You’re just wasting your time on it.
#2 — Accept that your opinion might suck
Even if we have a lot of conviction, we may have a very biased and limited view of both the problem and solution. You may be wrong or your challenge may bring absolutely nothing worth of value.
Sometimes it’s okay to just listen and absorb.
#3 — Understand before you destroy
I’m all for questioning ideas or concepts, but understand them before you do. I’ve often seen challenges to a solution just based on assumptions.
It irritates me a bit going back to the initial solution after tons of wasted time, just because we had to “challenge” the thinking.
#4 — Don’t overthink everything
Many a product team following the advice of experts create the habit of complex discovery or user testing on almost everything.
I’m going to tell you a secret, not everything needs to be that complex. Sometimes an A/B test put together in an hour or two is enough. In fact, if the risk is calculated, sometimes there is no better way to test something than putting it live.
If you ARE doing huge pieces of discovery, testing with users through a process, I expect some impactful changes. The amount of effort needed should correlate with the impact and value.
#5 — Stop talking and build
This last one is important.
Stop having 500 meetings. Stop aligning every little pixel. Avoid design by committee. Sometimes we just need to build stuff.
People ask how startups manage to disrupt an industry, be agile and produce products? The simple truth is that they understand that we need to build it and put it front of people.
If everyone on the team is involved in every little thing, even the smallest piece of work may seem huge and grow easily out of proportion.
In conclusion
In the next few years I would ove to see shift where we start seeing less “experts” and more case studies of both successes and learnings.
I would also love to see less products, but that more of them knock our socks off when using them.
I’m also for less meetings and more paired work. The pack structure has become highly over-inflated.
Just because an organisation has become huge doesn’t mean we have to lose our ability to adapt or produce in a timely manor.
Reach out
I would love to hear your opinion and whether you identify with the above.
Feel free to comment or reach out to me on social media.
Originally published at https://www.getrevue.co on May 4, 2022.
