AI has made building easier.
But building the right thing is still hard.
Ten articles every week on what is happening across product, research, design and engineering. Curated by Rory Madden to help teams decide what to build.
Explore the editions ↓The archive
Who loves estimating how long it will take to deliver some features? The reason we don't like it is because we never have enough information. We have high level requirements with so many uncertainties that we have to make a lot of assumptions. We then pad our estimates with conti
Read edition ↗I'm sure you've seen the picture from Henrik kniberg depicting the iterative development showing a skateboard, bicycle and then a car. The theory made sense to me but whenever I was faced with a project I couldn't figure out how to apply it. The solution only worked when all of t
Read edition ↗The "Not Invented Here" syndrome is a common challenge in software development, where teams often prefer building everything from scratch rather than leveraging existing solutions. While building custom solutions can provide unique value, it can also lead to wasted time and resou
Read edition ↗After doing fantastic Continuous Research and Continuous Design work, you have a validated prototype. The only problem is that it would take weeks or months to build. Most features fail to deliver the expected business value, so this is unacceptably long to work on the feature. W
Read edition ↗Feature flags let development teams release features incrementally.. However, they come with a significant challenge: test case explosion. As each feature flag essentially creates a duplicate version of the system, the number of potential paths requiring testing grows exponential
Read edition ↗DevOps is often framed as a technical solution: continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, automated testing, and infrastructure as code. But the technology would be pointless without the necessary cultural changes.
Read edition ↗Duke Nukem Forever took over 14 years to develop due to a string of requirements changes, scope creep and unforeseen challenges. The team were struggling to create the graphics they needed with their game engine and decided to swap game engines after over a year and a half of wor
Read edition ↗Even when people say they are working in an Agile environment, there is often a big design phase, and for good reason - a single new requirement can result in a complete redesign of the solution.
Read edition ↗The biggest risk in product development is building products that customers don't want. But the next biggest risk is analysis paralysis, where teams spend all their time and budget trying to evaluate whether they're building the right thing.
Read edition ↗The presence of a moderator during a usability test influences the dynamic of a test. Nobody likes having someone look over their shoulder and judge them. This is why the moderator role is so crucial in ensuring that you get high-quality insights from your tests.
Read edition ↗It is far too easy to fall into the trap of believing that customers will love what we are building. That is why we go to the effort of breaking down our solutions, identifying assumptions, and then trying to evaluate them. But there is still one hurdle left to overcome - our bia
Read edition ↗Most advice around testing seems to focus on generative interviewing. This is critical to ensure that you build the right thing - but I believe there is a gap around advice on how to run high quality evaluative tests.
Read edition ↗You have a great idea, you just need to evaluate whether customers really want it. You want to create a landing page and some social media posts that highlight how great your new feature is. But how do you convey the value of your product quickly and accurately?
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