Expertise vs open-mindedness.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's perspective is genuinely the best approach or if they're just anchored in familiar thinking. What if they don't even know what “awesome” could look like?

On the other hand, knowing when to hold your ground versus when to let things go can be even trickier. What if I don't know what “awesome” feels like and am just comfortable with my usual approach?

Define who's making the call before a debate starts.

That person takes in everyone's input but in the end they own the final decision.

It cuts down on endless debates and helps the team align around a single direction - even if not everyone agrees at first.

A short post about unstoppable teams.

All teams will face this moment sooner or later.

Torpedoes hit and chaos erupts. This feels like the end.

You see those who freeze and are lost in analysis or despair. Others grab buckets, extinguish fires and patch the holes. Those who can't handle the shitstorm often leave or, worse, switch off - but the team that stays learns.

Each crisis builds resilience and over time, the screams fade, the paralysis lessens and the team grows steady.

One day, the torpedo hits again but nobody panics. Everyone acts, shoulders the load and trusts each other to hold the line.

That's the moment you know your team is unstoppable.

Protecting Discovery: A Playbook for Product Managers

Audience: Early-career and seasoned Product Managers, Product Owners, and cross-functional leads who want to lift team creativity and ship products customers rave about.

Why Rushing to Solutions Backfires

• Solution-first thinking kills curiosity. The instant you pitch a fix, the room defaults to critique rather than exploration.
• Creativity needs slack. When discovery is compressed, edge cases, fresh perspectives, and customer nuance vanish.
• Ownership drives quality. Teams fight for ideas they helped shape; they resist ideas handed down.

Common Scenarios Where Discovery Gets Short-Circuited

The Discovery-First Framework

1. Frame the Problem, Not the Fix

• Clarify the friction: user pain, market gap, or workflow snag.
• Share constraints: budget, timeline, regulatory, tech stack.
• State the desired outcome: measurable impact or customer behaviour change.

2. Hold the Space

• Use open prompts:
• “Where does this break for users?”
• “What edge cases worry you?”
• Embrace silence - ideas bloom in the gap.
• Capture themes, not verdicts.

3. Invite Diverse Voices

• Engineers for feasibility checks.
• Designers for journey mapping.
• Sales/Support for frontline insights.
• Reference models like Atlassian's Team Playbook “Discovery Play” for facilitation.

4. Convert Insights into Experiments

• Draft thin-slice prototypes or assumption tests.
• Prioritise by risk vs. learning value.
• Track outcomes in a shared dashboard (e.g. Productboard, Jira).

5. Guard the Vision, Not the Path

• Keep goals visible: OKRs, North-Star metric.
• Let the team iterate on execution details.
• Step in only to re-align on purpose, not on pixel placement.

Quick Reference: Discovery-Boosting Questions

• “What's the riskiest assumption here?”
• “If we had unlimited time, what would we explore first?”
• “How might a power user break this?”
• “Which customer quote captures the pain best?”

Agility is misunderstood. True agility adapts to change without succumbing to chaos. It's never about rushing decisions.

The best teams balance flexibility and structure. Agility thrives on collaboration, iterative progress and responsiveness - anchored by clear direction. Without this balance, chaos replaces speed and quality falls victim to a mirage of progress.

Agile isn't a strategy. It's how strategies breathe.

Agile vs Strategy

Using no-reply emails puts up a barrier and can leave customers feeling ignored.

Instead, businesses should use email addresses that invite replies and ensure responses. It's a simple way to build stronger relationships and gather valuable feedback.

TL;DR

Role clarity is oxygen. Let PMs own direction and PDs own experience. Protect calendars, write before debating, adjust volume by phase and track one metric that matters. Ship faster, sleep better.

1. Draw the Line Early

Product Manager (PM)

• Core focus: market and viability risk
• Typical questions: “Will people pay for this?” “Does it move the North-Star metric?”
• Key output: one-pager covering purpose, success metrics and trade-offs

Product Designer (PD)

• Core focus: usability and desirability risk
• Typical questions: “Can customers complete the task?” “Where do they stumble?”
• Key output: clickable prototype showing flow, copy and edge states

2. Guard the Calendars

Red flag: PM trapped in Figma tweaking icons.
Red flag: PD buried in cost–benefit spreadsheets.
Fast filter:

• If the task changes product vision, it belongs to the PM.
• If the task changes product surface, it belongs to the PD.

This discipline frees the roadmap and keeps creative energy high.

3. Write First, Talk Second

• PM posts a succinct one-pager to Slack outlining problem statement, success measures and known constraints.
• PD replies with a Figma link showing interactive flow, micro-copy and empty-state behaviour.
• Only then schedule a 30-minute debate. Decisions lock in, iteration time halves.

4. Phase-Based Volume Control

• Framing / Discovery – PM's voice dominates; market-sizing memo appears.
• Ideation & Prototyping – PD leads; high-fidelity Figma frames drop.
• Build & Polish – PD still loudest; design-system tokens freeze.
• Launch & Iterate – PM turns the volume back up; KPI dashboard lights up.

5. Share One Scorecard

Choose a single, public metric - activation lift, task-success rate or first-week retention. Both crafts pull the same lever, killing silos and politics.

6. Outcomes You Can Expect

• 25–40 % faster time-to-decision (anecdotal data from five Aussie SaaS teams).
• Higher designer morale: fewer context switches, deeper craft.
• Sharper product bets: PMs stay market-obsessed, avoiding “feature museum” creep.

Recommended Tools & Rituals

• Figma for rapid prototypes (PD).
• Miro/FigJam for story mapping (shared).
• Amplitude or Mixpanel for the single metric (PM).
• Weekly 15-minute “Line-Check” stand-up: confirm who owns which decisions this sprint.

Working at a small tech business shapes your career differently.

You'll juggle strategy, customer service, product development and beyond. The small team demands versatility, immersing you in every aspect of the business. This hands-on experience accelerates learning and builds skills quicker than larger organisations ever could.

For ambitious minds craving growth and variety, nothing compares.

Dedicated QA creates more problems than it solves.

When a dev team owns quality, accountability stays in the right hands. Bugs are fewer, fixes are faster and processes tighten.

Introducing dedicated QA shifts that balance.

Developers grow complacent, relying on testers to catch mistakes. Tools diverge, creating inefficiencies. QA often duplicates what devs should already handle.

Quality isn't a separate role. It's a shared responsibility embedded in every line of code.