Sundeep

Writer of words. Taker of pictures. Lover of quotes. Views not my own*

[Shreyas Doshi @shreyas]

The ability to create clarity when there’s no shortage of chaos, opinions, and competing priorities is a rare skill.

In any reasonably competent company, this skill alone will help take you quite far, fairly quickly.

Concretely, this means creating clarity on the main problems, clarity on the right solutions, and clarity on the action plan & priorities.

Very few people can do this well even though most people possess the intelligence necessary to do it.

This is because most people in the workplace have been conditioned to add more information, sound more clever, satisfy more stakeholders, and feign more precision & certainty than is possible.

Few understand that clarity in a chaotic situation can only emerge from subtraction, never from addition.

Clarity comes from communicating what stands out as most important, why it is most important, how it will be achieved, and last but not the least, giving people a way of thinking about why it is okay, even great, that we aren’t doing All The Other Things.

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

While we’re banning books…

Finland is teaching children in school how to recognize fake news and propaganda as part of critical thinking and civic responsibility. Some of this will seem very familiar.

Be. Like. Finland.

[Shreyas Doshi @shreyas]

It is futile for a highly talented person to mimic the playbook of someone who’s world class because there’s an infinite set of details behind world class performance & those details can never be accurately captured in any playbook.

Playbooks are poor proxies, quite useful for the average but hardly useful—at times even harmful—for the highly talented.

[𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 @Matt_Pinner]

A once in a lifetime shot ✨

[Edward Henry KC @edwardhenry1]

How to Lose a Case | Essex Court Chambers This is a superb article and well worth reading periodically https://t.co/hnYNsBmfIE

[Elan Miller @elanmiller]

On design sprints

[Sundeep @SundeepUK]

@shashj Is it too soon to call this the Shashank Redemption?

[Andy Budd @andybudd]

Here's a really good article from @rorysutherland .

This (edited) section is something I think a lot of designers will resonate with.

"What would’ve happened if you hadn’t given the brief to a load of engineering firms who immediately focused on speed, time, distance, capacity? What if you’d given the brief to Disney instead? Why does that question never get asked? Because it’s an open-ended question. And businesspeople, governments, and politicians aren’t looking to solve problems; they’re looking to win arguments. And the way you win an argument is by pretending that what should be an open-ended question with many possible right answers isn’t one. What you do is pretend this is a high school math problem with a single right answer, you solve for the right answer using high school math, and then nobody can argue with you because apparently you haven’t made a decision. You’ve simply followed the data. This is a massive problem in decision-making. We try to close down the solution space of any problem in order to arrive at a single right answer that is difficult to argue with."

https://t.co/uhQJHYJkI0

[Buitengebieden @buitengebieden]

Can’t stop laughing.. 😂

[Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan]

Some key takeaways:

1. Instead of a long, drawn-out research process, you can identify your ideal customer by doing a one-day sprint with your whole team. The process involves five qualitative interviews with your bullseye customers and watching them as a team in real time. This speeds up learning and ensures that the whole team gets aligned around the same insights.

2. The bullseye customer is more specific than a typical ideal customer profile (ICP). It’s an even more narrow subset of your target market most likely to initially adopt your product. Focusing on this narrow group helps you prioritize product development, align teams, and accelerate learning.

3. When validating your ideas, don’t get stuck on perfecting a single prototype. Instead, create at least three different versions to test. This helps you see what resonates most with your bullseye customer and allows your team to avoid getting too attached to one concept.

4. One of the biggest advantages of doing the bullseye sprint is learning how to recognize rejection early. Pay attention to signs of indifference during customer interviews. When you hear, “Oh yeah, I guess that would be nice,” or something similarly noncommittal, that’s your cue to move on. You’re looking for customers who are ready to say, “Take my money—where do I sign up?”

5. The way you approach customer research should differ from sales. Practice humble inquiry—ask questions as if you’re learning, not selling. Be vulnerable and embrace the fact that you don’t know everything. Your goal should be to learn, not to pitch.

6. Before diving into interviews, get everyone to predict what they think they’re going to learn. Make the predictions specific: what you actually expect will happen, not just what you hope to uncover. Then, after the interviews, compare those predictions with what you learned. This helps you avoid hindsight bias and gives you a clearer picture of how much you actually learned.

[Paweł Huryn @PawelHuryn]

PMs use the Kano Model 5x more often than alternatives.

Unfortunately, it focuses on the features.

This is dangerous. If the features do not solve customer problems, nobody will use them, whatever they request.

So, how do we fix that?

(1/7)

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

We're such an insanely impressive species of primates that we can capture this shot

[Sundeep @SundeepUK]

@fesshole I think this fess should have been cut.

[sophie @netcapgirl]

(unmuting but keeping the camera off) “sounds good, i’ll circle back when i have the bandwidth”

[DOZA🧐 @lil_doza]

The Interviewer, Ezra Levvannt was Tommy Robinson’s former Boss.

He interviews a lovely Irish lady around the grand canal.

He got completely destroyed with logical responses,a big smile and kindness.

We live in a world where you’re interrogated if you practice humanity.

[Jash Dholani @oldbooksguy]

This is Joe Overton

The famous "Overton Window" is named after him

It's the best mental model for understanding how political change ACTUALLY happens

A thread...

[Circe @vocalcry]

Every time I’m sore after Pilates I remember it’s what killed Jesus

[trash jones @jzux]

me: heyyyy

the drawing board: not this bitch again

[James Clear @JamesClear]

The strategy required to find a great opportunity (lots of saying yes and exploring widely) is different from the strategy required to make the most of a great opportunity (lots of saying no and remaining focused).