What makes for a successful project
By: Chaz Mee
Tags: Collaboration, Leadership, Organization Design, Teamwork, Product Management

Early customer interviews (beyond quant) resulted in unique features based on a unique insight; left us room for ‘happy accidents’ and gave us time to pursue them

I am actually surprised at how many projects either skip this or don’t really start with finding the right problems to solve. And that starts with customers.

I heard a quote once that “great insights reside in the unexpected narratives of individual customers”. I absolutely agree. I’ve interviewed A LOT of customers (aka people) — and it’s always the unexpected things they say that results in the most interesting insights.

Also — leave room for happy accidents. May seem like a weird comment for success, but it has made a difference on some of my projects.

Took time to understand the client, business, landscape more than usual; didn’t just try to solve it with UX

I see too many people try and jump to solutioning without really understanding the space. Getting “oriented” is important. Not that you want take too much time but having context, allowing your mind to occupy the space, will also save time later (and you’ll make better decisions).

The way different team members see the space, the way they interpret how things do and don’t work, will be different. By allowing the team to understand it, also means they will be more effective problem solvers.

Don’t try and solve it through UX (design) alone — this is generally how teams get lost.

Audits, pulling together comparative, service design, etc., with time to digest the material let us ramp up quickly; helped us to feel like we were designing something new based on interesting input

I like to work very hand in hand with design teams (I consider myself an applied strategist), so pulling together quick audits or interesting references is useful. Taking time to digest the problem, gives the team time to receive interesting input into their process.

Include the unusual and even bizarre. Too many people look at or talk about “in and out of category”. Which can lead to things that make sense. But true innovation isn’t just looking at the things that make sense or are logical.

Also the way things work today is not how they will work tomorrow. This work is just as much about designing for tomorrow.

Landing the general vision for the product early helped us to not get lost in what the product is

“Vision” always seems like this abstract thing. Many clients I have known just want to start seeing design or some kind of widget. But without a guidepost — something you can come back to — you can get “lost in the product”.

Product strategy is both a vision and a compass — we want to be THIS, we should go THERE.

Without that you end up in endless rounds of revisions with has no real central focal point. Lots of features or functionality, much of which may look good, but in their totality don’t say much about the product or service itself.

In other words, you can end up with features that don’t say what the service, or the brand that offers it, is ABOUT.

Picking a direction / broad concept early allowed us to iterate within one big idea for each feature

Everything takes time, and trying to juggle too many ideas and concepts at once — especially when designing — means you can end up with a few half baked ideas rather than one really fully worked out solution or proposition that you can properly validate.

A clear direction allows you to say “the product is about this not about that”. It allows you to design a product that feels singular in its nature.

It also helps you avoid the dreaded feature “frankensteining”.

Prioritized our time well — focused our effort on what would differentiate the product (e.g., the walkthrough page)

Once you get into it, you have to keep prioritizing and staying focused.

Standups everyday, clear marching orders, clear checkins. Each week make it a point to remind yourselves what is important and what are the things you will do that will lead to a unique and novel solution.

Everything else is noise and busywork. Prioritization is key to this.

Also as a note — get a great Product Manager and setup a solid PM practice. A product manager and project manager are NOT the same. I cannot tell you what a difference this makes.

Go quickly from “it could be this” to “it should be this”

There is always a conceptual “could be this” / “could be that” stage, which is absolutely fine. That’s what exploring is all about — and it’s important.

But set up a way in which the team can get to “it should be this”.

Yes there are many ways to solve a problem and sometimes you end up with perhaps a couple ideas.

But if you have too many wildly different solutions something is wrong. Either you are lacking clear insights, don’t really know the problem you are solving for or haven’t really nailed a clear vision or value prop.

Consider pressing pause in this case and have an honest conversation about why this is and how you and your collective team can get to “it should be this”.