Most folks aren’t terribly excited about receiving feedback at work. It’s generally negative, you might not agree with it, and it’s often too vague or shallow to be helpful. Most folks aren’t terribly excited about giving feedback either. There’s a risk of being perceived as judgy, nitpicky, or impersonal. Or it may simply be hard […]

In a story workshop, a small group of people from a product team get together to build shared understanding by answering the question, “What are we going to build?” Put another way, it involves examining one piece (story) of the bigger picture (story map) through conversation. The goal of this workshop is to build a […]

“The weather’s beautiful—let’s go for a nice bike ride!” You’re picturing a five-mile route along a trail, right? If so, we’re in trouble. I’m hoping for a 100-mile ride, hopefully on roads I’ve never traveled before. If we ride off together without getting our expectations aligned, we’ll soon find ourselves unhappy.

When companies make technological changes to keep pace with their industry, they inevitably have to make culture and process changes, too. And those are often significantly more difficult. I was struck recently by similarities between modern corporate culture changes and those described by Dan Carlin in one episode of his Hardcore History podcast.