New Book: The Right Way To Select Technology

I quit my career as a IA consultant because I got tired. It wore me out to hear clients gripe about their technology. How, say, SharePoint made it impossible for them to improve the customer experience. I felt bad for them. And even worse for their customers. Because once company picks its software, good bloody luck changing it.

That’s why I’m so happy to get our newest book—The Right Way To Select Technology—out into the world. Organizations must stop falling for marketing pitches and buying the wrong technology. And stop wasting time and money. And I can’t think of better authors to tackle this than Tony Byrne and Jarrod Gingras. Their firm, Real Story Group, has been evaluating software for 16 years. They’re renowned for being technology-agnostic and fiercely independent.

If you’re helping to choose technology for your organization, Tony and Jarrod’s book will help you make good choices. You’ll also negotiate better deals and make your users happy. It’s short, witty, and available today here at Rosenfeld Media or via Amazon. I hope you enjoy it!

Interview with Project Management for Humans Author Brett Harned

When you think of project management what pops to mind? Overpacked gantt charts? 500 “urgent” emails flooding your inbox? Brett Harned knows another way to move you towards efficient processes and happy coworkers. He’s put his wisdom into a new book Project Management for Humans. I interviewed Brett to get to know the human behind the book.

Meet the Author

What did your childhood bedroom look like?

I kept it neat and organized. Even my “messes” were tidy. Like this huge stack of CDs I’d reorganize depending on my mood: alpha by artist, by genre, by favorite, or most played. I pinned things to a cork board rather than the walls.

When did you first catch the bug for project management?

Razorfish recruited me for a role as a PM. When they first reached out I didn’t know what that was! I’d been an account director with some project management responsibilities, but it wasn’t a formal role. As they explained what it was to me, I thought, “Oh yeah, that’s totally up my alley.”

What does everyone need to know about project management?

Everyone manages their own work in some way. Some people are good at it. Others? Not so much. If you want to be a good teammate, freelancer, business owner, you have to pick up some skills that will help you move things along and complete projects successfully.

Some folks have told you they’ve never worked with great project managers. Why do you think this is?

In digital, the role is new and undefined. We’ve always dealt with deadlines and budgets, but no one owned them. Now we’re see more PMs on teams, no standards of practice exist yet. This makes it tough for anyone to be truly good at the job. I want to change that! I wrote this book to help us take a step forward to design the role of PM for the digital industry.

Have you ever had a project management fail? What happened? What did you learn?

Where to start? I’ve failed a lot, and learned much each time. Once I managed a website redesign project where the UX team had designed some amazing forward-thinking functionality. It tied to the client’s strategy and took them in the right direction. The client loved it and all appeared well.

Until I showed the wireframes to my developers and they told me the functionality was completely out of scope.

I’d failed to double check with the developers before seeing the client. Now, it fell on me to fix it. I was nervous to deliver the bad news back to the client. So I engaged the help of my team and my I to prepare for the conversation. We walked through possible scenarios. If the client gets upset, what do I do? If he doesn’t like the options I’ll present, then what?

I got the client on the phone and broke the news. I apologized and suggested other options that might work. He was definitely disappointed, but the project ended up doing really well. Most experienced people understand that scope creep happens. The best way to address it is head on—and come with alternate solutions.

What gets in the way of successful project management?

Fear. If you’re too nervous or scared to have a needed conversation, or force an issueyou’ll fail. If you ignore minor issues, they’ll get worse. Be confident in your own problem solving skills and invite your team in to tackle issues as soon as you can.

What’s the biggest benefit of successful project management?

Good project management makes everything else easy. Work happens more smoothly when you you provide a level of organization and transparency. And communicate in a timely with the people on the project. If a PM runs interference on communications to let the team focus on the work, the team ends up feeling happier and being more productive.

If members of my team are hopelessly disorganized and resistant to changing their ways how can I help them?

Remember that not every solution will work for every team member. Be flexible with the way you manage and communicate people. If people are completely resistant, explain to them why organization is important. After they get that, work with them on a solution that makes them comfortable.

What do you recommend folks read from the book to motivate themselves to dig in?

The first chapter in the book covers what project management is, and how it applies to everyone. It’s not just about having a PM on a team; it’s about understanding how project management practices can help you get work done. I also think that the personal stories in the book help to relate very basic, non-work interactions to the principles and practices of PM.

What other profession would you like to try if you could?

Maybe I’d start a small business like a restaurant, or work outdoors. No matter what I did, I’d be able to use my experience as a PM and consultant to help me.

Knowing what you know now, what advice you’d give to your younger self?

Be you. Follow happiness. (Thankfully, I feel as though I’ve done this for the most part)

Journeys and Picnics

Lou Rosenfeld tackles the differences between producing books and conferences, and how to make conferences a little deeper—like books! Read on in Medium.

New Book Out Today: Designing Agentive Technology

The timing for our newest book Designing Agentive Technology couldn’t be better. AI has moved from being the “next big thing” to being the thing for designers to grapple with. I’ve even done some research that demonstrates how important AI and machine learning are to UX people.

If you’re venturing into the world of AI this year (or just thinking about it), there are two reasons you should consider picking up a copy:

What’s Next for UX? Research Results (and New Conference) Revealed

What’s New: Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries

The other day I hopped the subway to the Soho Apple Store’s Genius Bar to get my dead iPhone fixed. Being suddenly phoneless is quite disorienting. Rather than folding myself over my little master as I normally would, I looked up and suddenly noticed… people! The sea of diversity you’d expect to see on a New York City subway. And as an old UXer, I was drawn to observe them, exercising dormant field research muscles.

That’s when I realized that I had a book with me: an advance copy of Steve Portigal’s new book, Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories.

I couldn’t have had a better companion for the rest of that ride. I dipped into about a dozen of the 60+ field research war stories that make up the bulk of the book. The stories do what stories are supposed to do: engage. And the contributors have been through some experiences that will make you laugh, sweat with fear and discomfort, and—let’s face it—enjoy a bit of schadenfreude.

But it’s wrong to see Steve’s new book simply as a compilation of user research war stories. Let me explain why with a bit of my own publishing war story.

When Steve came to me with the idea for his new book a year or so ago, he was concerned that I wouldn’t want to publish it. After he explained the idea, I wasn’t sure either. I generally hate compilations, as they tend to drown out the main author or editor’s voice. And how useful could a book of user research war stories really be?

Then I thought some more. And I realized that some people have a knack for combing through ideas to arrive at a greater truth. Steve is one of those master synthesizers. I began to believe that if he dedicated the time to really digging into these stories, his sum would be greater than the parts.

In Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries, Steve comes through: he delivers a broader framework that’s useful for making sense of user research—or, actually, situations with people. Eleven chapters deliver eleven principles that you must know if you’re doing any kind of research:

• Chapter 1: The Best Laid Plans
  Expect your plan to never to go according to plan.
  
• Chapter 2: Those Exasperating Participants
  Be prepared for people to surprise (and sometimes frustrate) you.
• Chapter 3: Control is an Illusion
  Be prepared for research contexts to surprise (and sometimes frustrate) you.
• Chapter 4: Cracking The Code
  Be prepared to be challenged by differences in language and culture.
  
• Chapter 5: Gross, Yet Strangely Compelling
  If you feel disgust when observing people, counter it with empathy.
• Chapter 6: Not Safe For Work
  Be prepared for research contexts that are unpleasant and occasionally morally challenging.
• Chapter 7: To Live Outside the Law You Must Be Honest
  Know your ethics and your obligations before you begin.
• Chapter 8: The Perils of Fieldwork
  Be prepared for the discomfort and even danger you may face in the field.
• Chapter 9: People Taking Care of People
  Be prepared for people’s lives and situations to pull you from observation to participation.
• Chapter 10: Can’t Stop The Feeling
  Like it or not, your emotions will impact your research.
• Chapter 11: The Myth of Objectivity
  And, like it or not, observing and learning from people will inevitably change you.

So I’m glad to have my assumptions questioned about what books merit publication. Thanks for that, Steve—and, more importantly, for writing Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries and opening up a greater truth about field research.

Enjoy!

New Book Out Today: Blind Spot by Diller, Shedroff, and Sauber

It’s been quite a year here at Rosenfeld Media HQ. Four successful events, two new book imprints, and today, we bring your our seventh title of 2016: Blind Spot: Illuminating the Hidden Value of Business (by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, and Sean Sauber).

It’s fair to say that if you’re in any type of business, you and I continually struggle to gain and strengthen customer loyalty. It’s one of our biggest challenges. But despite decades of books and discussion, we haven’t seen a clear way forward. As with other intractable problems, the best approach is often to pause, step back, and reframe.

And this is where Blind Spot nails it: the authors move us from a mindset of mining our customers for loyalty (and money) to creating sustainable relationships that benefit us both.

Relationships with our customers go beyond traditional values of function and finance. In Blind Spot, you’ll learn to understand and develop premium types of value—emotional, identify, and meaningful—which offer far greater opportunities for creating better relationships.

You’ll also learn a new method for modeling these relationships called the waveline, that Bruce Nussbaum calls “the 21st century replacement for the consumer journey”. Finally, Blind Spot offers a 7-step approach to innovation built upon a foundation of strong and healthy relationships.

As always, I hope you’ll pick up a copy—either from the Two Waves site or Amazon. Blind Spot is, like all of our books, available in a lovely paperback edition, as well as four DRM-free digital formats (PDF, ePUB, MOBI, and DAISY). To your success!

New Book Out Today: Laura Klein’s Build Better Products

Happy book launch day!

It took months of cajoling but I talked Laura Klein into writing Build Better Products: A Modern Approach to Building Successful User-Centered Products. And guess what–she delivered.

Build Better Products is a comprehensive handbook for anyone designing or managing products. It provides easy-to-follow exercises and methods to improve products in six critical areas:

1. Goal: Defining the key business need
2. Empathy: Understanding user behaviors and needs
3. Creation: Designing a new user behavior to meet both business and user needs
4. Validation: Identifying and testing assumptions
5. Measurement: Measuring changes in user behavior
6. Iteration: Doing it again and again–improving each time

This framework—and the advice it delivers—is hugely practical and applicable for just about any product. The more complex your product, the more you need this book. Laura addresses another key need: bringing together the best of product management and user experience design in one place.

And there are two other reasons to pick up a copy of Build Better Products:

1. Tricks of the trade from a stellar lineup: Cindy Alvarez, Janice Fraser, Learie Hercules, Avinash Kaushik, Amy Jo Kim, Steve Krug, Dan Olsen, Steve Portigal, Chris Risdon, Kate Rutter, Teresa Torres, and Christina Wodtke.
2. It’s funny. Really funny. That’s why I spent all those months cajoling her. You’re very welcome.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Build Better Products. Buy it from us (in paperback, MOBI, ePUB, PDF, and DAISY formats). Or buy it from that Bezos guy. Let us know what you think!