In the first part of this article, I outlined seven critical traits of innovative teams that propel their businesses to success: Team Size, Team Construction, Team Duration, Team Alignment, Team Empowerment, Vision, and Culture. In this part, I’ll elaborate on the first three[…]

Innovation is often touted as the key to business success, but what does it entail beyond creating uniquely valuable products? The concept of innovation is frequently used broadly, and its precise definition is rarely explored in depth. Innovation alone does not guarantee success,[…]

The chief technology officer (CTO) is one of the least understood and most broad of all c-suite positions.  The role also varies quite a bit at different company stages.  What one company expects of its CTO may be entirely different from what the[…]

A couple of years ago, I posted some thoughts about high-level architecture and design goals, really they are just the tip of the iceberg.  Here are some additional engineering principles – predominately don’t over-engineer and leverage the cloud.  Complex systems are difficult and[…]

I come across many businesses that are not grounded in basic high level architecture and design goals.  Basically, they simply leap from features to building stuff, most often this happens because everyone is in a mad rush to just get something working as[…]

If I tell you that you can purchase a brand new iPhone for $5, what do you think?  Yet if I tell you that you can hire an outsourced developer for $10 / hour, somehow we set aside our dad’s advice that “nothing is[…]

One of the most important product management concepts is getting to market sooner rather than later with the Minimally Valuable Product (MVP) and iterating or pivoting as you gather feedback and learn, especially if you are building new, innovative products.  This is simply[…]

David Fisher once wrote “What often characterizes visionaries is their lack of vision. It’s a popular idea that people of genius see farther and clearer than other people, but perhaps the truth is actually the opposite. Visionaries often don’t notice the enormous and[…]

A few years ago, I asked an experienced, technically-savvy friend to look at the product that we were building and objectively let me know his thoughts.  He quickly pointed out that while he was initially impressed with the array of features and power,[…]