Disqus - Latest Comments for rcauvin

Re: Austin At Large: Let Me Make Things Clear

Roger L. Cauvin — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 10:23:21 -0000

"Neighborhoods" are not a monolithic political camp.

Every person who reads your column lives in a neighborhood, and they hold a diversity of views. Some of those neighbors favor land use policies that protect incumbents, while some of them believe that enabling more and diverse families to live in their neighborhood would enrich their lives.

By equating "neighborhood" with "preservationist", you have disenfranchised the voices of inclusion within neighborhoods. You have allowed a minority of Austin residents to co-opt a word to further their ideological agendas.

Fortunately, some neighborhood associations and individual residents do not fit the stereotype you are perpetuating, and some of them joined together to form Friends of Austin Neighborhoods. I am a co-founder and serve on the board of the organization. We are reclaiming the word "neighborhood" to include the full diversity of voices.

Re: Install the Google Play Store on Amazon’s new Fire HD 8 tablet

Roger L. Cauvin — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 14:23:06 -0000

It appears this problem occurs when Google Play Services is installed on an SD card. To avoid problems with Google Play Services updates, if you have an SD card installed, use Settings > Apps & Notifications > Manage All Applications > Google Play services > Storage to specify that the app should use internal storage instead of SD card storage. After it transfers the app to internal storage, you should be able to update Google Play Services without errors, and without further error notifications.

Re: Distinction Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices

Roger L. Cauvin — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 10:34:01 -0000

Did you read the blog entry to which I linked? If not, I suggest doing so before attempting to address the scorecard issue further.

The product's unique value proposition should already be rooted in unaddressed customer needs. The unique value proposition represents the choices about which market problems your product will and will not solve. If you subsequently create a scorecard to rank feature ideas, it only distracts from the unique value proposition.

As for determining the unique value proposition itself, Al Ries and Jack Trout, who literally wrote the book on positioning, do not recommend the use of a scorecard. They recommend an approach reflected in this model. (Interestingly, it also is more compatible the holistic approach that Nir recommends to comparing products.)

Re: Distinction Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices

Roger L. Cauvin — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 10:10:12 -0000

I suspect distinction bias is relevant to product teams making choices about a product they are developing. Inevitably, when controversy erupts about what features to develop next, an analytical member of the team creates a scorecard or spreadsheet. "We will put this controversy to rest by listing all of the factors that determine the feature priorities, and by quantifying how the features score on each factor." Of course, it never works, for the reasons I described here. But distinction bias introduces an interesting additional reason that the scorecard approach to prioritization is misguided.

Re: How to identify your Unique Selling Proposition(USP)?

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 14:07:03 -0000

@Jiya, I believe you highlighted a lot of important considerations for a unique selling (or value) proposition. It's unfortunate that most companies don't consider these questions before developing products, instead of as an afterthought. The unique value proposition is a critical part of the product strategy that should drive all product decisions.

Re: Understanding how Design Thinking, Lean and Agile Work Together

Roger L. Cauvin — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 14:19:27 -0000

Agile thought leaders recognized early that agile was NOT just about "building the thing right". They saw that agile is important for determining the right thing to build. As I wrote in 2005, agile can address both the evils of big up-front design and big up-front requirements.

Re: Today’s Headlines

Roger L. Cauvin — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 12:13:28 -0000

Thanks for linking to the FAN CodeNEXT recommendations. There are, in fact, nine recommendations, so you might want to change that headline.

Re: Neighborhoods vs. Neighborhoods?

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 18:01:37 -0000

Thanks for the clarification, Mike. I understand that all the acronyms, names, and affiliations can be confusing.

Re: Neighborhoods vs. Neighborhoods?

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 17:38:45 -0000

My recollection is consistent with Pete's. FAN took no position on Ridgetop Elementary. All FAN policy positions thus far have come from transparent discussion on the forum and a subsequent vote of the membership, and we have adopted no positions without explicit support from at least a 60% supermajority of voting members.

Re: Neighborhoods vs. Neighborhoods?

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 17:27:20 -0000

Thanks, Mike. My experience with everyone at North Loop NA meetings is that they are personable, well-meaning neighbors with a diversity of views. I hope that this month's meeting, and any future meetings where FAN might present, are more about listening and answering questions than about "pitching".

Re: Neighborhoods vs. Neighborhoods?

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 13:07:36 -0000

Consistent with what @Pete wrote, neither FAN as an organization nor FAN leadership attempted to shut down any conversation. If individual members who posted on the forum expressed views in a manner that made you feel unwelcome, I'm sorry. FAN aims to welcome everyone into the conversation.

We welcome you and all your neighbors to participate in the conversations on the FAN forum, which is open and transparent to the public. We also welcome North Loop Neighborhood Association to rejoin FAN.

Re: Enter The Matrix – Lean Prioritisation

Roger L. Cauvin — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 17:43:17 -0000

I'm glad to see a suggestion to avoid the scorecard approach to prioritization and to simplify using a 2x2 matrix.

However, I see a familiar mistake in the way the article describes how to assess the value of individual items being prioritized. The recommendation is to assess value in terms of such factors as reach, customers, revenue, acquisition, efficiency, and brand.

Yet an organization should have a product strategy, and that strategy should guide product decisions and prioritization. At the core of the product strategy is the unique value proposition you have chosen for your product. If you are not assessing the value of individual items mostly in terms of the overarching unique value proposition, which you have purposefully chosen as the value your product should provide, you don't have a product strategy, or you are ignoring it.

Reach, customers, revenue, efficiency, and brand are factors to consider when you are forming your product strategy, not so much when you are assessing the value of individual features. Otherwise, you will end up with a fragmented product that doesn't have or realize a unique value proposition.

Re: The Angel VC: WTF is PMF? (part 1 of 2)

Roger L. Cauvin — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:16:29 -0000

Good question about if and when there is a discrete moment when a product has reached product/market fit. I think it may help to relate the issue of product/market fit with the "validation" concept that is so fashionable in lean startup circles.

I contend that lean startup practitioners are far too focused on validation and not enough on actual testing of business models. I've urged lean startup practitioners to adopt the mindset of Karl Popper, who claimed that we never validate scientific theories. Experiments can falsify them, but otherwise they merely survive for another experiment.

As we iterate on, and test, a business model, we shift what we test as we find riper opportunities for falsification and learning. We never really "validate" any aspect of the business model. Or, if we do, it's a dangerous mindset to employ.

Similarly, rather than strive for achieving product/market fit, pursue ways of demonstrating the lack thereof, learn from the experiments, and modify hypotheses accordingly.

Re: This simple email subject line can get you an 80% open rate

Roger L. Cauvin — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 15:04:46 -0000

Why "X x Y" instead of "X + Y"? Did you test both of them? Did the plus version not get as many opens or conversions?

Re: How to Conduct Customer Interviews (Even When You Don’t Have Customers)

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 18:56:26 -0000

@Thomas Carney You covered a lot of best practices here. To a large extent, they address the top five prospect interview mistakes I described in 2012.

Aspiring "customer development" practitioners can learn a lot by reading this article. One of the biggest mistakes people make is asking direct questions instead of the open-ended questions you suggest. You are right on target that the most important insights come from uncovering unknown unknowns.

That said, I also urge product managers and lean startup practitioners to avoid hypothetical questions in prospect interviews. While, overall, I thought your questions were excellent, some of them were a bit too hypothetical for my taste. Prospective and existing customers don't know what they would do; they know what they actually do.

So for a pricing question, don't ask how much would be too much. Ask more open-ended questions that uncovers the cost of not using your product. I call it negative pricing.

Re: Austin May Cut Parking Requirements By Nearly 50 Percent

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 16:07:29 -0000

You're right. The Obama White House economists and housing officials called for the "elimination" of, not reduction in, minimum parking requirements.

Re: What's Behind Declining Transit Ridership Nationwide?

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 17:54:45 -0000

Thanks! However, in order to understand the relationship to transit, we have to look at VMTs specifically in the areas served by transit. Those areas tend to be denser and more urban, and therefore subject to different trends when it comes to commuting and lifestyle preferences (e.g. millennials who don't like long commutes). I wasn't able to find that information in the data.

Re: What's Behind Declining Transit Ridership Nationwide?

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:14:53 -0000

Yes, we're so quick to jump on a decline in transit ridership being due to something about transit itself (e.g. unreliable service) or about competition with other transportation options (e.g. ride-hailing).

But I wonder about overall transportation numbers. What has been happening to vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) while transit ridership has declined? What has happened to commute rates?

It may very well be that overall VMTs have declined, or that commute rates have declined, which would explain some of the transit ridership declines as having nothing to do with transit itself.

Re: Google Photos no longer creates copy of edited images, replaces original picture on device and cloud

Roger L. Cauvin — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 11:04:29 -0000

I agree. I was able to use the Manage Versions feature of Google Drive to upload the edited photo and "overwrite" the original. But it would be much more intuitive and convenient if it happened automatically.

Re: Google Photos no longer creates copy of edited images, replaces original picture on device and cloud

Roger L. Cauvin — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 10:46:32 -0000

It doesn't do so for me. I edited a photo in Google Photos and the original photos still shows in Google Drive.

Re: Outcome-Driven Innovation for Product Managers

Roger L. Cauvin — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 16:02:18 -0000

A "job to be done" is not the only form of need. Actually, a JTBD is the context in which a problem or unmet need occurs.

It is always possible, in principle, for a user to "get a job done" or achieve a functional goal. For example, the JTBD might be delivering a gift to someone in the Sahara Desert. Almost anyone can get this job done. We can take a plane, fly as close as we can to the Sahara Desert, stock up on plenty of water, and walk to the destination to hand-deliver the gift.

The question is how challenging it is. Does it take too long? Is it too cumbersome and unpleasant? Is it unsafe or risky? Is it too expensive? The JTBD is just the context in which we ask these questions.

While the outcome-based innovation and JTBD are all the rage these days, Alistair Cockburn addressed them back in the 1990s with "structuring use cases with goals". Use cases represent the functional goals or JTBDs. Use cases have preconditions, postconditions, and invariants. The conditions represent the problems that users want solved, or to avoid, in the context of getting the job done. They are the nonfunctional requirements, and they're the most interesting.

Re: Why Your Product Must Stand for Something

Roger L. Cauvin — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 17:33:25 -0000

Al Ries and Jack Trout's Law of Focus states:

"No matter how complicated the product, no matter how complicated the needs of the market, it's always better to focus on one word or benefit than two or three or four."

Al Ries and Laura Ries state in the Law of Expansion:

"The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope."

and in the Law of Contraction:

"A brand becomes stronger when you narrow the focus."

As Christian wrote, you can can revise your product principles (strategy), but they should drive all tactical product decisions and priorities. And timeless marketing principles argue for relentless focus.

Re: Public Notice: Angry Hornets

Roger L. Cauvin — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 14:37:18 -0000

You're right about the scorecard, Susan. FAN does not take policy positions without a supermajority vote of the membership. Accordingly, the City Council scorecard only includes issues where FAN has taken a position, and in many cases issues before City Council haven't been put to a vote of FAN's membership. So the scorecard doesn't necessarily reflect how FAN's membership views the totality of each City Council member's record.

The real FAN City Council candidate "endorsements" are the ones the membership voted by supermajority. They are listed on the Votes page. It's unfortunate that this Barbaro piece and the last one were selective and pointedly left out the candidates that FANs explicitly endorsed.

And by the way, Susan, FAN did endorse Council Members Garza and Casar.

Re: Public Notice: Angry Hornets

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:31:25 -0000

Also, FANs are arguing against the notion that all neighborhood advocacy groups are NIMBY obstructionists. FAN is itself a neighborhood advocacy group and a coalition of neighborhood groups and voices. We aim to reclaim the word "neighborhood" so it refers to more than just protectionist voices.

See the entry on the FAN blog, "What Is a Neighborhood Advocate?"

Re: Public Notice: Angry Hornets

Roger L. Cauvin — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 14:16:14 -0000

https://www.youtube.com/wat...