Knowledge shared by our community

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.

The Limits to Improvement

In my previous job, I led the air products team and noticed that a section of our users couldn't book a direct flight. We conducted user research and found that many users had to make multiple bookings to reach their destination, taking a lot of time. We built an algorithm to determine the money value of time and an API to show users direct flights and other opportunities with connecting flights. We encountered a number of challenges, and when we launched the product in the pilot phase, we received complaints. We eventually expanded the product to international flights, but it didn't gain much traction. We learned that we could have done better user testing and failed to explain our value proposition clearly.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Understanding a Product Domain

A product leader was approached by the CPO to lead a platform consisting of consumer payments, data products, data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Despite having no knowledge of payments, the product leader took on the challenge and upgraded their knowledge in a short period of time. They identified three areas of work and deep dived into each one, learning the ins and outs of the domain. Through their hard work and dedication, they were able to become competent in the new domain and lead the team with confidence. The product leader learned that to create an impact, they need to be passionate and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

A Lead Engineer was very enthusiastic about a new feature within the company's suite of offerings, but the manager was concerned about moving too quickly and potentially harming the brand. To manage the situation, the manager suggested talking to users to gain insight before moving forward. The manager also redirected the Engineer's energy to generic features that would be part of the feature no matter what direction it took. The key lesson learned was to manage expectations around timelines and to connect the Engineer to the customer's needs.

Using Pre-Mortems to Set the Stage for a Successful Product Launch

This article discusses the importance of creating a great user experience in order to incentivize drivers to return. It suggests pre-mortems as a way to anticipate potential challenges and to build team unity. Pre-mortems involve the entire team coming together to consider worst-case scenarios and to identify common denominators. The goal is to make the process fun and to hold people accountable while still making the goal tangible.

Challenging the Status Quo

Women in the professional world often face pressure to be "nice" and filter their thoughts through what others expect of them, leading to a lack of authenticity and undervaluing of their talents. Through the guidance of mentors, the author has learned to be her authentic self and to provide feedback and mentorship to other women in the industry. She has also learned the importance of pushing back and developing her own perspective in order to be successful.

Branching Out Your Skillset as a Junior

This advice encourages juniors to focus on learning continuously instead of following a specific career ladder. It suggests that by changing their perspectives and taking on new opportunities, they can unlock a lot of different things in their path. It also encourages collaboration and communication with peers and mentors to help them reach their goals. Ultimately, it is a personal decision to decide what to learn and how to go about it.

Healing Broken Trust in Your Team

This article discusses the common disconnect between management and frontline engineers in startups. It outlines the actions taken by the author to address the situation, such as redefining team values, clarifying roles, and asking tough questions to stakeholders. The author also shares lessons learned, such as the importance of setting up team values, understanding the 'why' of the team's actions, and clarifying roles.

My One-on-Ones With Myself

This article outlines the steps taken by the author to plan their career goals and stay on track. These steps include planning their week on Sundays, staying offline in the morning, and having a monthly self-reflection meeting. The author also discusses the importance of setting realistic expectations and learning from others who have achieved their goals. Finally, the author emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and understanding why their goals are important to them.

Being Intentional About Your Career Growth

This article is about the author's journey of becoming intentional about their career growth. They started reading books about management and soft skills development, reaching out to contacts on LinkedIn, and having conversations with their manager. They learned that they needed to be visible and gain recognition in order to be promoted, and started dedicating weekly time to their career-related activities. They also learned that it is important to be intentional about their career growth and to express their intentions, even if there are no opportunities available.

How to Instill a Growth Mindset in Your Team

OY! is a leading fintech organization in the region that enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money securely. To keep up with the ever-changing payment landscape, the organization has implemented a number of processes to instill and nurture a growth mindset organization-wide. This includes a personal growth plan, virtual office hours program, and book reading club. Lessons learned include the need to identify key people to buy in to the growth mindset and serve as ambassadors, and the importance of preparing reports for the next step in their careers.

The Benefits of an Agile Working Environment

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall process to an Agile process in software engineering. It explains the benefits of Agility, such as the ability to get early feedback from customers and modify the product accordingly. It also provides lessons learned, such as keeping teams small, understanding everyone's individual working style, and getting early feedback.

Finding Peace Between Culturally-Diverse Teams

When taking over a large team with a lot of churn and political issues between the US and India, the main goal was to bring civility and trust. To do this, the team was broken into three groups, an employee from India was promoted to provide mentorship, and a people manager was brought in. Training material was created, and a two-week onboarding session was set up for new members. In order to build trust, the manager met with each team member every quarter. Compromise was essential, and the responsibilities were shared fairly. Ultimately, this sense of unity was able to mend the rift between the two teams.

Working Toward a New Vision

After being acquired, the VP of Engineering had to adjust to a new leadership and take on the role of setting the vision for the team. He established a one-year goal, but it ended up taking two years to complete. He learned to delegate more and to think in a longer-term time frame. He also realized that he should have hired more people upfront and been more aggressive in meeting his goals.

Pretotyping a Product That Doesn’t Yet Exist

This article discusses the concept of "pretotyping," which is a method of testing the viability of a product or feature before investing resources into building it. It involves creating a "fake door" with a menu of options to see which ones drive the most foot traffic. This method was used to determine which type of insurance to prioritize in terms of development. The article also provides lessons learned, such as gathering feedback through a "like" button and defining a hypothesis and metrics to measure success.

Testing and Solving a Problem as a Team

After spending time with a new development team, the author wanted to increase their rate of releases. The team had a large QA team and an extensive QA cycle, and the author tried to move from manual QA to an automated system. After a few mishaps, the author sought out the advice of someone not involved with the project and eventually created a small testing framework that shortened the QA process from three days to twenty minutes. The author learned that sometimes you need to be naive in order to solve a problem, and that if you showcase something working, you will earn the buy-in you need from others.

It Takes Focus to Make a Turnaround

The speaker joined a new company and was tasked with turning around a unit that was not running well. They identified the lack of focus as the main issue and proposed to focus everybody on a couple of tasks and put the other team efforts on hold. This allowed the team to release their first project within three weeks and build a sense of trust with one another. The speaker learned that asking what could be done in a feasible amount of time, executing with the right amount of vigor and discipline, and starting small and setting achievable goals are key to success.

Avoiding “Automatic Mode”

Automatic mode is a natural part of the brain's behavior, where it conserves energy by not thinking. As a leader, it is important to pull people out of this mode to get them thinking again and generating value. Doing this builds trust and is key for innovation, as the biggest asset in an innovative company is its people's brain power.

Resolving a Start-Up’s Dysfunctional Past as Their New Product Manager

A new employee was tasked with doubling a product's engagement within a year. After facing pushback from the existing Product and Engineering teams, the employee took a data-driven approach to resolving conflicts and gaining buy-in from all teams. Through patience, understanding, and data-driven decision-making, the employee was able to meet the goal of doubling engagement within nine months.

Phasing Out an Employee Struggling to Assimilate into the Culture of the Company

A Product Manager was hired with a great resume, but they had difficulty working with others and staying communicative. The manager tried to mentor them, but the employee was not receptive. After a year, the manager had to let them go, learning the lessons that it is important to hire the right person from the start and not to prioritize one individual at the expense of everything else.