The Design Sprint — GV
The sprint is a 5-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing with customers. Learn to run your own sprints, and read about our book on sprints.
execution
How Paypal and Reddit faked their way to traction
When “faking it before making it” actually works
Using OKRs to Increase Organizational Learning
This is a draft chapter from the second edition of Radical Focus. It’s coming… eventually. Hopefully soonish. Leave your wishlist for other topics you’d like it to cover, and enjoy the sneak peek! …
12 signs youre working in a feature factory
Failure mode and effects analysis
Failure mode and effects analysis is the process of reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes in a system and their causes and effects. For each component, the failure modes and their resulting effects on the rest of…
Make Operations Your Secret Weapon - Here’s How
Etsy COO Linda Kozlowski knows an operations leader is critical to the success of a company. Here, she sheds light on the most mysterious role in the C-suite — and how startups can hire and empower the right COO for their company.
Steve Blank Fear of Failure and Lack of Speed In a Large Corporation
I just spent a day working with Bob, the Chief Innovation Officer of a very smart large company I’ll call Acme Widgets. Bob summarized Acme’s impediments to innovation. “At our company we have a cu…
Growth Hacking Checklist
“My biggest surprise was when we launched the Facebook app and it didn’t go viral” -Startup CEO quote “The month after we ...
What Process Mining Is, and Why Companies Should Do It
There have long been a few fundamental challenges associated with business process management. But a relatively new and innovative technology, process mining, has the capability to revitalize process management in firms where it has lain fallow for years. One problem involves…
The 9 Habits of Ultra-Fast Iterations
One sector has an unfair number of elite product minds. These 9 habits are their underlying behaviors that result in product success.
Evidence Based Scheduling
Software developers don’t really like to make schedules. Usually, they try to get away without one. “It’ll be done when it’s done!” they say, expecting that such a brave, funny zinger will reduce t…
Use OKRs to Set Goals for Teams, Not Individuals
A popular goal-setting framework, Objectives and key results (or OKRs) are an effective method for planning and measuring success on a team level. They fall short, however, when companies attempt to apply them to individual contributors. Setting individual OKRs generally leads…
OKRs – The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting in 2020 - noupe
The acronym OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. Much has been written on the topic over the years yet they still remain a mystery for
A case study in early-stage startup execution
Before joining Wave four years ago, I spoke to a former employee about his experience. He said something that has stayed in my memory ever since: “Wave is really good at execution, so by working at Wave, you’ll learn how to execute very well.” Now that I’ve been here a while, I…
3 Practices That Set Resilient Teams Apart
New research reveals that how we perform work as a team contributes more to resilience than external stressors. On resilient teams, individuals feel responsible for energizing each other. This is in stark contrast to teams who are challenged by frustrating ways of working and…
42 things I learned from building a production database
In 2017, I went to Facebook on a sabbatical from my faculty position at Yale. I created a team to build a storage system called Delos at the bottom of the Facebook stack (think of it as Facebook’s version of Chubby). We hit production with a 3-person team in less than a year…
Speed as a Habit
All things being equal, speed will determine whether your company succeeds or not. Here's how to make it core to your culture.
Adam Savage on Lists, More Lists, and the Power of Checkboxes | WIRED
The 'Mythbusters' star and author of the new book 'Every Tool's a Hammer,' explains the magic of the colored-in checkbox.
The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday | Typesense
When I first started working on Typesense six years ago, I set myself a simple rule: I shall write some code everyday before or after work. That’s it. No deadlines, no quarterly goals, no milestones. I did not have a choice really — I was about to get married and was already…
After-action Reviews: A Simple Yet Powerful Tool
This Nano Tool for Leaders offers guidance for creating a culture of continuous performance improvement and adaptive learning by systematically reviewing team successes and failures.…Read More
The Right Way to Ship Software | First Round Review
An open letter from a former Facebook and VMware engineering executive on how startups can best structure their release processes.
Moral Competence
Lessons learned in incident management
How to Stop Endless Discussions with RFCs
When we find ourselves in endless debates where everyone defends their idea, we don't know how to handle the situation. We eventually find a way out, but what we need is an excellent system.
The difference between efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency
Efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency… These terms sound confusingly similar. Commonly used in medical research, project management, and decision science, they are often mixed up in everyday conversations. If you’re in a hurry, here’s the difference: Efficacy means getting things…
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: Gawande, Atul: 9780805091748: Amazon.com: Books
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right [Gawande, Atul] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
How OKRs can make you a better leader
Leaders need to lead by example using OKRs, showing that they are equally as committed to successful outcomes as anyone on the front lines of the business.
The GIST Board — A New Way to Do Planning and Execution | HackerNoon
Done right, GIST keeps the team, management and stakeholders aligned on the why (goals), what (ideas) and how (steps and tasks), and every task we execute is connected to a business goal. A full quarterly plan creates a GIST tree per goal:
Why Japan's Rail Workers Can't Stop Pointing at Things - Atlas Obscura
A seemingly silly gesture is done for the sake of safety.
5 Concepts That Will Help Your Team Be More Data-Driven
Data is invading every nook and cranny of every team, department, and company in every industry, everywhere. Developing the talent needed to take full advantage must be a high priority. Indeed, everyone must be able to contribute to improving data quality, interpreting analyses…
How One Hospital Improved Patient Safety in 10 Minutes a Day
Clinical and nonclinical staff at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital have improved patient care and raised staff morale at a very modest cost: 10 minutes a day and a special deck of cards. At the start of every shift, the team members get together for a brief “team-start.” Each team…
dbt Labs Blog | Learn from the experts | dbt Labs
Learn more about the data analytics industry, dbt Cloud and dbt Core, as well as company news and updates.
Strategy vs. Tactics
Strategy and tactics are two terms that get thrown around a lot, often used interchangeably. But what exactly do they mean, what is the difference, and why is it important? In this article, we look at the contrast between strategy and tactics, and the most effective ways to use…
Running a Fine Dining Restaurant in a Recession
How Eleven Madison Park survived the 2008 Global Recession ... and what this tells us about operating through the capital cycle.