Weeknotes 370
This week I did:
Data maturity
I spent quite a bit of time creating an analysis of a data maturity survey we’ve been conducting. It’s been really interesting, not only seeing the results but also how different people approach answering. Together, I think they paint the best picture because there’s a mix of the objective and subjective. Despite my complicated analysis, I think the best visualisation so far is a simple heat map that shows where people agree and disagree.
Responsible product management
I’ve decided that the side-project I want to work on is about creating a framework and guide for responsible product management. I can develop my ideas about the different aspects for creating products that are valuable, usable, feasible and viable in a responsible way.
Give Blood app
I tried repeatedly to book an appointment to give blood, and when it didn’t work I took out my frustrations on the app.
Productivity
This week I completed 30 tasks, which is an average of 6 a day and quite a drop from previous weeks which have all been between 9 and 10 a day.
This is what my productivity looked like over the 22 working days in August.
Completely unrelated to my productivity, I current have 49 tabs open in Chrome, 56 in Edge, and I’ve started using Edge Workspaces to organise and share files, so I have 2 of those, one with 3 and the other with 5.
I read this week:
The importance of psychological safety for remote teams
Diana explains how psychological safety could result in individuals thriving, where people feel safe and empowered. Consequently, thriving employees give an organisation a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic environment. Business leaders must recognise this potential and embrace a culture that empowers product teams.
From Projects to Products
“It’s easy to see why so many companies may talk about the importance of outcomes over output, yet their culture and behaviors consistently prioritize predictability over results.”
The ultimate collection of Pretty Rad Documents
This is the ultimate collection of PRD templates from great companies like Miro, Figma, Asana, Intercom & many more. Edo Van Royen reviews each, and share his highlights.
Why The Impact Effort Prioritization Matrix Doesn’t Work
Mostly it doesn’t work because it tries to establish a relationship two things that aren’t related, but also because it “requires us to make somewhat reliable predictions on future events — the effort we will require to complete a task and the value that will be delivered to users and/or to the company once completed. As it turns out both are jobs we’re exceptionally bad at.”
Personal playing to win strategy
You need a better Where-to-Play/How-to-Win.
And I thought about:
Which discipline do charity CEO’s come from?
I had a quick look at the CEO’s of the ten most popular charities on LinkedIn to see which discipline they came from. Obviously, they choose what they put on LinkedIn so it’s not a complete dataset, but some common themes were:
- The main experience CEO’s have is other leadership roles.
- Domain experience seems secondary.
- Discipline (e.g., marketing, fundraising) seems almost irrelevant, except perhaps as a route to leadership roles.
Time to value
What is the relationship between the time spent on a piece of work and the value of what it produces? And what about the time spent developing the skills to spend the time doing the work?
It always reminds me of the story about the woman who approached Picasso in a restaurant, asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth. Picasso complied and then said, “That will be $10,000.” “But you did that in thirty seconds,” the astonished woman replied. “No,” Picasso said. “It has taken me forty years to do that.”
Maybe the little bit of time spent doing the work in the middle of the long time spent developing the skills and the long spent getting value from the work, is actually quite small.