Notes

1     I first heard these terms used by Marty Cagan. See: https://svpg.com/the-origin-of-product-discovery/

2     See https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/

3     For a good summary of this research, see Barbara Tversky’s Mind in Motion.

4     The details of this Wells Fargo story come from journalists’ reports. I have not worked at or with Wells Fargo and have no direct knowledge of what happened. Here is one particularly detailed account: https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/24/news/companies/wells-fargo-timeline-shareholders/index.html

5     Jonassen, D. H. (1997). Instructional design models for well-structured and ill-structured problem-solving learning outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(1), 65–94.

6     Jonassen, D. H. (1997). Instructional design models for well-structured and ill-structured problem-solving learning outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(1), 65–94.

7     I blogged about this experience at ProductTalk.org/ost-origin

8     Karl Weick, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, defines this balance of having confidence in what you know with doubting what you know as the “essence of wisdom.” See: “Karl Weick. The Attitude of Wisdom: Ambivalence as the Optimal Compromise.” Published in Organizational Wisdom and Executive Courage.

9     Nigel Cross, “Expertise in design: an overview.” Design Studies, Volume 25, Issue 5, 2004, 427–441, ISSN 0142-694X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2004.06.002.

10   This isn’t unique to design. John Dewey, an American educational philosopher, argues that this is the key to strong critical thinking. When we encounter something that surprises us (like a failed solution), we need to critically examine the beliefs that led to that surprise so that we can update them. If you want to learn more about Dewey’s thoughts on critical thinking, see his book How We Think.

11   To read more about Sonja Martin’s story, see: https://www.producttalk.org/2020/08/actionable-outcomes/

12   For a good overview of Peter Drucker’s thoughts on managing by outcomes, see the book: The Essential Drucker

13   See: https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-okrs-a1f69b0b72c7

14   See his book Measure What Matters (but also see this blog post for some valid criticisms of this book: https://felipecastro.com/en/blog/book-review-measure-what-matters/)

15   For a better book on OKRs, see Christina Wodtke’s Radical Focus

16   See: Groen, B., Wilderom, C., & Wouters, M. (2017). “High Job Performance Through Co-Developing Performance Measures With Employees.” Human Resource Management, 56(1), 111–132.

17   For a good summary of this research, see: Latham, GP, Locke, Edwin A, & Latham, Gary P. (2002). “Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey.” American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.

18   For a summary of this research, see: Latham, GP, Tasa, K, Latham, BW, Seijts, G H, Latham, G P, & Latham, B W. (2004). “Goal Setting and Goal Orientation: An Integration of Two Different, Yet Related, Literatures.” The Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 227–239.

19   You can learn more about groupthink in Leigh Thompson’s Making the Team: A Guide for Managers

20   If you are interested in learning more about the cognitive benefits of drawing, check out cognitive psychologist Barbara Tversky’s book Mind in Motion.

21   See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/07/iphone-review/10/#h4

22   To learn more:

23   For an in-depth summary of common cognitive biases, see Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow

24   See: The Integrated Mind Michael Gazzaniga, Joseph Ledoux—Plenum, 1981

25   The Cognitive Neuroscience of Mind: A Tribute to Michael S. Gazzaniga Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz, Kathleen Baynes, George R. Mangun, and Elizabeth A. Phelps; The MIT Press; 2010; ISBN 0-262-01401-7

26   See Chris Argyris’s model, “The Ladder of Inference,” for why this is.

27   To learn more about Ahmed Guijou and his team’s story, see: https://www.producttalk.org/2020/12/discover-a-new-market/

28   See Melissa Perri’s Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

29   M. O. Ahmad, J. Markkula and M. Oivo, “Kanban in software development: A systematic literature review,” 2013 39th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, Santander, 2013, pp. 9–16, doi: 10.1109/SEAA.2013.28.

30   For a good way to assess external trends, see this explanation of STEEP analysis: http://www.utsdesignindex.com/researchmethod/steep-analysis/

31   I first read about this importance/satisfaction matrix in Dan Olsen’s The Lean Product Playbook. However, the earliest origin of the idea I can find is this academic paper: Chen, Shun-Hsing; Yang, Ching-Chow; Lin, Wen-Tsann; and Yeh, Tsu-Ming. (2007). Service quality attributes determine improvement priority. The Tqm Magazine. 19. 162–175. 10.1108/09544780710730005.

32   See the Chapter “The Attitude of Wisdom: Ambivalence as the Optimal Compromise” in the book Organizational Wisdom and Executive Courage, edited by Suresh Srivastva and David L. Cooperrider.

33   See: http://bit.ly/2-way-door

34   Bullens, L., van Harreveld, F., Förster, J., and van der Pligt, J. (2013). “Reversible decisions: The grass isn’t merely greener on the other side; it’s also very brown over here.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(6), 1093–1099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.07.011

35   Guilford, J. P. 1959. Personality. New York: McGraw-Hill; also Guilford, J. P., 1967. The Nature of Human Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.

36   Paulus, Paul & Kohn, Nicholas & Arditti, Lauren. (2011). “Effects of Quantity and Quality Instructions on Brainstorming.” The Journal of Creative Behavior. 45. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2011.tb01083.x.

37   Basadur, M. and Thompson, R. (1986), “Usefulness of the Ideation Principle of Extended Effort in Real World Professional and Managerial Creative Problem Solving”. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 20: 23–34. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.1986.tb00414.x

38   Brian Mullen, Craig Johnson & Eduardo Salas (1991) “Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: A Meta-Analytic Integration,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12:1, 3–23, DOI: 10.1207/s15324834basp1201_1

39   See Leigh Thompson’s Making the Team for a good summary of this research.

40   Nijstad, Bernard and Stroebe, Wolfgang and Lodewijkx, Hein. (2006). “The illusion of group productivity: A reduction of failures explanation.” European Journal of Social Psychology. 36. 31–48. 10.1002/ejsp.295.

41   Korde R., Paulus P. (2016) “Alternating individual and group idea generation: Finding the elusive synergy.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Volume 70, May 2017, Pages 177–190

42   Sio, U. N., & Ormerod, T. C. (2009). “Does incubation enhance problem solving? A meta-analytic review.” Psychological Bulletin, 135(1), 94–120. https://doi-org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.1037/a0014212

43   Dot voting is a quick way to poll a group’s opinion. Each person gets a set number of votes to distribute across the options as they see fit. The options with the most votes win.

44   See Leigh Thompson’s Making the Team

45   Daniel Kahneman discusses confirmation bias and many other cognitive biases in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Chip and Dan Heath also dive into confirmation bias in Decisive.

46   Robert Cialdini has a great explanation of the escalation of commitment in his book Influence.

47   The idea that a successful product is viable, feasible, and desirable has been around for years in the product industry. In trying to track down the origin, many people referred me to the IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit. However, it may have been used even earlier by Anthony Ulwick, when he introduced the “Jobs to be Done” framework.

48   Some thought leaders consider feasibility as technical feasibility alone and categorize legal, security, and compliance concerns as viability assumptions. To me, they make more sense as feasibility assumptions. But how we categorize them doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we enumerate them, question them, and, when needed, test them.

49   If you are new to story mapping, see Jeff Patton’s book User Story Mapping.

50   Mitchell, Deborah, Russo, J., and Pennington, Nancy. (1989). “Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events.” Journal of Behavioral Decision-Making. 2. 25–38. 10.1002/bdm.3960020103.

51   See: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/an-ethical-sanity-check-what-would-trolls-do/

52   See: https://ebn.bmj.com/content/22/3/67

53   See: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html

54   A live prototype is a prototype that you build and test in your production environment. It allows you to test with real customer data in an actual situation rather than in a simulated situation.

55   See this article by the Heath brothers (yup, the same Heath brothers who wrote Decisive) about the curse of knowledge: https://hbr.org/2006/12/the-curse-of-knowledge