The Mobile Spoon

  Know that feeling when you're trying to create a narrative and support it with data, but data doesn't play along?  We’ve all been there, tweaking our graphs a little bit - stretching here, bending there… massaging the data to support our story and emphasize the trend... without lying of course. Manipulative graphs are 100% accurate but misleading. They show true data but go through some “tweaking” to better support the story being told.  In this post, I’ll teach you the dark art of manipulating your graphs without losing too much credibility.  And if you’re on the receiving end, this post will help you  spot dishonest graphs  immediately, so nobody could fool you with those cheap tricks.  Spreadsheets and reports lovers - this post is for you! Data trimming  They say trimming split ends can make your hair look healthier. It's the same with graphs.  For example, if your sales are slowing down, you can drop the most recent 1-2 months. If so...

  Ever worked with a CEO or a founder who went so far with their vision that it made you lose faith in them?  Or maybe it was you caught in a situation where your employees didn't share your vision?  It's called The Visionary's Curse ; a phenomenon that refers to the tendency of visionary leaders, entrepreneurs, and product managers to become overly focused on their product vision and ignore important feedback and data points that may contradict their assumptions and indicate that their product is not meeting customer needs or is not viable in the market. “Being a visionary is a blessing and a curse, you're blessed to see things other people are not able to see but you are cursed to sit in it alone” -- David Banner The curse is real and dangerous   It takes endurance and persistence to build successful products, but going overboard can backfire in various ways:   Leaders get caught up in their own assumptions and ignore market feedback  The vision...

Some things should not happen in a new workplace...  Entering a new workplace is a professional challenge, but it's also a tough social exercise.  Here are a few things you should NOT do in the first few weeks on the job:   1. Don't share your thoughts with anyone Keep a low profile.  Even if you see problems right away and want to jump in and fix them, try to keep your thoughts to yourself. Your coworkers may have been dealing with these issues for a while now, and don't need the opinion of an outsider who has yet to be there to understand the whole context.  Talking too soon will make you sound arrogant and make a bad first impression. So shut up.  Life tip: before you speak up, make sure you know the topic, know the audience and have something meaningful to say.  That's right, and as a new member, you probably don't know enough about the topic, don't know who you're talking to, and might say something stupid... So instead of speaking up, write...

Is ChatGPT a Google Killer?  With the rise of ChatGPT , Google is now facing a business-model problem for the first time in years. There's a new disruptive technology in town, and it's about to revolutionize the way humans find information online. Searching is out. Asking is in.  Google makes money (~60% of revenue) when people skim through multiple search results and click on ads placed next to organic links, but soon there's going to be a superior way to get immediate answers without skimming and clicking. Soon enough people will start asking themselves: why search for it when we can just ask?   With this disruptive innovation , Google is now facing an interesting innovator's dilemma :  Google has similar AI capabilities (LaMDA)  but chose not to release them , fearing wrong results will make people lose trust in the good old search brand.  So while OpenAI positions ChatGPT as something experimental, evolving, and exciting, Google refrains from using ...

I was watching Argentina in the world cup today, and heard the commentators talk about the key role of Ángel Di María  as Messi's number 2. It reminded me of the importance of having a strong "deputy" in the team, for any manager out there.  I often talk about it when I coach young managers and entrepreneurs. Everyone knows how important it is to hire A-players but most managers don't fully understand the amazing benefits of having a key team member acting as a number 2.   Think about Michael Jordan without Scottie Pippen My best performing years as a manager were when I had a top-performing “number 2”.  My typical number 2’s had stronger technical skills than I did, and used to take over the backend/infrastructure stuff, allowing me to focus on the business/ product / front end . They were not always the most experienced individuals on the team, but they were the best, and always earned their authority and respect due to their extraordinary professionalism...

A Space rocket crashing (created in 2 seconds using Midjourney )  5 mistakes most people make, usually in our workplace, and are ruining things for us:  1. Share too much information John Wayne said:  “Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said:  “The less you speak, the more you will hear.” And I say (yes, that's me quoting myself):  “The less you speak, the more you will be heard.”  People that talk too much and too soon, end up saying stupid things or sharing information they regret sharing. Evaluate carefully who you’re talking to, and shut the f...<beep>...ck up.  2. Follow what other people do Call it the bandwagon effect or the herd mentality , people often do things just because “everyone’s doing it”.  This behavior doesn’t guarantee better results. In fact, it usually means you will end up being where most mediocre people are. Trust your instincts, even if it makes you unique. New job? new rules: 4 don...

  I saw World War Z the other day, and one specific quote captured my attention: When asked, how come Israel was the only country in the world that built a wall to protect itself from a potential zombies attack, Mossad Chief answered: "Thanks to the Tenth Man Rule": “If nine of us who get the same information arrived at the same conclusion, it’s the duty of the tenth man to disagree. No matter how improbable it may seem. The tenth man has to start thinking about the assumption that the other nine are wrong.” If you ever found yourself in a disagreement with the rest of the execs, you know that being the lone objector can be an isolating and frustrating experience.  At first, people will hear you out but over time they’ll run out of patience.  The more the company invests in a certain direction, the harder it will be to abandon it, and the less it will be open to criticism (this bias is known as the  Sunk Cost Fallacy ). And the worst part is, if you’re right, the co...

We all like to play the "Devil's Advocate" from time to time, but are we doing it right?  There's a fine line between presenting valuable alternatives and demoralizing the team with repeating objections and aggressive criticism.  Here's how to play devil's advocate without making everyone hate you: 1. Start by setting expectations  Start by saying “I’m going to play the devil’s advocate" to smooth things out.  This semi-apologetic disclaimer will set the right context for what you’re about to say. It will soften the blow and eliminate instinctive rejections that often pop up.  2. Focus on ideas, not people  Criticizing people for their opinions will only damage your credibility and will make it look like you're running a personal campaign.  Challenge the ideas, not the people. Stick with objective arguments and stay away from anything that might sound insulting or personal because this will instantly kill your legitimacy.  3. Back your logic with ...

  I’ve been preaching a lot lately about the importance of creating a culture of frequent shipping . Whether it’s with my own team or while helping out some early stage startups, I keep finding myself explaining why it’s so important to stop thinking that things are not 100% ready and just ship them. First, let me start by saying this: agile development does not guarantee frequent shipping; a team can work in an agile methodology, run short sprints and still release new versions to the market in a very slow pace. What I'm taking about is the mindset to constantly put your deliverables to the test with real users, in real-world conditions, even when things are not fully ready. It’s the urge to show the world what you’ve created, even if it’s in early stages or provides limited functionality.  Shipping is that moment when the rubber meets the road and interesting things happen.  And yes, working with this mindset requires further effort: you need to break down pieces of fu...

  Here’s a little thing that sat in my drafts for a while: it’s a simple planning framework that we used to work with, back at ClickSoftware (now Salesforce ).  It focuses on breaking down a big challenge (or a goal) into smaller challenges (or outcomes) before diving into the actual tasks, and it's a pretty good technique when dealing with product roadmaps or strategic plans that spread across multiple teams. The credit goes to Professor Moshe BenBassat , the founder and CEO of the company, and a great innovator. He took the well known  “Stepwise Refinement” problem-solving method  (not to be confused with scrum's product backlog refinement ) and turned it into a useful planning tool, which I still use whenever I need to organize my thoughts and turn a big problem into a concrete plan.  What the heck is Stepwise Refinement?  The original stepwise refinement framework works as follows:  Start with the initial problem statement Break it into a few gen...

tl;dr Multiply everything by 3. Last year, when we just started renovating our house, a friend of mine warned me: "Your project will cost you twice as much as your original budget, and will take 3 times longer than expected 😈" Trying to get over the shock, I turned to all-mighty-Google, searching for a more optimistic sign, and ran into this disturbing Murphey's law: "A carelessly planned project takes 3 times longer than expected; a carefully planned project will only take twice as long." Murphey and my friend were pretty close. Now, let's talk about why do we suck so much in time estimations, and what can we do about it? Let's start with the reasons:  Optimism Bias - you know I love cognitive biases . One of them is our tendency to overestimate the odds of our own success: we assume things will go faster and easier than they usually do, and we base our estimation on absolutely nothing. This phenomenon is also kno...