12 things you can do to succeed, enterprise edition

30 January 2014, 11:54

Part three of the mini‐series I am running at the moment on the usual social channels—twitter, g+, linkedin and xing—called positive action ships successful products. There, for every wishful thought that persists in the (mobile) software industry, I supply a complementary positive action.

Today’s offering is enterprise grade; let’s turn water into wine. If you are a product maker, or manage a product‐shipping organisation, then you can initiate at least one of these today:

Better go for it, deploy user research and design to ensure that new is really better.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, because it has not been done before.’
Better go for it, ban meetings; get the makers to collaborate in (pairs of) pairs.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, so it won’t cause all these extra rounds of meetings.’
Better go for it, evangelise the new, listen carefully to any needs, ignore naysayers.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, because the first feedback was rather reserved.’
Better go for it, make it an offer that can’t be refused—if it gets nixed, go underground.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, so we get the OK.’
Better go for it, negotiate until you trust that the engineers can build the design.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, because the engineers say it cannot be done.’
Better go for it, it is faster to build a completely new core product from scratch.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, because that code base is spaghetti.’
Better go for it, and enjoy every minute; save time through structure, research + design.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, so we all can go home at five—and on 14:30 (D) / to the pub (GB) on friday.’
Better go for it, because the blame will fall on us anyway.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, because the blame will fall on us.’
Better go for it, once the core product blows away the competition, features can be added.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, so we have time for more features.’
Better go for it, use frequent user testing to debug the innovative design.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, to pass the usability test.’
Better go for it, define a new game, on your terms, and ditch them old millstones.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, to pass the regression test.’
Better go for it, model careers are built on delivering remarkable results.
cf. ‘Better play it safe, to not jeopardise my promotion.’

ask not what this blog can do for you…

Now, what else can you do? First of all, you can spread the word; share this blog post. Second, the series continues, so I invite you to connect via twitter, g+, linkedin, or xing, and get a fresh jolt of positive action every workday.

And third, if you able and willing to take some positive action, then email or call us. We will happy to help you ship successful products.

ps: you can check out part two if you missed it.

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If you like to ask Peter one burning question and talk about it for ten minutes, then check out his available officehours.

portrait of Peter  Peter Sikking is an experienced
interaction architect. He unabashedly puts shipping great products at the centre of his design practice. He is known for his work for Google, Nokia, the Metapolator & GIMP open source projects, and startups.

Peter teaches, mentors, lectures and publishes. He enjoys working with small teams in an international setting, but also the fact that his work can be found on half a billion mobiles and creates billion‐dollar revenues.

What is Peter up to? See his /now page.

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