I don’t manage a team of direct reports. Yet as a Principal Designer on a strategic in-house design team, I do serve in a valued leadership capacity of influence, role modeling behaviors and approaches, for peers and junior staff alike. Having worked over 10+ years in Silicon Valley, I have observed what works (and more […]

Executives are kind of a funny lot. Not all are trained to be group collaborators yet coordinate with very strong personalities. Most are driven by fact-based proven statistical metrics yet want that elusive charm/desire factor for buzz and sales. Many speak of brand values of the company yet make agonizingly tough decisions that seem counter-intuitive, […]

It’s typical among Lean Startup adherents to speak of “validation” and “customer development”, as part of the rapid iterative build-test-learn cycle inherent to the Lean philosophy. Formed an assumption about the customer? Validate it. Got a new hypothesis about the problem? Validate it. Exploring some delivery tactics via a fake website? Validate it. Validation is […]