Product Agility

Forget Beautiful – Here's Why Effective Design Wins (with Ashley Nicodemus)

• Ben Maynard & Ashley Nicodemus • Season 2 • Episode 45

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In this week’s Product Agility Podcast, we explore the power of effective design with Ashley Nicodemus, a seasoned product designer and Senior Director of Design at UE Group. Ashley shares her deep expertise in mission-critical design and explains why beauty is great—but effectiveness is what truly drives impact.

Key Takeaways:

  • Design Beyond Beauty: Why effective design often means making products invisible in mission-critical environments.
  • Focus on Performance: Minimising cognitive load and maximising human performance in high-stakes situations.
  • Adoption Over Change: Learn how aligning with users' natural behaviours can unlock higher adoption rates.
  • Strategic Insights: Why prioritising workflows over aesthetics can make or break your product's success.


Practical Insights:

  • Mission-Critical Principles: Discover the surprising rules of designing for environments like aerospace and medical industries.
  • The Power of Minimalism: How “less is more” creates better outcomes in high-stakes environments.
  • Behaviour-First Design: Build around users’ existing workflows rather than forcing new habits.


Quotable Moments:

  • “Delight comes not from flashy features but from helping users get their job done seamlessly.”
  • “A great product feels like an extension of its user—effortless and intuitive.”
  • Links and Resources:



💬 Ready to rethink your approach to design? Tune in now and tell us: How does your product balance beauty with effectiveness?

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Don’t miss this episode—your users will thank you!

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.

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Ben Maynard

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Product Agility Podcast

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Favorite softwares I use all the time is Asana, the task tracking, you know, and sure, I love it when you press a task and it and a Unicorn goes across the screen. I love it. But again, you know, that's appropriate for that situation. You're not going to get those wows from little features like that in this type of environment, right? I'm such a nerd. When I see stuff like that, I'm like, what a waste of clock cycles. I can't believe by Ramspin, you can stop with a fucking Unicorn. Welcome to the Product Agility Podcast, the missing link between Agile and product. The purpose of this podcast is to share practical tips, strategies and stories from world class thought leaders and practitioners. Why I hear you ask? Well, I want to increase your knowledge and your motivation to experiment so that together we can create ever more successful products. My name is Ben Maynard and I'm your host. What has driven me for the last decade to bridge the gap between agility and product is a deep rooted belief that people and products evolving together can achieve mutual excellence. We are back again and this week we are joined by yet another person who I met with by zoo who episode did so well. It was so popular that we wanted her to come back on and have a longer conversation. So you can all really reap the benefit of this person's deep experience in that product design. Now the person in question is Ashley Nicodemus. Hello, Ashley. Hi, thanks for having me. Oh, look, it's an absolute pleasure. I say to me, when we've been setting ourselves up for this episode, I began to think, you know, but when was the last time I used a product that really like clicked with me? That was, I don't know, really seamless and intuitive and almost addictive. And I'm, I'm a bugger for some apps really just hook me in. And I thought, you know what, what if every product that I worked on, every product team I worked with, even you, the products you're working on, what if they all had that magic? And that's something we want to talk about today because we're going to be exploring how real, thoughtful, meaningful design isn't just a nice to have. It can be the backbone of successful products and what we want is thriving businesses. So I'm joined by Ashley Nicodemus, She's a seasoned product designer whose teams awards, award-winning designs are making an impact on some really key areas of our lives. So whether you're a product manager striving for that next breakthrough or an agile coach aligning teams for success, this episode is just for you. So Ashley, welcome to the Productivity podcast. And maybe today we can find a way to have everyone really appreciate just how important the work of design is. Absolutely, and hopefully to be able to collaborate better with designers and just integrate it into their process, you know, because a lot of my work is not just with design, but also product strategy. So I think, you know, it really dovetails well with other roles that are having to deal with that same kind of topic. And we still pick that apart at the moment actually, because that's a really interesting point. But before we do that, for those people that didn't get opportunity to hear you at the on the productized episode, would you mind giving up our listeners? There's a little bit more of a overview of the great work you've been doing. Absolutely. So I am a I'm the senior director of design at UE Group, which is a small product design and research firm based out of Silicon Valley. Our name is relatively quiet. You know, we, we don't have a ton of name recognition, but we've made a huge impact working with a bunch of big name brands. So, you know, kind of the the secret of the industry in a way. So we work with and and I work with personally brands across a bunch of different industries, but I specialize in what we call mission critical design. So design that is going to be meant for industries that have lives on the line or big stakes, right? So it doesn't have to be just lives. It could be, you know, big financial risks or, you know, data loss or things like that, right? Security could be whatever. So we've worked with big name brands like Stryker in medical, Arthrex, New Vasive, I Rhythm. Also in the consumer world, I've worked with big name brands like Disney, Google, Intel, you know, so and then also we've done stuff in aerospace working with brands like Lockheed and Boeing. So, you know, even though may not be a really well known company, we're the kind of the secret sauce working behind the scenes and a bunch of these brands and things that people have interacted with. So yeah, that's what the company I work for, I've been in the industry for over 10 years and through the time working in the industry and and kind of learning as I go and I really picked up. And created my own through trial and error system of working with invention specifically of like how in these areas, when you have new technology that doesn't have a standard, how do you incorporate that into products in a way that's going to make sense for people and lead to successful products that have adoption? Because when you are doing something new, IT can often be scary for people to adopt. So really trying to reduce those adoption barriers and make people excited for this new thing and be able to incorporate it successfully. So that's really like the lens that I come at with the world and hoping to share some of the knowledge I've picked up a long way. Thank you very much, Ashley. I'm I'm excited. It's a really interesting theme, this one, I think from design, because you're quite specific. You've got some niches and I think what's really interesting, and I want to start off with just kind of covering a few terms mission critical design, like how does this differ to other forms of design? I mean, I understand there's a difference in the the the products, the applications, the systems which for which you are designing because they're critical. But how from your perspective would you, is it different than say a non mission critical design? Yeah. So with mission critical design, people care about different things. And it would never be appropriate to have, you know, if you think about a Tesla people, they have all these like hidden features, like, you know, where you could like play more cowbell and then it like turns into a rainbow road. And then like cowbell skit from SNL plays in the background. And it's like insane, right? But how fun. And that is part of why, you know, that car got a lot of attention is because all these like little fun features, those types, you would never spend that energy and people would be upset. So there's an element of like what you focus on. And a lot of times when people are thinking about. UX and UI and and product design, there's a lot of focus on like making something graphically beautiful. Yes, we all love that and want that. But again, it is not, it does not matter in a, in a mission critical space the same way. So in a, you really want to take him a more like minimalistic approach for mission critical spaces. You want to have your product blend into the environment so seamlessly. It's not noticed. The goal is kind of different, right? It needs to be so seamless you don't even think about it versus so exciting that everyone's talking about it. You know, like the way you get loyalty is different. So there's an element of just like your goal and focus is different. And then there's a lot more that goes into really understanding human performance and designing for that. So you have standards that you have to meet. There's a whole book, it's called AG 75, and it has everything defined of like, you know, legibility, distances and color contrast and all these metrics that you have to meet. So there's those types of things, but there's also from a performance standpoint, what's going to have the fastest recognition and understanding and the most clearest way to take an action that's going to result in the least amount of errors. So you're really, there's a lot more work instead of going focusing on that visual aspect, there's a lot more work going into making workflows as streamlined as possible. So you're reducing the amount of work people have to do. There's a lot more work going into communication and error prevention, making sure that people can understand this right away and that there's not going to lead to anything dangerous and really like taking the time to understand. You know, we always are using the term cognitive load. I'm not sure how much. That's a normal thing in the industry, but like, how much mental processing people have to do to interact with your system and how to get their attention and prioritize the information to reduce that time that they need to understand what's going on. Yeah. You're saying it. And it was taking me back to one of my early jobs when I watched JP Morgan, I mean, like 20 years ago. Yeah, when I was. Yeah, my early 20s and you know, one of the best systems were used from my perspective was, was anything which just was a terminal screen, anything where there wasn't a user interface, you know, because if I could do it using the keyboard, I knew the shortcut keys and I knew that I if I typed something in wrong, it wasn't going to mess something up. And you know, we're sending hundreds of millions or billions of dollars or EUR around all the time. You know, actually there was a certain, there was a speed, there was an effectiveness and there was a continuity just from using the keyboard and just typing it all in. If when we started to have new systems which used the mouse, you need to click on things, it was awful. It was slow and there were menus and it just didn't work and you just couldn't. You just wanted to get on the keyboard and do shortcuts to get and to get the job done and you couldn't get the job done. And I think everything that's really interesting what you were saying about being minimalistic, blending into the environment, it being seamless. You're designing the human performance. You want the action achieved with minimal errors. Really, really fascinating. So this isn't about, and it flies in the face I think of what many people think of when they think of design, which is about maybe making it look really appealing. But actually what you're saying is that there is another scientific design coin which isn't about making things visually appealing. It's about making things that, you know, maybe at best agnostic from that perspective, but making them really effective so we can get just get the job done exactly. That's the goal. And if you can, that's where the delight comes from, you know, because everyone's always talking about in design, like how do you delight users or whatever. And so when you can help them get their job done really well, that's when they're like, wow, you know, that's the moment where it's like, Oh my God, where is this bit versus, you know, it's really great. So one of my favorite softwares I use all the time is Asana, the task tracking, you know, and sure, I love it when you press a task and it and a Unicorn goes across the screen. I love it. But again, you know, that's appropriate for that situation. You're not going to get those wows from little features like that in this type of environment, right? I'm such a nerd when I see stuff like that, I'm like, what a waste of clock cycles. I can't believe by Ramspin used up with a fucking Unicorn. What a waste. That's a wasted clock cycle and ACPU as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I had to get. I had to get off my chest. Thank you for listening. You have the mindset of a mission critical person. Yes. Years of working in banking. We'll do that to you, I think. Yeah. Brilliant. Does he actually put a Unicorn on the screen? Yes, it does. Oh, yeah. Sometimes you get a narwhal instead of a Unicorn. They put you up. I am such an old fart. Such an old fart. Oh, dear. OK, well, first of all, thanks. That's that's really, really, really interesting and really useful. And I think, you know what? I think a lot of people I know that are listening to this. I don't know the person whose name between his mind is a guy. Darren. Darren H, if you're listening to this. Hello, Darren. Thank you for listening. Yeah. I was thinking maybe some of the conversations I've had of him in the past and the arenas where he's worked. And actually, it wasn't about making things beautiful. Is it making things effective because what you're trying to do is have a positive impact, you know, on the person that's using it so they can have positive impact on others. And that's really important, really important. So yeah. And they really, yeah. Thank you for that really great perspective. And then looping back around as well to your introduction and something that we did talk about during our little warm up conversation for this was your choice to use the word invention rather than innovation. I found particularly intriguing. Why is that? So I think innovation can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Innovation oftentimes is LinkedIn people's minds to iteration. And that's great. Like the world of iteration is very important, but that's different than having to create something really from scratch. And so that's where I'm, I'm using the term invention. So there's a lot of tools out there today and a lot of processes to help you with iteration, helping you improve, identify where the problems are and improve it. But when you're starting with a new technology or in a new space that you don't have that foundation of a product that exists already, the current processes out there don't really do a great job helping you figure out what to do. And so that's been an area where I think a lot of teams struggle to be able to take, you know, the product requirements and the technology and then create something that really works when there isn't a foundation out there to build off of, you know, if there isn't like a standard so. That's why I like to separate those different like innovation and iteration. OK, great. They exist. They're important invention where you're really doing something new that hasn't been done before in a new space, new technology and you're creating a completely new interaction model around it that is different. And that's where we specialize because, yeah, not everyone can do it. And, and we've developed some techniques throughout, you know, trial and error of going through this process of how to really get there. So, you know, bringing like everyone's trying to bring AI into things right now, right. And the way people are often doing it is they're like, well, I want, I want ChatGPT. You know, that's been such a success. Let's just copy that model. So that might work for some situations. I mean, that works for ChatGPT because in a way, a lot of people are using it like a search engine or tell me what to do with this. But when you want to use AI to surface information, that model falls apart. You can't rely on somebody knowing the right question to ask. Yeah, absolutely. It's only as good as the questions that we can ask it exactly. So people are trying to apply these things that they see in the world, but they're applying them in the wrong way for the use case that they have or it's not a match right of it's not, I don't want to say the wrong way, there's no wrong answers. But from what the technology is doing and then the interaction model you're pairing it with, you're not going to get the output you want or it's going to be more difficult for the user depending on how you're applying it. So really what I'm like where this invention or techniques for invention come in is being able to say, OK, I want these capabilities from the technology that exists or whatever, but we're going to use it in this way. And what does this way really require without having to pair it to something that exists already and then being able based off of people's behaviors and the way that people work, being able to create something off of that. So I mean, this is something that we talked a little bit about in the beginning of our our conversation today. You know, a lot of times people think that design is a way of changing behaviors like you had mentioned and and really when you're looking for invention to be successful. You have to pay attention to the way people actively behave and lean into it, find out how, what behaviors they have that you can use to help drive forward the adoption of that technology and only require change when it's basically necessary to be able to use the item and whatever. Do you have an example of that? Yeah. So for brain surgery, nice one. Good choice. Strong choice. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not, let's not mess around. Let's be around the Bush. Let's go straight in with brain surgery. Yes. So we're working on this product for brain surgery, and we had the original product. Sorry, let me get a drink of water. Getting over That's that's OK. So the original product for brain surgery that exists right now, this was for navigation. They had a very linear procedure. And the idea was that if you do all these steps in a line as you're supposed to, you're going to have a successful output. That by having it all in a linear fashion that's as reproducible as possible. If you're always going to come to a good outcome, Things being reproducible is like, really? They love that in the medical industry, but they do. Yeah. So as the more variables you can limit, the better. And from a procedural standpoint in their minds. But the problem is when it comes to setting up an operating room, things are not happening on time or in order or anything like that. They're always behind, they're always late. It's a bunch of people coming in and out of the room. It's super crowded. Everyone is trying to get their job done before the surgeon walks in the room because a surgeon is like a superstar in the medical world. Everyone is like, don't get in their way. Don't upset them. We need to be perfect the minute he's in the room or he's in the room. If you're, if you're good, if you're good enough to touch someone's brain, if you yeah, you deserve a certain level of respect. Exactly. And they've gone to school forever. And, you know, these people are crazy intelligent. So I'm just leading with the fact they can touch people's brains. You know, that's enough for me. I mean, anyone that can actually legally touch someone's brain, like, full respect. I don't care what you've done to get there. I'm getting out of your way. What do you need? Yeah, exactly. So with the current way that the procedure is done, everything had to happen in this order. But then when you're in the room, there's chaos. Everyone's running in and out and they're unable to do it in that order. So you have to kind of jump over people and and press different buttons in different orders. And, you know, they really have to keep track of a lot on their own because they're not doing it the way that the system is intending them to do it. The system is trying to say this is the most efficient way that you could get through your procedure setup, but it doesn't match what they actually do. So now they're having to remember all of these things that have happened because they are forced to do it differently. So like they need to know, did somebody set up all the tools? Where are they all set up correctly, you know, and was the system connect? Like you have to match basically the system's understanding of a person 'cause they take AACT scan or an MRI or both and use that as like a 3D reference digitally and then they match it to the person's face and, and, and head from a physical space. So like, has that process been done yet? It's called registration. So all of these things they have to be done and have to be done well, but are they happening in the right order or who's in the room? When's it happening? At one point, somebody has to plan where the trajectory of the incision is going to be to get to the tumor. Has that happened yet? And trying to do all of this and get out of the person's, the surgeon's way is difficult. So originally this was a linear flow that people had to click all over the place to get things done. And through that observation of how people actually do things, we were able to change it into more of a dashboard so you could see what's been done, what hasn't been done. You can open a flow at any time. Once you open a flow, it's very optimized to that. And then once you start the procedure, then it becomes linear because that's something that everyone needs to be on the same page at the same time and making that happen. And so that was definitely something that we, you know, saw as we went through surgical observations, you know, of how things actually get done in the operating room versus how, you know. They think they get done or what would be optimized. And it's something that is very, it happens all the time in surgical robotics as well. You know, we've done surgical robotics for spine surgery and they're requiring like everyone to plan the procedure entirely. And so you, you figure out where all the screws are placed in the spine ahead of time. And these surgeons that are doing this without robotics, they're actually doing this based off of feel and they're kind of doing it as they go because the feedback you get from the physical anatomy and the the bone texture basically gives you a lot of information. And so without having that information, when you force them to plan it in the beginning and and stick to that plan rigidly, then you lose people. Like people won't adopt the technology because they feel like it's having them change too much. And I trust my judgement better than a robot's. So, you know, they end up not doing it. But if you just pay attention to those behaviors and structure the product around that, then you now get rid of those barriers for adoption. Yeah. So you're not looking to change their behaviours, but rather kind of create something which fits what they're doing at the moment or exactly. So they don't feel like, yes, if it's no extra effort for them to use it, because they're going to be doing this thing anyway and this doesn't get in the way. And actually it's quite seamless to use exactly. And it already aligns with the way that they're thinking. So in that case, to make a decision about placing a screw and is it the right screw to place? And is it, you know, do they have faith that this is going to be, you know, holding the spine in place for a long time, you know, for their lifetime or whatever. And I placed having the robotic influence happen as part of that tactile feedback, you know, where they can it follows their lead. Now they just have another tool to use the way that they want to use things versus. Having to plan everything ahead of time. Now they're less comfortable because they don't have that piece of information they usually have. So there's by just observing and really paying attention to the way that people what questions are asking themselves and what information they're using to do it and at what times. If you fall into that now, this is a really intuitive, familiar extension of themselves instead of something they have to adopt. Yeah, I remember hearing something the other week, I can't remember where I heard it about the strangest thing about humans, about how things can become extensions of themselves. So when you think about when you're driving, all of a sudden you're not. You're this kind of flesh sack. Yeah, you, you're this, you're this bigger machine. And actually with spatial awareness and what you can fit through, it just feels like a natural extension to your body. You're not looking at something. Most of it, I think, kind of fit through there. You say, well, it just happens because it becomes an extension of us. Exactly. It's a very strange kind of human ability, I think to have these things that become extensions of us. And I suppose what you're saying is actually one of, as you mentioned at the top in reducing these barriers to adoption by making these products food like just an extension of of the user. Exactly. And when it comes to invention, you have so many more barriers for adoption because people naturally are kind of risk averse, right? People don't really want to do it, especially in these industries, these mission critical industries. It's even more of a reason to not adopt something because change is scary. And when you're dealing with lives, millions of dollars, whatever it is, you know, having a new thing that you have to learn, you know, is it worth it? So it's a big barrier. And the more you can chip away at those barriers, the more successful you'll be. And it's something that can be applied to industries outside of this too. I mean, we all know all products have barriers to adoption. And, you know, being able to identify those and work through those change being a big one of them, no matter what industry you're in, that really helps drive that adoption and drive that connection to products. And so now when I think back to. The beginning of our conversation talking about the importance of designing product strategy, at least in my mind is, you know, you're making a good pitch for it because I can't see how they this isn't, this isn't a degree of critically important. So rather than spending a bit of time now talking about the criticality of it, I mean, what I'd be interested is understanding when are you then brought into product strategy conversations and, and how do you engage the room when you're there? Yeah, so product strategy conversation. Well, so I'm usually brought in a company has a problem and maybe they've tried to solve it themselves and it hasn't really worked. And or, or they just know it's outside their wheelhouse, or maybe they don't have the staff to support it, whatever it is, and they'll bring us in to help figure out how to solve the problem. So it could be something like, you know, we want to watch launch a robotics platform. How do, how do we do this? Or it could be, you know, we want to integrate AI, you know, everyone has AI. What's a good way to do it? You know, how can we add the most value with something like that? So it could be starting from a technology standpoint of like I want, we need to bring in this technology to be relevant in the market for longer, but we've seen it go bad and we want to do it right. So help us figure out how to do that. Other times it's a more nebulous problem, which can be fun in their own way. So one of the first projects that that I worked on back in 2015, I think was this product for security. It was for cybersecurity, but it was also used for like police stations who were like, needing to comb through like data of like phone calls or like things like that to be able to like, find people misbehaving. That's the job. That's the job. Yeah, so it had to work in multiple situations, but what they wanted to identify or what they the mission that came to us with was visualize a threat moving through a system. How do you do that? OK, so a lot of the cybersecurity platforms out at the time and honestly, it's true for today, You know, it's a lot of tables of data and then some pie charts, some some trend graphs and, and that's really it. Maybe there's a, a node diagram, but those you really have to do a lot of work as the viewer to connect the information across all of these different visuals and all the, the charts to be able to make that understanding for yourself. And I wouldn't say that any of them are particularly great for identifying outliers. You know, when is a behavior risky and crazy and weird? Or you know, when are when do you notice those patterns? Right? So none of them are really great with that. So they asked us to figure out how to do it. And so this was a, a data visualization problem and an AI problem way back in the day. And honestly, starting out is like, what, how do I visual? What do you do with that? Yeah. Where where where do you start? Like visualising a threat moving through a system. I mean, I mean, what does that even mean? Are we saying here? But then like, there's like, no. Yeah, what? I mean, just getting back to basically visualising a threat moving through a system. Like what? What, What is that? Yeah. So when you think of it from a a data security standpoint, being able to identify when a threat hits the system, how it was let in and then how it spread is really critical because that's how the IT staff is going to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again. OK, that that makes sense. OK. Yeah. So like in in that context, that's how they mean it. But from a police standpoint, you know, how is somebody moving drugs? I don't know. And so they need to know, OK, this person is calling this person and this person and this person and then these people are calling these people. And this is the point where it seems that like. You know, a big deal has happened at this point, and now these other people are involved. And so being able to kind of see again how something starts and spreads and visually communicating that story. Yeah. So it's a, it was a weird problem and really the anchor that I found to all of it because originally, you know, you, I started by looking at products that existed being like how other people visualize threats moving through systems. What does that mean? How does that work? And the answer was no one was really doing it well. So we stopped and really focused in on what needed to be communicated and what were they trying to learn from the system. And so that started by breaking down what behaviors people have as AIT person. Let's just focus in on that use cases. I think it's more familiar for people. When a threat hits, what do they do? What information are they looking for first? How are they trying to solve that problem? So we just tried to match that behavior and match that story. And by doing that, we were able to create completely unique data visualizations that haven't been done before. Yes, we still had a node diagram. Yes, pie charts still existed, and those things still work in the greater format here. But we created some entirely new things too, more focused on showing the spread of something or like we created this one where it had all of the different devices involved. And then kind of like playing a movie, you would watch this heat map, bring in different devices. And the scale like represented the amount of risk that the system calculated and how much activity each of them had. So you could see those connections. But instead of just having it a bunch of nodes on the screen where you're like, what is going on? There's too much to understand. We linked it to time so you could like watch how something progresses overtime and how it grows and scales. Interesting. So. That was just one of the, that was the first big project that really like got this interest for me, but then also made me realize how what, what do you do when you can't rely on something that exists? And I think that that's relevant beyond product design, but also when you're writing product requirements, you know, and your visual, like you're coming up with what should this be as a product manager or product owner, you need to be able to think about or it helps to align to behaviors and how people are doing things currently, overdoing things over, you know, prescribing features that then are those features really meeting any kind of goal? Yeah, That reminds me of my friend Goiko. His book's at the back there. If I mentioned this +2 or three Apocos episodes, I keep on mentioning it because his book, Lizard Optimization is about looking at the the lizards who use your product, who are effectively the outliers. And rather than challenging them to use the product in a different way, what he's developed as a process to say, actually, let's take what they're doing. If it's invaluable, let's find a way to quantify that and turn it into a feature. You know, this is a heat and this product from one, which was like, yeah, he was thinking about wrapping up. He's now having like 9 million active users last year because he found one thing. He found one thing that is like, why are they doing this? Why are they creating blank? So basically it's a tool. He's got a tool which converts PowerPoints into videos. And you upload it and you put some on each side, you put a narrative and it converts it. But we're converting blank videos just with the audio. And he's like, well, there's a bug. He's got weeks sticking from the bug. There wasn't a bug. And he contacted them and they're like, Oh, no, we're doing it on purpose. He's like, why? Why are you doing it on purpose? And we don't need the video, but we want the audio. He's like, oh, I mean, added a new feature just for the audio. And his users just went through the roof. So rather than try and change the behaviour, he just said, actually no, they're they're misusing my product, but I need to evolve the product to match their current behaviour rather than trying to create this new behaviour, which is kind of what you're saying is, is using what's there and hooking into it. Yeah, and unlocking a lot of new potential because people are doing things for a reason most of the time. So we've got, how much time have we got left? We haven't got a huge amount of time left. And I'm wondering, people listen to this, maybe they're wondering about how they can, I don't know how they can bring some of these kind of design kind of conversations in or introduce some of these concepts. Do you have any tips for people in how they can kind of communicate some of these ideas or or get some buy in to explore some of these kind of interesting averages if it's the mission, you know, for example, the mission critical design, Yeah. Have you got any tips or any clues that might help people? Yeah. So I think there's a couple different things that you can do just as a project manager or a product owner with your team, all the people that you're working with. So instead of, well, OK, there's a couple things that I think lead to iteration that if you're trying to really do something entirely new, there's some things you can do to help get you there. First off, if you can observe your users, do it. Even if it's a small group of like even just like 5 observations, do it. Because actually going there and watching somebody use a product is you get so much more out of it because you get to see the context too in which they're using it. So do that. It doesn't need to be that expensive to accomplish either, you know, So if you can observe, do it. And when you're observing, pay attention to how they make decisions and what's influencing their decisions. So people often like keep track of how people accomplish a task in a, in a product with like workflows and they're writing down the steps people take. But the steps people take is a lot less valuable than the decisions people make, the questions they ask themselves, the information they gather to answer the question, and then the decision they make in relation to that. If you abstract your problem to just be to that level, you open the door for so many more solutions. Than just taking the steps that they do things now because you know how much of those steps are influenced by their limitations. If you can align to the way they think, it's going to be way better from an adoption standpoint. So that's the first big one. The second big one is the way you define your requirements. And jumping to features too early really limits things because when you are, everyone has an idea in their head when you say a particular type of feature. So if you say file sharing, you have probably visualized in your brain what that looks like, but now you're already down a path that exists and maybe that's not the right path. So instead I like to do what I call like a way 2 statements. So it's not as like described. It's not as in depth as like a user story or something like that, but just like a way to accomplish whatever that mission is, right? So it could be, I don't know, a way to align. So in the brain surgery use case, a way to align to a trajectory, you know, align to a tumor in a safe path or in the like we just mentioned earlier, actually a way to visualize a threat moving through a system, you know, So if you keep it to those away to statements, they're much more broad, but also specific. So it has a lot more opportunity to create something that matches the way people think and matches their current behaviors instead of show a trend. I want to, I want to trend visualization of what the threats are right now. You know, it's like, so being able to just be really intentional about when you keep things open-ended and when you commit to a direction and knowing that when you write a feature, you are committing to a direction. Nice. So the first we had was go and observe users in their context. Decisions are more important than the steps, which I love. That second one was about looking at the way requirements are defined and using way to statements. And to be intentional about when you're open-ended and when you're committing to a direction, because a feature is a direction. Yes, it's again, it's a commitment to it. I like that. Have you got any others? Those are the main ones that are on the top right now. They're pretty good, actually. They're pretty good. They're really, really useful. It's funny you mentioned the way to, I remember getting really disheartened with the whole user story template thing. I mean, we're going back about 10 years ago, you know, I was just maybe even longer than I was done with it. So I started saying very similar to you, I say, in order to. Yeah, in order to do what? What is it you're looking to be able to do? And then actually leaving any idea about the feature of the film we're going to produce? Yeah, until the end. We really understand that. What are you trying to achieve with this? What are we trying to do here? Because maybe we don't have to do anything. Yeah, that's, that's the best thing. That's really useful. And I and I do love what you said there, but decisions being more important than steps, I think that's really good. And I think that's it reminded me actually of the conversations I'm having at the moment with a client around an old changes to their OPS model and looking at the roles that are being defined. And actually, you know, that asking yourself, what's the definition of the roles? What do we decisions do we expect people to make within these roles as a as a further kind of extrapolation of what you were saying. So, yeah, really, really useful actually. Thank you very much for sharing those. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, as you're talking about roles, I mean that that brings up also like personas and like that type of thing, how you define who people are that are using your system and like how to break it up. I mean, those are very like old fashioned notions. And I think also they don't work. But if you break down decisions and influences to decisions, those work across roles and across persona types, right? It, it's a much better use of your time than imagining a potential person that could maybe use a thing and getting way too specific. You know, it's better to think about decisions and then also like think about like what's familiar to people from like a physical place, but then also what products they use or whatever and draw in those influences to where they don't have to change, right? Because I'm all about limiting change. It makes them, it makes it easier for them and they're more likely to adopt it. So, you know, change from a differentiation from other products, great change from a user standpoint, limit it as much as possible. Awesome. I think that's a lovely way to end this conversation, actually. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been really, honestly, I, I've been astounded how quickly the time has gone. It's been really, really enjoyable. I feel like I've learned a lot. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with me, but also of all of our hundreds of listeners and say yes, really, really appreciative. If people want to find you, I'll put your LinkedIn profile into the description and the people OK to contact you if they want to. Absolutely, yeah. I really try and be as like much of a mentor or whatever on LinkedIn as possible. And, you know, I love to connect with people and talk through ideas. As much as I love to share my side of things, I love also to hear what other people have going on to the space. So, you know, definitely welcome a conversation. Reach out, let me know your thoughts. If you have other things that are related or interesting things to look into, I'd love to hear about it. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and everyone, thank you for listening. And I hope that we get to meet again in person one day at a conference because it would be lovely to catch up again. And maybe, you know, we'll see how things go next year. I'll say maybe we'll get you back on the podcast remotely at some point. But and that being said, thank you everyone for listening. Your continued support for this podcast means the world to me. Seeing those numbers go up and up each week really is the motivation that I need to keep on inviting all these great guests. And if you do have a guest that you would like to see come onto the podcast, don't be afraid to contact me on LinkedIn or you can text me via Spotify. If you look, there was a message, there's an option there to message the show where you can send a text message, very old school with a suggestion or a comment or a bit of feedback. So do let me know who you would like to be having on the podcast over the next year or so. So thank you for listening. Actually, thank you so much for coming on. This has been the Productivity podcast and I have been your host by me.

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Ben Maynard

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