Linear design process without systems thinking
The three most important words in the agile manifesto
“uncovering better ways”
These three words are what agile is truly about.
Uncovering – Not assuming the answers are known upfront, but that they have to be found along the way.
Better – Continually seeking to improve.
Ways – Performing a practice, doing, and learning by doing.
Retrospective March 2023
The lesson for this month; too much work in progress.
Contributing to the digital transformation of the non-profit sector
Working at a national non-profit organisation to embed product thinking and practice
Be a better manager
Tried to be more available for the team but still big gaps here. I didn’t manage to figure out the right balance between spending time with the team that is valuable and not leaving them with less time to achieve things.
Create a better environment
Worked on some aspects of creating an ‘enabling environment’ to help with reducing work in progress, which is definitely one of our barriers.
Deliver projects faster
We tried a few things to get better at delivering projects faster, including validating ideas, giving ourselves deadlines and reducing the scope. There’s still so much more we can do here.
Participating in online communities for social good, innovation, product and digital
Had a couple of interesting chats on Twitter, and joined a group video call about using AI in the charity sector and perhaps using it to accelerate innovation in the sector. One reflection I had was how dependent being part of a network is on making any kind of contribution like this.
I think the contribution I want to focus on is writing the technology charity book.
The technology charity
Started writing a book about the technology charity, and how charities can use technology to achieve change at scale.
Continually developing my knowledge, skills and practice
Formal education
British Sign Language
Still haven’t done anything on my BSL course.
Gitlab Remote Working course
Nothing on this course either.
Microsoft Learn
Nada.
Reading
Very slowly reading Delivery Management.
Informal learning
Product Management Zone
Added a few more things. Need to answer the question of whether it should have individual articles, podcast episodes, etc., which is probably more useful for users but a lot more work for me, or just have the blog, podcast, etc.
Irregular Ideas
Wrote one edition of Irregular Ideas, just because I had an idea and some time.
IIII
I’ve got one email to write and add to this, and it’s been on my to do list for ages, but I still didn’t get around to it. I’m not sure it’ll make much difference but I want to get the thinking about the four ways charity product managers achieve value wrapped up.
Magix Team
Didn’t work on magix teams, but I have collected some more thoughts about what a ‘matrix’ means and how it’s rooted in working collaboratively.
Reflective practice
I wrote weeknotes on schedule every week. That’s about the only thing I’ve managed to maintain any consistency for. I haven’t really written much each day, but I think I want to use the notes section of my website to record more ongoing thoughts.
Leading an intentional life
Lifestyle
Was indoors most of the month.
Health & well-being
Hardly walked at all.
Financial independence
Did more on buying a house.
Fast flow of value: the why of transformation
Organisations succeed when they have a fast flow of value.
Fast, because our users get value early and often and we get feedback sooner. Flow, because smooth efficient processes reduce waste. And value, because quality outcomes make it worth it.
Removing the barriers to a fast flow of value is the transformational work all organisations need.
Agile, lean, dev ops, digital, remote working; all of these are the tools of transformation, they aren’t the transformation. Being agile or digital isn’t the point, the point of transformation is achieving a fast flow of value.
The five goals of a charity
All charities try to achieve five things:
- Organisational resilience
- Income generation
- Operational efficiency
- Service delivery
- Influencing others
Creating an environment for successful products and services
Introduction
Current product management thinking recognises four big risks to the success of a product or service:
- Value risk – Doesn’t solve a sufficiently important problem well enough for a sufficiently large number of people.
- Usability risk – Is difficult to use by its intended users (not just when they are interacting with the product but how they integrate it into their lives).
- Feasibility risk – Can’t be built and maintained (often with the technology and skills the organisation current has).
- Viability risk – Doesn’t support the organisation’s goals.
(Cagan, 2017)
Mitigating these risks requires certain things to be in place to create the environment that enables successful products to be built and maintained.
Below does not describe a process for developing products and services, nor is it a checklist of things for each new product and service to consider in isolation. The aim is for these things to be in place as standard, always there as a solid foundation. By putting things in place that enable us to mitigate these risks, we create an environment for all products and services to be more successful.
Further reading:
A successful product and service is…
Valuable
A valuable product and service is one that solves a sufficiently important problem for a sufficiently large number of users well enough that they want to use it instead of other solutions.
Understanding what problems users have and how valuable solving those problems might be for them requires research and analysis.
Data analysis
Data is analysed to understand how users interact with the product
This is assessed against:
Horizon scanning
Trends and possible futures are considered
This is assessed against:
Market analysis
The current market for the product is analysed to understand
This is assessed against:
User research
This is assessed against:
Usable
A usable product and service is one that users understand how to use to solve a problem, when they are interacting with the product and service.
Creating a product that is usable for its intended users
Accessible
A product should be accessible to its intended users.
Informed by:
Assessed against:
Using:
Mobile-first
Products and services should take a ‘progressive enhancement’ approach, not only in the technical sense but also for design, content and usability, so that users with older devices and/or poor internet connection can still use the product.
Informed by:
Assessed by:
Using:
Safe
If the product allows users to interact, it is safe for them to do so.
Informed by:
This is assessed against:
Testable
Product and services should be testable against
This is assessed against:
- Compatibility – does the product and service work on all devices and browsers.
- Functionality – does the product and service function as expected.
- Usability – does the product and service enable its users to use it, e.g. font size big enough.
Using:
Usable
This is assessed against:
Viable
A viable product aligns with organisational strategy and resourcing.
Compliant
A product complies with laws and organisational policies.
This is assessed against:
Cost-efficient
A product needs to deliver more benefit to the organisation and the users than it takes to provide that value.
This is assessed against:
- Financial cost
- People’s time
Data usage
A product needs to collect, generate, manage and use high quality data.
Using:
Ethical
A product needs to treat it’s users ethically.
Informed by:
This is assessed against:
- Attention – Ethical people can behave unethically because their attention is focused elsewhere.
- Construal – Individuals’ behaviour is influenced by how they interpret their environment.
- Motivation – People are motivated by more than material incentives, they also have intrinsic prosocial motivations
Using:
Manageable
The product can be operationalised and integrated into business as usual activities.
This is assessed against:
Measurable
The product’s performance against metrics can be measured and analysed.
This is assessed against:
Strategic
The product is aligned with the organisation’s strategy and aims to achieve organisational goals.
This is assessed against:
Sustainable
The environmental impact of the product is understood and minimised.
This is assessed against:
Feasible
A feasible product is one that can be built and maintained to sufficient standard using the technology and skills available.
Maintainable
This is assessed against:
Performant
This is assessed against:
Private
This is assessed against:
Reliable
The product is built on resilient and reliable infrastructure.
This is assessed against:
Secure
The product prevents unathorised access to systems.
This is assessed against:
Notes
Creating this uses a deductive reasoning approach which assumes that the four big risks are logically valid and that mitigating those risks can be achieved by breaking down those risks into constituent parts and putting measures in place.
The term ‘Users’ is used to mean customers and/or users interchangeably.
Retrospective February 2023
The lesson for this month; not having a clear schedule for other things in life impacts on me doing the planned things. As I get back to having more structured days it’ll be easier to do planned work.
Contributing to the digital transformation of the non-profit sector
Working at a national non-profit organisation to embed product thinking and practice
Be a better manager
I’ve been trying to be more available for my team, with varied success.
Create a better environment
Setting up the environment for the team to create successful products and services had been my maintain focus this month, with the technology/feasibility part of that being where I’ve made the most progress.
Deliver projects faster
This is still an area of concern for me. There are a number of things we can experiment with, but making any real progress is going to take a while.
Participating in online communities for social good, innovation, product and digital
Didn’t do anything on this goal. Haven’t even been in Twitter much.
Continually developing my knowledge, skills and practice
Formal education
British Sign Language
Still haven’t done anything on my BSL course.
Gitlab Remote Working course
Nothing on this course either.
Microsoft Learn
Nada.
Reading
I finished The Phoenix Project and read more of Delivery Management.
Informal learning
Product Management Zone
I started a new product management resource directory, mostly to learn a bit more about Airtable and Softr.
Irregular Ideas
I’ve taken a break from writing Irregular Ideas. Part of the point of writing it was to get better at writing, but I’m not really able to focus enough at the moment to write well so I’d rather write nothing.
IIII
I’ve got one email to write and add to this, and it’s been on my to do list for ages, but I still didn’t get around to it. I’m not sure it’ll make much difference but I want to get the thinking about how charity product managers achieve value wrapped up.
Magix Team
Didn’t do anything with this. I have ideas, but not the focus.
Reflective practice
I wrote weeknotes on schedule every week. That’s about the only thing I’ve managed to maintain any consistency for. I haven’t really written much each day.
Leading an intentional life
Lifestyle
Was indoors most of the month.
Health & well-being
Walked only very occasionally.
Financial independence
Started arranging to by a house.
User-centred vs user-rhizomed
What does ‘user-centred’ mean?
User-centered design is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process.
Interaction Design Foundation
When we put the user at the centre of what we’re doing, we’re implying that it makes them the most important part, that meeting their needs comes first, and that all other things are less important. But ‘centre-ing’ the user can be problematic. It can result in not considering things that that are important, but aren’t important for meeting the users needs. Training shoes that fit well is a user need, but if that’s all you’re thinking about you probably wouldn’t include the people that have to stitch the shoes, or pollution from the delivery lorries, because the focus is on meeting the user need.
There is a different way to think about it.
What is a rhizome?
A rhizome is a structure that has no centre and no predefined path meaning it can grow in different directions from any point, at the same time. It comes from botany. Ginger, mint, lilies and bamboo are all rhizomes.
French post-structuralists, Deleuze and Guattari use the term “rhizome” to describe all kinds of structures that don’t have a centre, can be accessed from lots of different points, and that those points can be connected to any other point, not matter how similar or different. Rhizomes have no beginning or end, they are always in the middle, between things.
The internet is a rhizome. It has no centre, new websites are set-up regardless of other websites, it expands in lots of different and unpredictable directions.
Thinking about rhizomes helps us question hierarchies, such as that one thing, i.e., the user, is more important than another, e.g., the planet, make connections between interrelated things, and accept the opening up of opportunities that are beyond what we can see at this point in time.
What does being user-rhizomed mean?
Placing the user in a rhizome shows their relationship to lots of other, more or less, important things. It doesn’t negate the design process or prevent the whole user experience from being considered, instead it recognises that other things which aren’t directly focused on the user might be equally important and worth incorporating into the design process.
User-rhizome-ness opens opportunities rather than defining paths. When we look at the branch of a tree we can predict which direction it will grow in, but that’s not true of a rhizome. When we look at a rhizome we can’t tell where it started, where it’s going to end, or how it got to what it is now. This is a more accurate description of how users behave and interact with a product or service or organisation. User-centred thinking tries to tell us that people follow predictable linear paths, and that the job of design is to create those paths and ensure they are followed. But user-rhizomed thinking would allow for users to connect with other parts of the structure in unpredictable ways, and for parts of the structure to connect with other parts aside from the user.
What is user-rhizomed design?
Who knows. It hasn’t been created yet. Perhaps it will involve more systems thinking. Perhaps it will build on the techniques of user-centred design, perhaps it will throw them out. The future of user-rhizomed design is rhizomatic.
How Afrofuturism might provide a framework for thinking about technology charities
Technology charities of the future
As charities go through digital transformation and use more and more technology in their work, we should expect that technology to fundamentally change what it means to be a charity and to have a positive effect on the world.
It’s likely we’ll see ‘technology charities’ emerging in the not too distant future in the same way technology companies have come about over the past few decades. For charities using technology to enable their work, and those that use it as core to how they create social value, now is the right time to start to consider how to understand and approach the technology of the future.
“Technology is never neutral and it’s always concerned with the future. So why not look to a frame that’s also about imagining futures and takes questions of power head on”
Taylor Owen
The problem with tech-optimism
The idea that technology makes things better, by default or purely because it exists, has come to be known as tech-optimism. The tech-optimist perspective believes that any social and environmental problem can be solved by developing more technology. But this belief, and it really is just a belief, has history and it has issues.
Much of the tech-optimist perspective with have today grew up with Silicon Valley entrepreneurial culture and the ideal of the young white male founder. This perspective gets epitomised in the tech billionaires like Bezos and Musk but really it’s deeply embedded in all tech culture that prioritises convenience for the user and effects at scale. What it lacks is an understanding what it means for someone to not have access to things, or any consideration for the people who get left behind or who are negatively impacted.
Lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite for making mobile phone and electric vehicle batteries is mined in the Republic of the Congo, by hand, often by children (Frankel, 2016). Would mobile phones be different today if Congolese children had been involved in designing the first iPhone?
The problem with tech-optimism is that the people designing the technology have never been affected by it. They don’t have enough experience of the barriers that discrimination and inequality create. They are removed from the consequences. And the problem with almost all technology is that it is rooted in this kind of tech-optimism.
Charities then, as a force for good in the world, have to think critically about how they view their use of technology in achieving their mission. It isn’t good enough to adopt an academically-unsound, environmentally-damaging, socially-unequal tech-optimist perspective just because it’s dominant and because using technology helps ‘their’ people.
There has to be another way.
Finding a shared perspective
In 1994, cultural critic Mark Dery came up with the term “Afrofuturism” in an essay titled “Black to the Future.” Black people, he wrote, have “other stories to tell about culture, technology and things to come.”
Afrofuturism, it’s aesthetics, stories and philosophies existed long before Dery named it.
Jone Johnson Lewis, a women’s history writer who has been involved with the women’s movement since the late 1960s, says, “Afrofuturism can be seen as a reaction to the dominance of white, European expression, and a reaction to the use of science and technology to justify racism and white or Western dominance and normativity.”
Julian C. Chambliss, Professor of English at Michigan State University, says, “Afrofuturist works ask audiences to think about how society can be made safe for everyone.”
Ian Forrester describes Afrofuturism as, “not just an aesthetic — it’s just as much a framework for activism and imagining new technologies”.
Add all of this up and Afrofuturism, with its recognition that the global status quo is one of political, economic, social, and even technical inequality, offers a way of looking at technology, how it is developed and used that challenges tech-optimism. Charities recognise and share that worldview too. When they look at the world they see its problems. So there’s some overlap there. Perhaps afrofuturism offers a lens to help charities look at technology in a different way.
Looking at charity technology
It’s this lens for imagining more inclusive technology that makes afrofuturism a useful framework for the future of technology in charities.
It means not only grappling with technical considerations but also the sociocultural implications of how the technology works and how it might be used. It means including people who are affected in the decisions that affect them. It means going beyond recognising and then accepting algorithmic bias and access issues. It means charity technologist educating themselves about the issues in the global supply chain. Perhaps it means using refurbished laptops to take a stance on cobalt mining, or selecting hosting services that run on renewable energy, or collecting less data. And it definitely means making conscious choices that are for the greater good.
There is no perfect solution that immediately ensures a charity’s use of technology is net positive, but challenging the dominant tech-optimist way of thinking about technology and considering other perspectives like afrofuturism will be vitally important for the technology charities of the future.
References
Chambliss, J. C. Why Afrofuturism matters: Deep dive into the cultural movement and its tenets. https://www.news9live.com/art-culture/the-tenets-of-afrofuturism-177546
Danaher, J. 2022. Philosophy & Technology 35: 54. Techno‑optimism: an Analysis, an Evaluation and a Modest Defence. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13347-022-00550-2.pdf
Frankel, T. C. 2016. The Cobalt Pipeline. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/
Königs, P. 2022. Philosophy & Technology 35: 63. What is Techno‑Optimism? https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13347-022-00555-x.pdf
Ogbunu, C. B. 2020. How Afrofuturism Can Help the World Mend. https://www.wired.com/story/how-afrofuturism-can-help-the-world-mend/
Owen, T. 2021. C. Brandon Ogbunu on Afrofuturism as a Tech Framework. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9GSlNpN2dMbA/episode/MTUyZGFmNmUtZTMzOC00NjE2LTgwNWUtOTZkYTQ4YjE3ODM1?sa=X&ved=0CAIQuIEEahcKEwiQl6KR9KP9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA
Johnson Lewis, J. 2018. Afrofuturism: Imagining an Afrocentric Future. https://www.thoughtco.com/afrofuturism-definition-4137845
Winchester, III, W. W. 2019. Engaging the Black Ethos: Afrofuturism as a Design Lens for Inclusive Technological Innovation. Journal of Futures Studies, December 2019, 24(2): 55–62. https://jfsdigital.org/articles-and-essays/vol-24-no-2-december-2019/engaging-the-black-ethos-afrofuturism-as-a-design-lens-for-inclusive-technological-innovation/
Horizon scanning for product managers
I’m increasingly convinced that the success of a product is less to do with what goes on inside an organisation and more about how what’s going on outside affects the entire system that the product is part of, including the organisation, the users, suppliers, competitors, etc., etc.
If I’m right, then product managers that focus on internal tactical improvements, things like what format the roadmap should take or how to write the perfect user story, aren’t going to have the impact they should. Product managers that know what’s going on around their product and how to respond to it and the ones that will make their product successful.
So, I’m trying to figure out how product managers might do this kind of horizon scanning and sensing how to respond. One idea for the scanning part is looking at trends.
Macro trends
Macro trends are “major shifts in consumer behaviour that will direct the business landscape in the long term. They have a cross-industry impact and evolve over time.”
A product manager might look at:
- Technology trends, especially emerging tech.
- Social trends
- Government policy changes
- Economy
A good place to start is looking at macro trend reports:
- Gartner® Report – Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2023
- 2023 Global Consumer Trends
- Discover the trends that’ll dominate 2023
- Economies in 2023: Key Trends to Watch
- 7 Important Macro Trends (2023-2026)
- The 5 Biggest Business Trends In 2023 Everyone Must Get Ready For Now
- 4 macro trends that will impact deals in 2023
- 2023, a testing year: Will the macro-scenario range widen or narrow?
- Five global macro trends set to most impact marketers in 2023
- Economic Outlook 2023: Trends to watch
- The state of UK commerce 2023
These trend reports are often sales and marketing for the company providing them, and lack any information about where a trend came from or where it’s going. Instead they tend to just be a snapshot of ideas so should be considered critically but having some idea of what things look interesting and impactful
Micro trends
Micro trends are “business and economic trends that are associated with specific market sectors.”
Every market sector has trends; fashion, food, transport, etc., etc.. Some sectors change more often and more quickly than others but understanding the micro trends for the sectors that affect the users of a product,
A product manager might look at:
- Employment within a sector
- Influencers, new entrants and organisations with history
- Media, especially advertising
- News coverage
Understanding trends
Trends don’t exist in isolation. Understanding the difference between micro and macro trends and how they affect each other is also an interesting consideration for product managers. Not easy for anyone to ever understand fully, but definitely worth exploring.
What next?
I’m going try to create a systems map with a product in the middle and the micro and macro trends that affect the product through it’s users.