0:01

Right , the record has started .

0:03

Nice .

0:04

Cool , and this is where

0:06

we awkwardly linger for

0:08

about 10 to 15 seconds wondering

0:10

how do we actually start one of these

0:12

? I know , just like the back room , it's so

0:14

many times .

0:16

Those people who listen for the first 5 to

0:18

10 seconds on our podcast just

0:20

go .

0:21

This is Rubber and then just quit

0:24

, yeah , there's

0:26

a lot of slamming your head against

0:28

the wall to break through

0:30

to a faster horse's experience

0:33

that's actually going to teach you anything that's worthwhile

0:36

.

0:38

And , of course , a big part of that is pulling ourselves

0:40

like this . We cannot claim we're going

0:42

to teach you anything whatsoever .

0:44

No , that's true , that's true . We

0:46

never do though we never do . We

0:48

might teach you something , but it's likely to be the wrong thing

0:50

and we're okay with

0:52

that . Yeah , yeah . But

0:54

yes how is everyone ?

0:56

Nice I'm always asleep . Oh , yeah

0:58

, you know what I had to tell them all night sleep

1:00

as well . I'm

1:03

going to blame . I'm going to blame Stormisha

1:05

, right , okay , this

1:08

will put us in a time frame

1:10

for everybody listening , so when we put this out .

1:12

Yeah , yeah , yeah .

1:13

Like when I get around to editing in six months

1:15

time we'll have no reference whatsoever

1:17

. Nobody will know who

1:19

or what we're talking about .

1:22

I've lost two fence panels .

1:24

Oh , you're joking .

1:27

I know it happens every time .

1:28

I thought that was some kind of view for me man .

1:32

It could well be Slowly losing that

1:34

, one fence panel at a time .

1:38

There's no perimeter , you're just leaking out everywhere

1:41

. No , I can't

1:43

blame Storm , whatever

1:45

it's called . It

1:47

was my birthday last week .

1:49

Yes on Wednesday .

1:52

So I had a lovely tempered

1:54

time on Wednesday because it was sensible

1:56

I was in work . The weekend , however

1:59

, made up for all of that . So

2:02

whilst I'm not hungover today , as

2:04

is very often the case when we're recording

2:06

, I will caveat I

2:10

am very tired , so

2:13

I've got a feeling that's going to bleed over into a very

2:16

similar sort of contribution from me . Nice

2:18

, I can actually expect

2:21

. So , that being said

2:23

, shall we start

2:25

?

2:25

Yeah shall we , and

2:28

shall we introduce the mystery voice ?

2:30

I think we probably should .

2:33

Today we're joined by Simon

2:35

. So , simon , do you want to give

2:37

us a little intro ? You

2:40

are , what are you doing and

2:42

why the hell are you here ?

2:45

My name is Simon Berry . I'm a

2:47

product manager . I'm

2:49

not quite sure yet . To

2:52

vent my frustration with wind and fences maybe

2:54

, but I think we're going to talk about product

2:56

management . Maybe

2:58

there is a metaphor

3:00

, there , isn't it ? It's like putting fences up that keep

3:03

getting blown down , or maybe kicking in

3:05

by senior management , who knows ?

3:07

I'll just jump over . Over

3:10

the place , or they don't exist .

3:16

Hopefully you've got a roadmap to put your fence

3:18

pole back in .

3:20

See the road .

3:23

Yeah , nice

3:25

, nice , welcome to Faster

3:27

Horses , simon .

3:28

Pleasure to have you yeah .

3:32

So yeah .

3:34

Where do we start ?

3:35

Good question .

3:36

Tell us about the realm of product

3:38

management . Yeah .

3:40

What is it ? Give us a yeah , a

3:42

why we should care ? Has

3:45

you met people or anybody in general ?

3:47

Yeah .

3:48

It's a very good question . A

3:50

letter isn't it ?

3:52

Two very different answers . Maybe , yeah , it's

3:56

been a long time since I've been asked what product

3:58

management and what should

4:00

you care ? I guess to

4:02

me it's making stuff happen . Right

4:05

, I'm that person that goes into

4:07

a business , especially with my backgrounds . A lot

4:09

of it is in startups . I did cut my

4:11

teeth in the FMCG

4:13

world . It wasn't for me . We might , we might get onto that

4:15

. But yeah

4:17

, like I guess , making stuff

4:20

happen , you prioritize all of the

4:23

wonderful things that come in from everywhere and

4:25

then hopefully , you have a product at the end of it . Slightly

4:28

more complicated than that , but in the simplest terms , I

4:30

think I've said and this

4:33

may maybe not to

4:35

all the project managers out there but I don't

4:37

really care about budgets and time , I

4:39

care about the outcomes that you get . So

4:42

I'm not sitting in Gantt charts saying

4:44

that's like , I'm saying what

4:46

does the user want and how do we make that happen

4:48

for them ? Refreshing , and

4:51

why should you care ? Refreshing Is

4:54

because , hopefully , if

4:56

you've got a good project the project , I

4:58

said it myself then if you've got a good product manager , you should

5:01

care , because they're on the side of the people

5:03

that want to build the products . Nice

5:05

at the time , nice .

5:07

I like that . Yes , all right .

5:11

I'm going to throw the question out there at you , Paul

5:14

. Then , off the back of that description

5:16

we've got , how have you found

5:18

your interactions have been with the various

5:22

PMs in the past ? Things

5:24

like that .

5:26

Good and bad . I

5:29

think this always comes down to interesting , though

5:31

People

5:34

who do product management

5:36

much better , people

5:38

who do project management not

5:41

so much . It's interesting , isn't it

5:44

? Because I think there's a very similar

5:46

, but there's a massive divide

5:49

between the two . Simon

5:52

, can you relate to

5:54

this ?

5:55

Yeah , definitely Project

5:58

and product managers in the tourist who don't get on very well

6:00

.

6:02

Anyone .

6:03

I started my life off as a project manager many moons ago

6:05

. Just because I was doing

6:07

some product stuff and it was a start-up and

6:09

they didn't have enough money to pay me full time if

6:12

I didn't do some project management . So I did it and

6:14

I didn't find it fun . But

6:16

I think any sort of project manager that's got

6:18

a bit of product

6:20

in them , they end up in a product role anyway and

6:23

that's why they're a bit chalk and cheese

6:25

. I think it's like why is it not on

6:27

time ? Why are we spending so much money ? And

6:29

then the other side you're going well , the customer doesn't want

6:31

that or we need to fill this , we

6:33

need to spend more money , we need more time and it's

6:35

hard . The two roles that

6:37

are valid , obviously , but

6:40

they're sort of opposing sometimes

6:43

, because the business is one breathing down the neck together product

6:45

out , and the other breathing down the neck to make

6:47

it as cheap as possible .

6:49

Yeah . So you're automatically

6:52

in a catch-22 of

6:54

delivering everything but

6:56

paying absolutely nothing for it and getting

6:58

as close to those to completely

7:00

divergent points as is humanly possible

7:03

. My experience with product

7:05

management has always been an interesting

7:07

one , because where

7:10

I am right now is small

7:12

enough that we don't actually

7:14

have much in the way of

7:16

either product or project management . I

7:19

should say that the roles are kind of emerging

7:21

because we're getting to that point

7:24

where the company is starting

7:26

to develop in different directions

7:28

and needs that . Prior

7:31

to that , it's usually been the CEOs pointing in one

7:33

direction , saying run in

7:36

what I would consider quite an entrepreneurial

7:38

approach . That's

7:40

me being very forgiving with that . I think

7:42

I've used the term only a few podcasts now , but

7:44

that's my way of saying . They don't

7:47

actually plan anything . They just throw shit

7:49

at a wall and see what sticks . But

7:53

my experience with PMs in my

7:56

previous role was , in fact , an exact

7:58

opposite . There

8:02

was at least a dozen . There could have been two

8:04

dozen , and I

8:06

was part of a huge UX function , part

8:09

of the leadership team , which meant that my job

8:11

was trying to establish a process with

8:13

these individuals . But what had happened

8:16

is because they were so established in their routines

8:18

and their existing processes . It

8:20

was all more impenetrable to

8:24

get them to prioritize anything

8:26

from a user experience perspective because

8:29

their focus was on meeting KPIs

8:32

. They got from the business requirements

8:34

rather than anything to do with user requirements

8:37

. Have you guys had

8:39

similar experience of that ?

8:42

Yeah , go

8:44

on .

8:44

Simon Care to

8:46

elaborate .

8:48

I think the interesting point you said there is yeah

8:50

, I think product management

8:52

is needed when the founder

8:54

or the CEO can no longer

8:56

manage to communicate with the team

8:58

effectively and put

9:01

better and I think you said it is they just throw shit

9:04

at a wall . That's

9:06

generally what a lot of entrepreneurs do they

9:08

try new things , they do stuff . I think

9:10

the product manager steps in when they need to throw the

9:13

shit at someone else . So I've been

9:15

the person that catches all

9:17

the shit . The shit shield , yeah

9:20

, the shit shield and then collates into something that the business

9:22

can understand . All the developers

9:24

, all the UX or QA or whatever in the team

9:26

. And then , yeah , we

9:29

start going OK , well , we're going to do this bit . And

9:32

a lot of the conversations are and you hear this

9:34

so many times why ? So

9:37

? Why are you throwing shit at me ? You

9:41

sure that that's going to work ? Do you want to test it first ? No

9:43

, you just want to do it . Ok , well , I've

9:45

only just met you , so we'll do that for a bit , and

9:48

then we'll learn a bit more about each other , and then maybe

9:50

I'll say why again , and then maybe one day

9:52

you'll go . That isn't a good idea , because

9:54

I trusted you that one time .

9:58

Nice yeah

10:00

. Yeah , I think it's

10:04

interesting , is it ? Because I

10:06

did ? It

10:08

seems like a year ago now , but I did

10:11

some scrum training and

10:13

on that scrum training it

10:15

was like the product owner is like

10:19

the CEO of the product

10:21

.

10:22

And .

10:22

I think that , for me , is kind of

10:24

quite crucial , and I think that gets

10:26

lost quite a few times In

10:29

the way

10:32

you know . Everybody tries to own

10:34

the product and I think sometimes it's

10:37

, you know , kind of like UX wants

10:39

to own it , devs want to own

10:41

it , the C2O wants to own it , but

10:44

essentially if everybody's

10:46

own in it , then nobody owns

10:48

it as well . So it's that balance

10:51

and you want everybody , you want

10:53

skin in the game for people , but

10:55

at the same time you just

10:57

sometimes need to say just

11:00

can't do that . You know , touch

11:02

that new technology we're

11:05

building onnr .

11:06

You know we're just getting out there , because

11:08

that's the skills we've got .

11:10

Stop learning the language . Let's

11:12

just crack up with this shit , and then

11:15

we'll figure out later .

11:16

This is a point to everyone , but

11:18

you have to .

11:20

So to expand on what you've just said there , like

11:22

so was it PO's PM's

11:25

a combination of the two actors ?

11:26

like the .

11:27

CEO of a specific product . The one

11:29

product that I assume is

11:31

when back off what you said , simon

11:33

, about it PM's

11:35

materializing when the CEO can't effectively

11:38

communicate with the rest of the team . That

11:40

implies there's usually multiple products going on within

11:42

the organization . So

11:46

because I kind of I kind

11:48

of really like that analogy , because it keeps things

11:50

kind of localized , it gives quite

11:53

specific boundaries towards what a product

11:55

is and help define

11:58

where the overlap between two products might be . But

12:00

do you think that then , if

12:02

they emerge as

12:05

the CEO of their product , to

12:07

extend the analogy , do you need then people

12:09

who formulate the rest of that C-suite

12:12

around them 100%

12:14

? Do you need your version

12:16

of the CTO ? Who isn't the CTO ?

12:18

Yeah .

12:19

Like C-DO , or

12:21

I'm going to try and pioneer

12:23

the term CXO as the

12:25

chief experience . I don't know . I said pioneer

12:27

the problem , millions of CXOs as well , but

12:30

that's just what I want to become . But

12:35

so do you . You know , would you find that

12:37

for every PM , you need

12:40

to have the equivalent senior stakeholders

12:43

within that product

12:46

?

12:46

Yeah , I

12:48

mean , my

12:50

analogy to being in any team is it's

12:54

a football team , right ? If

12:56

you're going to have a player game , let's

12:58

call that the product . You're

13:02

going to want your best defenders . You're going to want your best

13:04

goalkeeper , your best midfielders , your best

13:06

forwards right , it doesn't really matter where

13:08

you're sitting . That wants to point in building

13:10

something for someone if you haven't got the best people around

13:12

you , and that could be

13:14

at a team level or the highest business

13:16

level . But , yeah , I absolutely agree . If I , if I'm

13:18

going to prioritize or

13:21

make a decision as the mini

13:23

CEO I

13:26

don't like the term product owner , by the way just

13:28

want to get in there because I don't think anyone owns the product

13:30

, I think everyone does Like people that write

13:32

code , design , like even the people that support

13:34

it . You know , it's not the people that just put the money

13:37

in or tell people what to do , you

13:39

know . But yeah , you want to . You

13:42

want to have an amazing team around you and you

13:44

all want to be aligned to do the

13:47

same thing . Right , which

13:50

? is a good product , hopefully .

13:53

Yeah , thanks , chris , although that's

13:55

a little bit harder to put .

13:57

It's getting harder . Yeah , yeah .

14:00

Nice .

14:01

So , saravan , I'm going to

14:03

ask you an eyesore and an ending question , but

14:06

to bring this , we are a UX podcast

14:08

after all , yep , so

14:10

I want to know I'm sure Paul

14:13

is just as keen what your experience

14:15

has been like working with UX

14:17

people . What

14:22

does that look like for you ?

14:23

Yeah , Personally

14:26

, I love it because I've

14:29

done a bit of it in my past and that's when

14:31

you sort of go

14:33

into the first roles and they go well . Can you

14:35

do a bit of this ? I'm not very good at design . I'm

14:38

quite good at thinking through customer journeys

14:40

and experiences and wireframing and

14:43

I think I've had to be because there was no one else to do it

14:45

. But yeah , when I think it's

14:48

working with

14:50

someone in UX should be a partnership

14:52

, product in UX should just be side by side

14:54

. I don't mean that in hierarchy

14:57

, I mean that in sort of solving

15:00

problems , customer needs . I

15:03

guess that the best when

15:05

it's working well for me and when I've seen the most

15:07

, is I

15:10

work with them to

15:12

say this is the next thing coming up , give

15:14

them as much information as I can , let them

15:16

go away , have a think about it , check

15:19

in . When everyone's happy , we get

15:21

all the developers involved and I'll leave them

15:23

alone until we've got something

15:25

then and I think that's where I work best . What

15:29

I really like is I like seeing developers in UX

15:32

. People work together and

15:34

iterate and it doesn't happen as often

15:36

as it should . But I think if you

15:38

can find someone that you can

15:40

trust with

15:43

like trust to think about

15:46

the first bit and then leave them to do the second

15:48

bit , you end up with a much

15:50

better product or feature . It's not always at

15:52

the product level .

15:54

No , no , no , Definitely . Interesting

15:57

because you say that , like UX

16:00

, people and devs don't talk as

16:02

much as they should . I'm

16:06

quite passionate that they should be talking

16:08

all the time , but there

16:11

is this don't know what it is , but

16:13

I don't know whether it's kind of like people can think

16:15

, oh , I did UX thing

16:17

and then , once we've designed it , just

16:20

throw it over the wall to devs

16:22

and expect them

16:24

to build absolutely everything

16:26

and have no pushback , and then

16:28

when they push back and you spent like a

16:31

month doing stuff , then

16:33

gets frustrated devs get frustrated

16:35

and then the whole communication lines break

16:38

down . So is there anything

16:40

we can do to kind

16:43

of make that communication

16:45

better , to make that kind

16:47

of at the forefront of

16:49

what should be happening ?

16:52

Is that to me ?

16:54

Anyone , you're

16:56

probably best to answer this .

16:59

I also got to be a bit biased . I mean

17:01

, mine's going to be biased as well .

17:04

Oh well , that's fine . It's

17:06

hard right . So I've managed UX . I've

17:08

never really directly managed any devs and I think I

17:10

should right . For starters , I don't think

17:12

product managers should manage

17:15

devs , Arguably they should maybe

17:17

not manage any of the people in the team , but needs

17:19

must right . In my last

17:21

role , I directly managed design

17:23

or UX and QA

17:26

, so I had an idea of each

17:29

end of the process and that was people managing , and

17:31

I tried not to get involved in the management of like this

17:33

is how you'd be a good QA , because who am I to tell

17:35

? But I guess , to

17:38

your question , which

17:41

I can't remember what it was , the gods have

17:43

it .

17:46

How do you foster that ?

17:47

early on .

17:47

So that people don't get frustrated .

17:49

Yeah , so can you bring everyone

17:52

in a meeting all the time together

17:54

? Is it worthwhile ? No , it's

17:56

not and I don't think it is . You know , like if

17:58

, let's say , the CEO of

18:00

a company comes to me and says we're going to build this big

18:02

feature , I want you to do it

18:04

and these are the reasons why . Now it's my job to explain

18:07

to the team that we're

18:09

going to build it . But do I get , let's

18:11

say , someone that's going to build the infrastructure , someone

18:14

that's going to build UI and a UX

18:16

person in the meeting to start saying that we

18:18

need to do user research ? Probably not , because it's

18:20

just a waste of everyone's time and they've got stuff that they're

18:22

doing anyway . Then , on the

18:24

other side of it , do I bring

18:27

a UX person into the meeting

18:29

where we're talking about what

18:31

tech that we're going to use to scale it for

18:33

the next 18 months ? Sorry

18:37

, probably not Now

18:40

. You could , you absolutely could , but you think , well

18:42

, in most of the businesses I've worked in , time

18:44

is precious and you

18:46

probably just sit around in meetings all the time . So

18:49

you've got to kind of make a decision , and

18:51

it's quite easy to make these decisions because you can

18:53

ask people if they think they need

18:55

to be there . It's not

18:57

.

18:58

It's mad , isn't it ? Yeah , you don't have

19:00

to do it for the decision , the

19:03

decision powers with them .

19:05

So you go , I've got this meeting right . So

19:08

typically what I'll do is , if the

19:11

business comes to me and say we want this feature , my

19:14

initial thought would be why do they want that

19:16

? Or yes , let's do it , because obviously I'm excited

19:18

or not , and then we'll take

19:20

it . I'll take it to a UX person and say , look , do we need to do

19:23

some research on this ? Like , how are we going

19:25

to do it ? Do I do some prototyping , like

19:27

wireframes or whatever ? But

19:29

I'll start talking about the team that we do . I'll

19:31

start talking with the whole team that we're doing that , maybe

19:33

in a stand-up or something saying oh , this is

19:35

come , we're working

19:37

on this , we will involve you when we

19:39

do it , when we need to . So maybe we'll

19:42

do a bit of research and stuff or

19:44

prototyping . We'll come back , we'll see it

19:46

throughout little

19:48

bits , throughout this process , and then we'll go

19:50

oh , now we're

19:52

ready to actually talk about it . So we'll

19:54

get everyone together before kickoff

19:56

, whatever project planning , and

19:59

we'll sort of do it . And then we'll just iterate through that

20:01

process of let's build it . And I think the

20:04

crucial point and I'd love to know

20:06

your two take on this actually- is it's

20:09

quite hard to design user experience

20:12

with movement . So

20:14

when something's being used and I know

20:16

you can do like you can get something

20:18

out there and see if it's used and stuff and

20:21

this is why I think having a very good UI

20:24

designer as well

20:26

as a very good UI developer is

20:28

paid dividends , where I've sort of been

20:31

. When

20:33

stuff starts being real and the

20:36

UX person starts interacting it where it's

20:38

built , because the

20:40

UI developers can have an idea

20:42

of how they want it to work and the UI designer

20:45

or UX person whatever they're

20:47

going to have an idea , that's where I think the power of

20:49

making a really good product comes together . It's then

20:51

sitting down and going . I

20:54

didn't think it would work like that and that's

20:56

where I think those conversations .

21:00

Yeah , I think , depending on the feature

21:02

itself , because , interestingly , at work

21:04

now myself , I mean

21:06

almost exactly the

21:08

scenario you described where I was pulled

21:11

into a session . I was just actually pulled into a session

21:13

because the head of engineering was like I've

21:15

got five minutes to come to this very dull meeting and

21:18

, lo and behold , it was the CEO

21:20

who's had a new idea for a feature , an

21:23

idea off the back

21:26

of requests from our biggest client . So

21:28

, there was a bit of weight behind it and then it turned

21:30

out to be now one of the highest priority

21:32

things on the list and

21:36

we haven't had the time I mean , we don't

21:38

really have the foundation right now , but we

21:40

haven't had the time to do any generative

21:42

research about it to go to

21:44

our various existing

21:46

customers and

21:48

say , well , we're going to add this , what do you do ? That's similar

21:51

. Are you using any workarounds

21:53

? That's similar . What would you get from this task

21:55

? You know third-party software that does

21:57

the same thing for you or that you've been looking at

22:00

to do this . I think

22:02

when you are not

22:04

able to go out and ask people

22:07

what they would do , how

22:10

they might use it , whether that's just asking

22:12

in a discussion session or an ended , or

22:14

with some kind of mock-up , whether

22:17

it's paper , whether it's infigma

22:19

or even some throwaway code I

22:22

think you then have to get a bit more creative about

22:24

where you get your information from . So

22:27

in my case , we have some great internal users

22:29

who do a lot of the setting up for

22:32

our customers and have spent a lot of time with the

22:34

product . So I get to exploit them . So

22:37

I've been asking them what they think , but of

22:39

course that means that you're only speaking to two

22:42

or three people . I

22:45

think the other thing that we've been able to do is , thankfully

22:47

this feature is pretty standard and

22:50

I've been able to find like eight I

22:53

wouldn't call them competitors , as said , they're not direct

22:55

competition , but eight people who are doing

22:57

the same thing , eight products are doing the

23:00

same thing , and then having a nice

23:02

clothed look at how they've been achieving

23:04

that . And

23:07

this was just after that meeting . I went

23:09

away from that meeting . I thought and I heard from the

23:11

CEO I owed him say

23:13

you know

23:15

, it's probably good to see

23:17

what other people are doing , but let's just get

23:19

out there and do it , and that's a bit of a

23:21

red flag line . So I went away and did the comp

23:23

analysis anyway and it revealed

23:25

quite a few little insights about what the industry

23:27

standard is . The fact that there isn't an industry

23:29

standard in this case

23:31

where it can be useful , that

23:34

is probably as close as we can get to

23:36

something that is , as you say

23:38

, moving Because

23:42

it's in flight for competition

23:44

. We can use it and engage with it ourselves

23:47

with a discrete account , and

23:50

, you know , we can start to feature

23:52

porch and I think that's

23:54

probably one of the ways

23:56

to work around . This

23:58

idea of this is presuming

24:01

that you don't have

24:03

, let's say , the lead time to

24:05

properly mock things up , as

24:08

is the case . We're against quite a bit of time

24:10

pressure and so we've kind

24:12

of agreed to go

24:15

with the best we can , best on the moving parts we can see

24:18

, iterate where we can , where we can , and

24:21

hopefully that won't fall apart

24:23

the moment the first version is out there . What

24:27

I will have to do and I think in this

24:29

case , if you're in a similar situation

24:32

to me , you do have to keep the

24:34

pressure on to say , right

24:36

, okay , our client is now

24:38

using this part of the

24:40

software , let me add them . I've

24:42

got to understand as soon as possible how

24:45

they're using it , because I think that can

24:47

reveal just as much about

24:50

their interpretation

24:52

of what you've created . And

24:55

of course you just want to get that feedback in as soon

24:57

as possible and iterate it . I'd

25:01

say that's kind of the approximate experience

25:03

I've had recently . What

25:06

about you , paul ?

25:08

Well , interesting , because I think

25:10

you've hit the nail on the head there , Simon . Well

25:17

, it's not real until it's on the

25:20

actual thing people are

25:22

going to be using . So I always say

25:24

that my designs , even though they

25:26

may be beautiful , they may be absolutely

25:28

amazing if I do say so

25:30

myself .

25:32

That's always awful .

25:34

But I always say that the sketches , they

25:37

don't work without the codes

25:39

, they don't work without . And

25:42

what I've been doing recently is spending

25:44

the whole day kind of , like you know , just on

25:46

calls with , like the dev and we're

25:49

just going through like well , this is the design

25:51

, this is how it's working , these are the calls

25:53

. What should the callers be on here ? What

25:55

? I'm just going to move on here , and

25:57

it's just so much better

26:00

to do it that way than think

26:02

you've got to think about all the interactions

26:05

as well , because when you work

26:07

in partnership with somebody who knows the

26:10

dev , the front end stuff , then

26:12

you don't have

26:14

to kind of make these amazing prototypes , you

26:16

don't have to do this shitty dribble

26:18

gif animation . Sometimes

26:21

it's nice to give kind of like the

26:23

idea of what you're trying to get , but most

26:25

time just do it in code

26:28

. You know , don't have that starting off point

26:30

and then go

26:32

and build it on the device you're actually going to use

26:34

. Yeah , what

26:37

was interesting ? Because I had

26:40

a problem recently

26:42

. I was designing for

26:45

mobile devices and

26:47

then I realized the

26:49

flip phones are

26:52

in here to stay , probably

26:55

, which is the horrible . It's

27:00

come off , though . So you start off on

27:02

this really thin screen and fold them out

27:04

into this tablet , and how do you transition

27:07

from one side

27:09

to then go to kind of like a tablet

27:11

? Or , if you've got the clump shell

27:13

effect , you're on a

27:16

really thin screen . I

27:18

think it's like the Galaxy

27:20

Z Fold is 217 pixels

27:23

, yeah

27:26

, and if you're designing

27:28

for like an iPhone , a 375

27:31

pixels that's

27:33

off the top of my head You've got

27:35

a lot more screen . And then you kind

27:37

of go like whoa , actually it doesn't work . So

27:39

you've got to test it out on the actual

27:42

devices that can be used in it . It's

27:44

a whole design , so I had to

27:46

rethink everything else .

27:49

It's changing . Now you know

27:52

what's . Horizontal scroll bar .

27:59

We use the bathroom .

28:01

It is almost frustrating , isn't it ? The amount

28:03

of different devices that you have

28:05

to cater for . Now , I'm all up for

28:07

like technology , but I

28:09

generally I mean this big

28:12

opinion here . But is it

28:14

those phones just a bit of a gimmick ? I know people

28:16

that have bought them . They've seen like the

28:18

color in the fold

28:20

starts to get

28:22

a bit rubbish and I know a few people that have

28:24

had them and just got rid of them just because of that , and

28:27

it's like you're causing us pain here . We

28:29

have to do a load more testing and we have to build something

28:31

else . If it's going to take over , then yeah

28:33

, obviously you have to adapt , but I don't

28:35

know .

28:36

I feel like if it was going to take over , it might

28:38

have already taken over

28:40

. Apple would have done one right , yeah

28:43

, yeah , well , exactly , yeah , you

28:47

know . There was one thing that I wanted to touch

28:49

on , actually regarding

28:54

your question early . I can't remember

28:57

if I did know , but one

28:59

thing I think , when it comes back to working

29:03

closely with development , getting

29:05

these things realized , one

29:08

thing is this is very easy

29:10

to do when we take for granted that there's a bit

29:12

of lead time to even establish

29:14

what's necessary . But

29:16

I found myself in situations in the past

29:18

where it's been UX as a service , where

29:22

Johnny CEO has come to

29:24

all the equivalent thereof , which has been

29:26

I do say , Simon , your

29:29

ilk products managers has

29:32

come along and said , look , this thing's

29:34

in development .

29:35

They were project managers , we've

29:40

probably made that mistake .

29:43

No one's innocent here but

29:45

where they've said this thing's

29:47

in development now and we need designs

29:50

for it , and

29:54

I think that is a very , very

29:56

common situation . But

29:59

I think , if you find that you're in that situation

30:01

, you

30:04

are going to really struggle to get any level

30:06

of communication back , Because

30:08

even with developers , when you're speaking

30:10

to a developer , you're speaking to them about changes

30:12

they've got to make to code . They've just spent a

30:14

sprint or two putting together . What

30:18

do you do in that situation ? How do you

30:20

and this is to both of you

30:23

and to me as well , but I

30:25

prefer your voices to mine

30:28

what do you do about that ? How do you react

30:31

to it ? How do you get ahead of it ? Is

30:33

it something that isn't on UX

30:36

designers to recognize ? On product

30:39

managers to develop , to recognize

30:41

who's responsible for this and how

30:43

do we fix it ?

30:45

think I think a really interesting thing

30:47

is I'm gonna flip it on my head and I'm gonna have a little . I'm

30:49

gonna have a little mode about CEOs and which

30:52

is equally , they go to the UX

30:54

people first , sometimes as well , which is very

30:56

frustrating .

30:58

Yeah , yes , I think .

31:01

I've always I've always installed a mentality

31:03

that you work for these people right their vision

31:05

areas . They probably know a little bit more than us

31:07

about the market or they should , you'd

31:09

hope so so they've had conversations with

31:11

other . Let's say they're

31:14

trying to , they've got a market share

31:16

. A new customers come along and said we

31:18

will Join you

31:20

for X million pounds If

31:23

you build this thing and they go . Well , that's

31:25

my job . Right , to bring money in to pay all these

31:27

people . They're here and I

31:29

think the frustrating thing is and I've always

31:32

said this you tell me the what , we're

31:34

gonna validate it , but we'll do that quietly

31:36

.

31:37

She don't wanna don't know where's one of my .

31:39

Let's deal with a how right and

31:41

that's across all of the disciplines , so

31:44

you can come in and say I want to build

31:46

this feature . It's gonna make us a million

31:48

pounds . Let

31:50

us decide as developers call

31:52

insurance , people , ux , product

31:56

. Let us define that how we're

31:58

gonna do it and trust us that will do it . Don't give

32:00

us any time scales , which is never been

32:02

, is it ? But yeah

32:05

, so I mean in those situations . Yeah

32:08

, where I mean you have to do it right

32:10

. There's no , that's yeah , you have to do it . How

32:12

you do it should be dictated by the teams that are

32:14

doing it . The time you get

32:16

to do it isn't always the same , but I

32:18

guess in that situation I've had it before

32:20

. You just have to have a honest

32:23

conversation and be like no one wants

32:25

to be doing it like this . We know we

32:27

don't . No one wants to have to rewrite the code again

32:29

when you've got so far . But

32:31

and I think the thing that we haven't actually

32:33

spoke about for the last what nearly 30

32:35

minutes is , and I think everyone

32:38

forgets is there's a customer here , there's

32:41

a user , and it's what does

32:43

the user want ? So , if you

32:45

have to , if I've been

32:47

in places where we've built something that we absolutely

32:49

thought that they wanted and they

32:51

start using it and go .

32:52

This isn't right .

32:54

Yeah , you get a bit frustrated with yourself

32:56

or whatever , because you're like shit

32:59

, how do we miss ?

32:59

that For using your product

33:02

for . Oh yeah , yeah , oh yes .

33:04

Yeah , that's a classic . Never you . Yeah

33:08

, we built this feature .

33:09

It took us three months to build it and the customers

33:11

not using it , why ? Why are they stupid

33:13

?

33:14

Yeah yeah yeah but let's

33:17

make a video how to use our product

33:19

. But

33:22

yeah , you have to .

33:23

You have to think and I do this a lot and

33:25

I've had a lot of these conversations . It's like

33:27

, okay , you're here working

33:29

, you've written some codes you're gonna have to write again . Or you've

33:31

designed it , you could have to design it again . What ? Why

33:34

are you in this role ? Is

33:36

it to be happy all the time ? Or is

33:38

it to make the users a better

33:40

product or feature ? And then everyone

33:42

knows that they're to Make

33:45

a better product of each ? Obviously , that hopefully

33:47

increases revenue . That's right and you

33:49

just have to . I think you just have to have those conversations

33:51

very open , in , honestly , and nine times out

33:53

of ten , unless someone digs the hills

33:55

in and they start being an asshole about it , they're gonna be okay

33:58

and if they are , I'd say you're probably not right

34:00

for the organization .

34:01

Yeah , you've got no passion . Yeah

34:04

, you just want to spend your time not

34:07

doing yeah . It's

34:09

really interesting that it reminds me of

34:11

An analogy

34:13

that a friend of ours , a friend of the show , is

34:16

responsible for , our . Our theme

34:18

tune is James med , but he has

34:20

. He ? He illustrated an

34:23

analogy of three planets orbiting

34:25

each other and

34:27

I'm gonna extend on it a bit . So the three planets in

34:30

this , in this scenario

34:32

, are your business requirements , your

34:35

tech constraints and your

34:38

user needs . Now , what

34:41

I think I've taken for granted in the past

34:43

is the idea that , okay , I'm on planet

34:45

user needs and I think

34:47

that's fine , and I can expect mr

34:50

UI developer

34:52

misses UI developer To

34:54

be on planet tech constraints . I

34:57

can also expect , let's

34:59

say , product owner for now to be

35:01

on planet business requirements

35:03

. I Realizing

35:05

now , I think , that you , simon , other son

35:08

around which we are all supposed to actually

35:10

be Arbatic , because

35:12

it's you who Perhaps

35:15

has to hold these things in balance

35:17

, if we

35:19

find that word . You know we're

35:21

spending too much time on the tech

35:23

constraints and nothing's getting done because people

35:26

don't want to Refactor code or there's there's

35:28

no . You know

35:30

where we're allowing . I'm

35:33

not saying this always happens . I've realized I'm giving

35:35

you I does a bad name , but we're allowing

35:37

too much pushback against actually doing some dev

35:39

work or

35:42

Likewise , we're spending too much

35:44

time there is such

35:46

a thing as too much time on research . It's very

35:49

difficult to do . I've never seen it done . And

35:51

there is such a time , theoretically , or

35:55

likewise with we're just going in

35:57

In the business too far with the business requirements

36:00

, just Creating something that it turns out that

36:02

the user doesn't want at all and maybe

36:04

the tech stack doesn't support , and

36:06

it's just an entire shit

36:09

show . But you're

36:11

in the middle of all this is . It's it feels

36:13

like , and I wonder if you agree with me or disagree

36:15

with me and why it

36:19

feels like you're the one that's supposed to hold

36:21

us in in balance here . What do you think ? What do you say to that Accuversion

36:26

?

36:26

yeah , it's like a . It's like a solar

36:28

system , venn diagram and product management . Product managers love

36:30

a Venn diagram , don't they ? But yeah , I

36:32

think that's what the role should be . You know , it

36:35

should be that person that says

36:37

Business , fuck

36:39

off your mental . Based on

36:41

, and that could be based on , the other

36:44

two planets , saying this

36:46

is going to take 18 months to refactor

36:48

. So , yeah , we're not gonna

36:50

. If we're gonna build it , and you want to build

36:52

it right , we gotta do this way or that's

36:54

gonna take a lot of research . But equally , on the other side

36:56

, it's gotta be . You've

36:58

got it . You've got to sit in the middle of it when a UX person

37:01

or Says this is

37:03

gonna take six months of research and

37:05

you go . Well , it should

37:07

, yes , but we

37:09

can still put something out with two months of research

37:12

. Maybe it won't be as good , but there

37:14

is that opportunity . And I think one

37:16

of the one of the things that I always try

37:18

to Try to think about is I

37:21

mean , I've spent a lot of time in the world of star , so it's

37:23

a bit easier . But think

37:26

about building for how many users you've got . I

37:28

think Monzo did this really well . I went to a talk

37:30

a long time ago and they

37:34

bill I

37:36

forget what it was . It's like an overdraft facility . But

37:39

they were like , right , we're gonna build this overdraft facility

37:41

and we're gonna have to do we're gonna have to integrate

37:43

with Equifax , all the like , to do a credit check

37:45

and all of this sort of stuff , and I think they just hide someone

37:47

to do all the manual stuff in the background and they got

37:50

the products out in a couple of months . You know , and and

37:52

that is a case of like , well

37:54

, for the first and I talk about this a lot

37:56

with teams for the first 200 users , it can be a

37:58

bit shit , you know , and maybe the

38:01

UX might , might be perfect and maybe it

38:03

crashes a couple of times and the

38:05

business will just have to accept that you

38:08

want it in this period of time , then we'll do it . And

38:10

then you go Okay , well , when it gets to a thousand users , it'll

38:12

be a bit more robust and we'll know a bit more . Then , when

38:14

it gets to a million users , you probably have

38:16

got a big enough brand that someone's gonna complain about

38:18

you on Twitter . So yeah

38:20

, it's now , so you probably can't piss that many people

38:22

off well .

38:25

Yeah , I think that's a . It's a really really

38:27

good point and

38:30

I was gonna say something in to compliment

38:32

that and it's just completely left my brain .

38:34

So , paul , obviously , Well , I was

38:36

gonna say exactly the same and I think sometimes

38:38

you know kind of , whoever

38:41

you give that lead time to , you

38:43

should never give Too

38:45

much lead time to anybody , because

38:48

if they take six

38:50

months to research , six months to design

38:52

it , six months to build it and you

38:55

might put something out there , that's a

38:58

complete another piece of shit

39:00

. Okay , um , I'd I

39:02

do a talk on . You build

39:04

it up , you stop building the wheels , you

39:07

build a platform . We've got a skateboard , you stick

39:09

a handlebar on , you've got a scooter , and then

39:11

add a few more things , add a

39:13

motor . Before you know it you've got a car . But

39:16

then all the time you're getting little

39:18

bits of feedback along the way . And

39:21

I think if you do it in big

39:23

, massive chunks and you did this big research

39:26

piece , you do a big kind

39:28

of like technical exploration

39:30

, do all those things , then guarantee

39:33

you that Somewhere along

39:35

the line something's gonna fail and then you're

39:37

gonna waste a shit like you better

39:40

waste in Two weeks

39:42

or , you know , two months

39:44

. Then you are like

39:47

with 20 , 20 months

39:49

worth of work . Yeah so

39:52

just putting stuff out there early , getting

39:54

feedback as well , of course . I

39:56

think this . This ties in nicely back to

39:58

you know you've

40:00

got to see it on a real device . You

40:03

should see on a real device . You know you're

40:05

the first user testing

40:07

it then and you do not use

40:09

a test , otherwise everything's theory based you

40:13

know you do a PhD part-time

40:16

, you six years into proving

40:18

a thesis that may never come

40:20

true .

40:20

I think , yeah , the whole world talks about like you

40:23

hear one of the buzzwords

40:25

out there like fail fast and stuff , but

40:27

I don't know . I don't know if people actually know

40:30

what that means . That's not an excuse to do shit work

40:32

, it's

40:35

. It's an opportunity to do something quickly

40:37

and not Take

40:40

massive repercussions

40:42

. For you know so and and that means , and that means

40:44

, like I

40:47

do it in my role , you know , like I'll never . This is like

40:49

something that's fundamentally built into me , because who

40:54

I am and I'm very like process driven

40:56

, but I will always write a business case for everything I want to do , not

41:00

bugs and less you

41:03

know , but most of the time bugs do . Yet , to be fair

41:05

, like I'll always write business and that's for whoever it goes to right . It

41:09

can be a massive document

41:11

, which I try not to do , but it's sometimes you need a product spec

41:13

for some of big . But I guess it means that you can fail right in the business

41:16

case a little bit because you didn't

41:19

get it right and then you revisit it and

41:23

you can fail with the first iteration of the research or design

41:25

or whatever , and you can fail right in code . But

41:29

, like , if you don't do it , then I think it just takes

41:31

so much time . Like I I'm on the project I'm

41:33

working on at the minute . I'll

41:36

put a feature out into it and there's this really annoying part

41:38

. It's it's kind of annoying and

41:40

you might wince at this , but

41:44

like pasting a URL because you

41:46

can add YouTube videos to it and the the button , but he's

41:48

below the keyboard so you

41:51

have to tap to Find the button . Yeah , well , yeah , it's

41:53

frustrating , but people

41:55

have been asking for video in this app that we built for like two months , so I just

41:57

like put it out . We'll

42:00

fix it next time . Yeah , yeah , I mean I'd yeah , that would read as

42:02

a bug really , but yeah , it

42:05

doesn't feel like one that's impossible to fix it .

42:06

If it meant to be a bug , I

42:09

feel like one that's impossible to fix it if it meant

42:11

getting something out there two weeks Quicker

42:14

to get the feedback on it or , even more

42:16

likely , a release cycle quicker

42:18

. Um , well , however long that is , I

42:20

think to feed into that . You know

42:23

, the failing fast concept is , I

42:25

think it's misunderstood , because a lot of people

42:27

read a headline

42:29

or a book title with it in and

42:32

think , oh , I couldn't chew at what that

42:34

means and I'm going to make everyone

42:36

do it . Um , but I

42:38

, you know , I'm , I've done this myself

42:40

and , to be honest , I can be a bit hostile

42:42

about it . Sometimes . I've realized only

42:44

in my in the confines of my own school , which

42:47

I think helped . But sometimes

42:49

a developer will send me a thing

42:52

, I think , to UX

42:54

review , and it'll just be a message , because it's a really small

42:56

thing . It might be so

42:59

something to do with selection , making sure that we

43:01

have multiple select options , and

43:03

they'll send it to me and I'll

43:05

think the be first instinct

43:07

is usually a

43:11

sigh because it's like well , this is

43:13

clearly your

43:16

interpretation of how we should do this , rather

43:18

than any to any kind of universal standards

43:20

, but that's not always a bad

43:22

thing . But usually what I end up thinking

43:25

instead is yes , fire this

43:27

out . Because what all I'm going to suggest

43:29

is things like talking changes

43:32

color , change font . Again

43:34

, I would love to release things accessible

43:37

first time , and there

43:39

will come a time when we have to as

43:41

a legal imperative . At the minute

43:43

, we're not there . So if it's

43:45

not quite accessible now , I will sometimes

43:48

say look , this isn't accessible

43:50

, these colors aren't right , these

43:53

things aren't . If you can fix that in the next hour

43:55

, fine , I'll do

43:57

that . If not , if this needs to be done by

43:59

the end of the day and you've not got enough time , we'll

44:01

make an orc of it , it'll

44:04

go on a backlog somewhere and we'll

44:06

eventually get round to it . And I think , as

44:09

much as I'm kind of loath to do

44:11

that because I'd rather see the good UX

44:13

in from the start . That

44:15

is what failing fast would mean in

44:17

these contexts . It's what lean UX

44:20

means in this context is which you

44:22

are able to say right , it's not perfect

44:24

, but we've met the minimum viable . We

44:26

can fire that out now . We'll have feedback

44:28

in two weeks and you know what , if that feedback

44:31

is , I'm not able

44:33

to use this because of something stupid you've

44:35

done , I can turn around and say , look , I told

44:37

you , so I

44:40

can have my moment on the hill . I mean it could be something

44:42

I've done wrong . Someone

44:45

will be able to say , I told you so and it's like , very good

44:47

, we'll have a drink , we'll move on , we'll

44:49

get it fixed in release , and

44:52

I think being able to have those

44:54

conversations and react like that

44:56

. But again , bring this to the common

44:58

point and we'll know this is

45:00

something we're going to have to fix later

45:02

.

45:03

And I think that is Sorry , go on .

45:06

No , no , is it ?

45:07

Yeah , no I think that's where I think you can build the most trust

45:10

as a product manager . To be honest , when you make a decision

45:12

like that , that isn't the decision

45:14

that everyone wants to make and that's

45:16

a priority call , isn't it ? We're talking about them , and

45:20

if you don't follow up on it , then you start losing

45:22

the trust in the team . And

45:24

maybe that's a developer that said you told me I

45:26

could do this , or maybe it's the business that said

45:28

you will fix this , or your ex-person that said

45:31

you'll give me time .

45:34

Yeah , and I think you make

45:36

a really crucial point . Something that I've

45:38

experienced not happen is

45:40

that follow-up

45:42

, that transparency

45:45

, that this Right , we've released this

45:47

as it is . We're going to do some evaluative

45:49

research . Here's the time

45:51

we've boxed for that , even if it's not put

45:53

into a sprint or whatever just yet . Or

45:57

here's where the further enhancement

45:59

work lives on the backlog , even if it's

46:02

just a line of a user story that

46:04

will sit on there for a while . There's

46:07

so many times where I've said I

46:09

think you'll have experienced this a lot , paul , and you've

46:12

probably experienced this yourself when you

46:15

go into something you say , okay

46:17

, we'll release the 0.5 version

46:19

of it and

46:22

we'll iterate on it's future , and then someone

46:24

goes great and never

46:26

touches it , ever over again .

46:28

Yeah .

46:30

And users are perpetually trying to find the

46:32

submit button when they've just put a

46:35

YouTube link in .

46:39

I was going to ask Simon how Because

46:43

as a UX person , one

46:45

of the things always kind of goes makes

46:48

my heart break , you

46:50

know , or we'll put it on the backlog . I

46:53

like yeah , as Mark

46:55

alluded to , never gets touched , Kind

46:57

of like how ? Because the backlog

46:59

only gets bigger and bigger

47:02

, and bigger , and after

47:04

a time , how do you go

47:06

like should we even bother

47:08

with this yet , or yeah

47:12

?

47:12

Don't put on the backlog . That's the easiest

47:14

thing , isn't it ? Put in the next release . If

47:17

you think you have to do it now , we'll do it next

47:19

, right ? Obviously , the next could be the next

47:21

one or the next one , but it's got to be at the forefront

47:24

of your mind . If you've consciously

47:26

made a decision together that

47:29

we're going to do it , then you

47:31

have to follow through and you do it . And you've got to keep it

47:33

in your front of mind . And this is

47:35

where I think it's easier in a smaller team

47:37

. But when you've got massive business

47:39

with hundreds of developers and competing priorities and

47:42

the business doesn't know exactly

47:44

where they're going , you know there's no , there's

47:47

focus , but there's not focus on the little things

47:49

. I think it's up to product managers

47:51

to carve out that time and

47:53

make sure that you do

47:55

it . And again , it's back to the

47:57

user , right ? The

47:59

conversation we just had was we made

48:01

a decision to not put something

48:03

in that we know we need to do . Don't

48:06

just put on the backlog . Equally

48:08

the amount of times I've just completely

48:10

deleted a backlog . Like I

48:12

do it . When I go into companies for the first time , I was

48:15

like just get rid of your backlog . Like , oh , we've worked really

48:17

hard on that , yeah , but you've not delivered it , so it doesn't matter

48:19

anymore .

48:20

Like if it was important it would have been done right

48:23

. Yeah .

48:25

Normally I export it into a spreadsheet , so

48:27

it still exists .

48:28

Yeah , yeah

48:30

.

48:33

We need that back now , or else you are

48:35

fired . Yeah , on your fired

48:38

, we're going to go back .

48:40

I think a really interesting point about this

48:42

is that people take things quite

48:45

literally , like you said , mark , around like

48:47

this is how we're going to do failing

48:50

fast and this is how we're going to do . So

48:53

that and I think I mean

48:55

I quite openly say that I don't believe

48:57

in scrum . I

48:59

think it's a thing , but scrum is not agile , it's

49:02

just a way

49:04

of doing things .

49:06

I completely agree with you . I have to say I

49:08

think it's something that it's been

49:10

quite a slow devolution in my mind

49:12

. When I learned scrum

49:14

as part of my university course , it was yeah

49:17

, and that served its purpose , but

49:19

at no point have I seen

49:21

UX design and

49:24

UX research successfully integrated into

49:26

a scrum or even to print based

49:28

system . We

49:31

always have to use a

49:33

parenthetical

49:35

system , something that just lives

49:37

on the sidelines to what this main

49:39

quote , unquote agile thing is and

49:42

kind of feed into it . But

49:44

there's no membrane , as

49:46

it were , between what we're doing and what

49:48

Sprint is doing , what the scrum teams

49:50

are doing . So it just never happens and

49:53

you just end up bouncing against walls and , as I mentioned

49:55

earlier , with no lead time to do anything , your

49:58

centralized teams working away on

50:00

stuff that you hope to get in to scrum

50:02

, whilst the scrum team is

50:04

coming to you with things that they think you should

50:06

prioritize because they've already started development

50:09

on . So yeah , I have to

50:11

say , completely agree with you , and

50:15

that's I'm sorry .

50:18

I read the other day that the

50:20

guy who came up with the whole

50:23

scrum ethos he said

50:25

didn't he write

50:27

an article and say like just doesn't work , it's

50:30

?

50:30

a pilot piece . I was

50:32

wrong .

50:33

And yeah , companies have implemented agile and scrum

50:35

of wasting billion .

50:38

I think it

50:40

is interesting . Is it better than what was happening

50:43

? Absolutely . Is it hard

50:45

and fast ? I think so . I've worked in companies where

50:47

we've got scrum and I've come in here . You

50:49

don't understand scrum and

50:51

I might have a little rant here , if that's all right .

50:54

Yeah , yeah , please do .

50:56

I hate the concept of story points . I think

50:58

it's ridiculous that you sit in a room together and

51:00

you create imaginary estimates . That takes

51:03

up so much people's time to

51:05

put things into a window , and you know what . The worst

51:07

part about it is and it gets me every time is

51:09

let's say , we've worked out the velocity based

51:12

on people that are on holiday and people that are here and what

51:14

they've done previously , to do a new thing

51:16

which they've not done before , which inherently

51:18

is ridiculous , like if I

51:21

said Mark , can you paint

51:23

the Sistine Chapel ? How long is it going to take ? And

51:25

the only thing you've ever done before is I've

51:28

entered plenty of chapels .

51:31

Well , okay , before I was t-shirt , size

51:33

it as an XL .

51:35

But then you're the right person to maybe estimate

51:37

it .

51:38

But if you've never done it before , maybe your

51:40

background's a cobbler , it's

51:42

like .

51:44

And then the worst part about it is you

51:47

get like I don't know , you get a 13

51:49

and an 18 . I don't

51:51

even know if that's in the Feminist scale properly , but

51:53

you get a 13 and 18 . I'm

51:55

going to do some maths here . That's 31 , right , yeah

51:59

, 31 . And the velocity ?

52:01

of the team is 30 .

52:04

It means I have to take one of those things out and

52:07

fill it with shit that the customer

52:09

doesn't need . And then you've got

52:11

this whole and then you plan it , you do it

52:13

, you put it out for two weeks , then you get to do the

52:15

next one and you're about six weeks away

52:17

from delivering the thing that the business actually wanted

52:19

, and it's ridiculous . So we just do

52:21

releases . That's what I've always

52:23

done . I go into a company , they go , we do scrum , that's

52:27

all right , try this , what is it ? We're

52:29

going to release it . When this is ready , we're going to release it in three

52:31

weeks .

52:31

Maybe it takes one week , yeah

52:35

our job is not , as I'm sure there can

52:37

be a degree of estimation involved in

52:40

in release and and

52:43

releases . But yeah

52:45

, I feel like we're at this point now

52:47

where , especially in that scenario

52:50

where you've just described , where people are meant meant to

52:52

be estimated , in the void , where

52:54

we put in the horse

52:57

before the car yeah and

52:59

, yeah , you , as you

53:01

say , you end up in a situation where you're delivering shit

53:04

because it also , at the same time , I guarantee

53:06

that those 17 spare

53:09

sprint story points , it's not tech

53:11

debt that's getting addressed at that time , it's never tech

53:14

being of the future . Close it , yeah , yeah

53:16

, yeah , another feature that is on the backlog

53:18

and has been picked out completely

53:20

around them yeah , I

53:23

totally agree and I think , again

53:26

, working towards releases is , again

53:29

, it opens up teams

53:32

to things like lead time for research

53:34

, to things like lead time for design

53:36

, to feeding proper

53:39

relationship between what you're doing

53:41

, centralized in your UX team , your design

53:43

system to your component enhancements

53:46

, etc . To what is supposed

53:48

to spit fit in . Well , what would ? You

53:50

would have said it fits into spread , but in this time , fits

53:52

within a release , because all

53:54

of a sudden , your release timeframe encompasses

53:57

so much more than just

53:59

30 imaginary points

54:01

on an imaginary scale .

54:05

Every time I go in an organization that you

54:07

scroll by , I always ask what the points equal

54:09

and then you go

54:11

from team to team and it means totally

54:13

different things . Someone will say like , oh , point

54:16

means a day , another

54:18

one . Somebody will go like , oh , it's just how

54:21

big a feature

54:23

will be , and like it's

54:26

all arbitrary then and it doesn't why

54:28

you wasted time on something that's

54:30

theory . Going back to

54:32

the theories and like why ? Yeah

54:35

, I don't get why you spend so

54:37

much time doing this

54:39

and people have done like landing poker

54:42

and all gamification

54:44

around this .

54:45

It's just , yeah

54:47

, I think , playing cards with no cards

54:50

the way I am , the way I always pitch it to

54:52

the businesses . Okay , we've got a team of eight people

54:54

and I'm gonna get them together to do sprint planning

54:57

every week , let's say and

54:59

collectively that's 20 hours

55:02

of time that there could be writing code

55:04

now bear with me or designing , because

55:06

you say that to a business , but actually what you let them do is

55:08

in that time you let them do self-development as

55:11

well . You know it's not just writing code time , it could be

55:13

self-development , it could be learning . You know it could be anything

55:15

in that time that you get back . I've

55:17

never , like I've never been one of those people that

55:19

, like dev , output should be a hundred percent . It's

55:22

not an agency like we're not billing . Well

55:24

, it could be , but you know I mean it shouldn't be run like it

55:26

is , like your time is 100%

55:28

billable , alright . Well , when do when do I go for

55:30

a piss ?

55:30

then you know yeah this

55:33

is an Amazon warehouse , thank you

55:36

yeah

55:39

, but under the , there's a ball under your desk

55:41

just for that , yeah

55:43

yeah

55:45

, right it's .

55:46

It's interesting as well , though , because I've

55:49

not really thought about it for a long time because

55:51

I've not worked in that scrum sand . But what ? What do they do

55:53

if all the tickets are complete

55:55

? When ? When do they start the next sprint ? For

55:57

the end , right ?

55:59

yeah , yeah , yeah , twiddling the

56:01

phones . Yeah , something to them

56:03

usually .

56:04

Usually someone or your PO sneaks

56:06

something in . Yeah , that'll fight them

56:08

for you today . But then you

56:11

have to trust that that estimates correct , because

56:13

what you do if you're halfway through , do you abandon

56:15

it or do you carry that through ? And has that taken off

56:17

your velocity of the next ? And

56:20

what do you do with this so-called velocity

56:22

? Still , anyway , who's just being reported

56:25

to ? It's just who .

56:27

Yeah it's just a number

56:29

that's made up from

56:32

made up numbers like it doesn't mean

56:34

anything this reminds

56:36

me .

56:36

Actually , I tried to help my . I think scrum

56:39

might , might work if you have a

56:41

team of one or two people and

56:44

you're working dedicatedly on something , because

56:46

I was working at trying to see

56:48

how scrum could

56:50

help my sister when she was doing her

56:52

degree and

56:55

my idea was she

56:57

never actually ended up doing it , because it's a lot of

56:59

as we've just talked about , it's a lot of pissing

57:01

about writing up stuff that's only gonna

57:03

get deleted . You

57:05

know there's an ecological

57:07

impact on that , never mind anything else . So these

57:09

days it's just , it's just not the best

57:11

approach . It's not sustainable , but

57:13

I can see

57:16

it . It working when

57:18

the entire organization is interned

57:20

within a one person's head and in this

57:23

case , an organization is a

57:25

person doing their degree , maybe a set

57:27

two people doing their degree

57:29

, and it allows you to align on . Alright

57:31

. Well , I've got all this reading to do

57:34

, all these essays to do . I

57:36

know I have much more accurate

57:38

understanding of where my time boxing sits

57:40

, but I

57:42

still think it'll . It's never

57:44

gonna be as simple as going right

57:49

. We've got this deadline .

57:50

I need to sit down and get it done yeah

57:52

, because humans are inherently

57:55

very good at procrastinating

57:57

as well . Right ?

57:58

oh yes , and you

58:01

know , I think that's what scrum is in this context

58:03

. It's an excellent way to procrastinate .

58:05

I think it works very well and I've seen it . I've

58:07

been on the when I , when I spoke

58:10

about the FMCG that works in , we had an agency

58:12

that they ran the scrum process and I was fill

58:14

in all the marketing needs you know , 173

58:17

websites all built on either WordPress or Magento

58:19

and that

58:21

agency did very similar

58:24

things for us across the different brands . You know

58:26

it'd be like run a campaign to a bespoke

58:28

campaign for this , do that for that , and

58:30

the first thing the marketing team wanted to know was how much does

58:33

it cost ? And the way that you

58:35

get an idea of cost is you get an estimate and

58:37

if they are using the same platform

58:40

, building similar things again

58:42

and again , then you can probably work

58:44

out a cost and it does work

58:47

. I mean , it never gets released on time because

58:49

people , but then

58:51

there's always changes and stuff and it does work

58:53

quite well in that sort of repetitive cycle

58:57

. The problem with that is people

58:59

don't like working in a repetitive cycle

59:01

, so when you , when you've got an agency that's

59:03

doing this stuff for you , they rotate the teams

59:05

because the people get caught which flows you

59:07

froze , you have lost it out . I think it

59:10

just if it's , for

59:12

I think the biggest thing that it's people

59:15

use it for is management

59:17

, estimation , management right so

59:19

say we can probably do that in three weeks

59:21

. Do you want to do it ? But

59:24

to me that comes back to a , let's say

59:26

the , the

59:28

brand , and then we'll call them like Wella , the

59:31

hair company go . We

59:33

need to build this campaign . That wasn't

59:35

, it will work for by the way

59:38

but they want to build this campaign . In

59:40

this campaign from the marketing team , it's

59:42

gonna make us I

59:44

don't know a hundred million quid in product sold

59:46

and it's gonna get a reach of this . They've got their KPIs

59:48

and they go to the agency we need

59:50

you to build this . And they say , right , we're gonna

59:52

estimate that it's gonna take 10

59:55

days . What blended rate

59:57

of a thousand pound a day ? Let's just say it's 10 grand

59:59

. Yeah , they go . Oh , it's

1:00:02

not really , I haven't got the budget for it . And

1:00:05

then that and that then needs to not be a conversation

1:00:07

with the agency to reduce the price

1:00:10

. It needs to be a conversation with the business to increase

1:00:12

the budget . If the , if , the , if the result

1:00:14

of it is gonna be good , then

1:00:16

you should do it . But if the agency came back and said

1:00:18

that's 30 days , 30 grand , and then

1:00:20

they just go okay , well , we won't do it . And

1:00:22

I think people get so involved

1:00:25

in their ideas that it has to be done . It's

1:00:29

like we have to do this now because I've done all the planning

1:00:31

and we have to build it and it doesn't matter how much

1:00:33

it costs or it has to cost this much , and

1:00:35

then you have to do it . And again , you forget

1:00:38

the reason why you're doing it . Who are you building

1:00:40

it for ? What's the reason ? Obviously

1:00:42

, it's always ultimately make money , because business

1:00:44

but it it does have to be a

1:00:47

we are giving the user something

1:00:50

. And then the choices

1:00:52

, and it's very simple , right ? It's

1:00:55

not when you get into it , but the choices do

1:00:57

you want to build it or do you don't want to build it ? Every

1:01:01

product , yeah , there's a binary

1:01:03

at the end of it .

1:01:04

Yeah , I think again

1:01:07

, there's so many variables

1:01:09

, like I can see

1:01:11

the point , I can see the the use for for

1:01:13

this kind of methodology within estimating

1:01:16

that there are so many variables that I

1:01:18

think even within that context

1:01:20

, that's why you never get a correct estimate . Yeah , it's

1:01:23

just , it's just a given , or

1:01:25

at least it's a zeitgeist

1:01:28

, an unspoken agreement

1:01:30

that will . Also , this is the closest we can

1:01:32

get to an estimate based

1:01:36

on all these perpetually moving parts

1:01:38

. I think where it falls apart is all

1:01:41

right , you can . When you've got anywhere

1:01:43

where you've got fewer variables

1:01:45

, and when you're making estimates

1:01:47

is when it just you've no chance . Design

1:01:50

is a great example of that , because a lot

1:01:52

of what we're doing is actually qualitative , not

1:01:55

constant . When it's one of the

1:01:57

problems . I mean we could do

1:01:59

a separate podcast on UX metrics , but

1:02:03

it's a great example of

1:02:05

you know when

1:02:08

, when you're

1:02:10

trying to improve the UX or something you're

1:02:12

trying to improve , how

1:02:14

good it is for the , how good the user

1:02:17

experience is , well , how do you measure that ? Because

1:02:19

you can measure the rate at which someone goes

1:02:21

through it . But someone can

1:02:23

go through the process of leaving a review very

1:02:26

quickly if they just smash on a keyboard

1:02:28

and hit enter . So

1:02:33

yeah , I think , I think . Yeah , working

1:02:35

within strict variables

1:02:37

is one thing , but the moment you shift to something that's not

1:02:39

quantitative , you fucked that's

1:02:43

my hot take .

1:02:44

It's really , really difficult to measure success

1:02:46

, isn't it ? It is , it's and

1:02:49

it . And I think that's measuring humans

1:02:51

, you know , because they'll typically they'll use

1:02:53

it . I think there's , I think

1:02:55

there's three levels . There is I

1:02:58

absolutely I'm not going to use this and I'm going to tell

1:03:00

you how shit is , and that's

1:03:02

probably the best feedback because you can change it

1:03:04

, yeah , and then you've got the it's

1:03:07

amazing , I love using

1:03:09

this product , and then they'll

1:03:11

tell you about it . And then you got the bit in the middle which

1:03:13

is it's not great .

1:03:15

It doesn't annoy me enough to tell you , but

1:03:17

that's probably where you can make the most gains , I

1:03:20

think , and that's probably where most people

1:03:23

sit right , because , I think there's

1:03:25

a secret for one

1:03:27

, because a

1:03:30

lot of good UX , especially

1:03:32

good UI , is totally invisible . It's

1:03:35

like you don't spend your

1:03:37

life thinking , oh , what a good thing

1:03:40

it is that I don't have a stone in

1:03:42

my shoe . You

1:03:44

only notice when you've got a fucking

1:03:46

stone in your shoe , and I think that

1:03:48

is a real you know , when

1:03:51

someone's able to say in

1:03:53

fact , I suppose it's actually the same point as you're

1:03:55

making is when

1:03:57

a person says , well , this is a bit shit

1:04:00

, but I put up with it . They're

1:04:03

also likely to , you know , not

1:04:05

not realize it's there because we're

1:04:07

so used to putting up with a degree of heartache

1:04:11

, yeah , something being a pain . They ask

1:04:14

, especially digitally , that we

1:04:16

just we don't , we don't even think that

1:04:18

there's a standard above what we should

1:04:20

be working on what we're currently experiencing

1:04:23

, sorry , it's interesting because that

1:04:25

everybody's got a different threshold

1:04:28

level and this .

1:04:28

This is what bugs me about MPS scores

1:04:31

and metrics like that

1:04:33

, because people have different thresholds

1:04:36

. And I was

1:04:38

just before Christmas , I was walking

1:04:41

by on the street and somebody did did an

1:04:43

MPS quiz on me about subway

1:04:45

and they asked me kind

1:04:48

of what I thought about subway and kind of experience

1:04:50

of subway . I didn't even go in the fucking

1:04:53

job but I

1:04:55

was intrigued kind of on there and they

1:04:57

kept marking me and I went like yeah

1:05:00

, it's pretty good , and they kept marking me as a seven

1:05:02

and anybody knows MPS those

1:05:07

that are seven is it's

1:05:09

quite a good score , but it's a neutral score

1:05:11

and it doesn't get rated to

1:05:14

was in nine , ten , nine nine

1:05:16

yeah , it's a positive , and they kept putting

1:05:18

me down as a seven because their threshold

1:05:20

of good was seven

1:05:23

and like anything above seven would be

1:05:25

good . But on the MPS rating

1:05:27

I

1:05:30

was a total neutral person and

1:05:32

it's that . But like I might have

1:05:34

a different threshold . To like digital stuff is way higher

1:05:36

than loads of other people and they'll use

1:05:39

something even if it frustrates

1:05:41

me , and then I won't complain about

1:05:43

it as well . But other people

1:05:46

, the pick , the pick something up and they can like

1:05:48

oh , don't like how that feels , and then

1:05:50

they'll get rated zero . One star

1:05:52

out of five . I'm turning into that post very

1:05:55

very quickly .

1:05:56

But there was something , because

1:05:58

I'm quite good at , you

1:06:00

know , if someone advertises me an app and I think , oh

1:06:03

, that will solve a problem I have right

1:06:06

now , so I can give an example of this

1:06:08

. That happened today . But one of my

1:06:10

new years resolutions is to continue

1:06:12

I'm going to say continue to get my finances

1:06:14

in order , because I made a bit of

1:06:16

progress last year not much

1:06:18

, but a bit . So I enjoy

1:06:21

, of course , because my phone is permanently

1:06:23

listening to me . I got advertised

1:06:25

I think it's Snoop , which is a

1:06:27

financial budgeting tracking app , and

1:06:29

I thought , okay , I'd be very interested

1:06:31

in seeing how this works , because

1:06:33

I know that NatWest stuff has

1:06:36

I . It just doesn't work

1:06:38

for me . Everything else is

1:06:40

so far . The onboarding process

1:06:42

was great . It was just clicking

1:06:45

through , really personable , quite , and it's

1:06:47

quite enjoyable Connected

1:06:49

my accounts completely painlessly Then

1:06:52

Tom , and

1:06:54

it had listed 13

1:06:56

payments for this

1:06:59

past month as friends

1:07:01

and family . At least three of them

1:07:04

were the pub I was in . So

1:07:06

the reality was that I'm going to have to click

1:07:09

through every one of these and say , no , this is actually

1:07:11

this business and

1:07:13

it comes under that category . Am I going to have to

1:07:15

do that for every single

1:07:18

expenditure I make , which part of

1:07:20

the problem is , as someone who budget says

1:07:22

who wants to budget more . Is there too many of them

1:07:24

anyway ? Am I going to

1:07:26

have to go through them manually ? Click each one . So

1:07:28

I should close the app and I intend on installing

1:07:30

it later today .

1:07:33

It's like what Monzo did . It's

1:07:35

so good . I think it's really good , see , and this is where

1:07:37

users are different , right ? So Monzo

1:07:40

did their RAPT , didn't they ? The version

1:07:43

of Spotify .

1:07:43

RAPT .

1:07:44

And people were kicking off like why are you guilt-tripping

1:07:47

me for going

1:07:49

to , like you were the top 3% in your

1:07:51

area for Greggs or something like that , and guilt-tripping

1:07:54

me into being fat and stuff like that , and I

1:07:57

get it right . That's a user's opinion . My

1:07:59

opinion is this is great . I thought

1:08:01

it was really funny because I know

1:08:03

that I did it right and this is where I looked

1:08:05

at it and that's my opinion . right , I was around

1:08:07

my friends' house and they're quite healthy . People go to

1:08:09

the gym every day . He's a fine man , she's like

1:08:11

one into a fitness and stuff and I've

1:08:13

got an Okay so they're out for some . Yeah

1:08:16

, I've got a bulging equator

1:08:18

, let's call it that . But

1:08:21

I .

1:08:21

Your waist is like Exactly .

1:08:24

Yeah , I looked at

1:08:26

it and I didn't get my dollars 52 times

1:08:28

.

1:08:30

Oh yeah , which is oh .

1:08:32

You had two weeks .

1:08:33

I was . Yeah , yeah , I was , but I think

1:08:35

yeah .

1:08:38

And I'm just like you know what I own it Like

1:08:41

and you've got it , yeah , yeah . And

1:08:43

some people won't do that and they'll get annoyed and

1:08:45

start tweeting once right , yeah , then what do we call it Exing now

1:08:48

?

1:08:49

I don't call it anything , to be honest with me

1:08:51

though I don't have . Well , I do

1:08:53

have a Twitter account . It's just not been

1:08:55

active ever since I got it , like 10

1:08:57

years ago and

1:09:00

yeah , but I totally agree , Like

1:09:02

actually for me that would

1:09:04

actually be really useful . I suspect my biggest

1:09:06

expenditure outside of rent

1:09:09

is likely to be Ubers

1:09:11

, Because I'm

1:09:14

likely to get an Uber very frequently

1:09:17

when they're like five quid and I can't

1:09:19

be asked because it's darker , it's raining or whatever

1:09:21

. But when I'm doing that several times

1:09:23

a week , all of a sudden I'm

1:09:25

spending a third of the year on Ubers

1:09:28

. you know Mine was .

1:09:30

Enough to actually hire the keepers of the year , the wrong people . Mine

1:09:32

was Tesco Milleveals . Years ago I

1:09:34

was in the same boat and I was looking for a product that

1:09:36

sort of helped me out . And yeah

1:09:38

, I got Monzo and I just moved money over

1:09:40

and then I realized that in a month I'd

1:09:42

buying . I think there were £2.50 then

1:09:45

. So it was a while ago , yeah , but

1:09:47

it was like £2.50 , £2.50 , £2.50 . It adds

1:09:49

up anything . Wow

1:09:52

, yeah , I should just take

1:09:54

lunch to work with me .

1:09:56

Yeah , but the interesting thing is

1:09:58

, though , is that the UX of

1:10:00

that RAPT only tells you Well , I

1:10:02

don't know , I didn't use it . I do have a Monzo , but I

1:10:04

don't really use it for long enough to

1:10:06

show me anything , but

1:10:10

it tells you where you're spending most of your

1:10:12

money , not what on .

1:10:14

No , it tells you , so it gives you a breakdown . It gave

1:10:16

you a breakdown of all the different companies where

1:10:19

you spent your money . So

1:10:22

, yeah , one of the highest ones was shout

1:10:24

out to the Magnet Pub in Stoutport

1:10:26

. Yeah , of course . That's where

1:10:28

I spent a lot of it . Yeah , I

1:10:30

think it was Monzo Grey and marketing

1:10:33

and it was a bit of a given .

1:10:35

Yeah , it was a good , especially considering

1:10:37

the dominance with which Spotify RAPT

1:10:39

exists for people . It

1:10:43

turned out . So , spotify RAPT , not that anyone

1:10:45

is interested . I think they give you eight different

1:10:47

genres for your top genres . Six of

1:10:49

mine were classical music . So

1:10:52

it told me nothing . Yeah

1:10:54

, because you know . Yeah

1:10:58

, I know that Also

1:11:00

. What I didn't know is how stupidly

1:11:02

Spotify divvies

1:11:05

up its classical music . It's not actually the

1:11:07

way it's . So

1:11:09

the RAPT time , the

1:11:11

way classical music is split , is

1:11:13

by dates . You've got the Baroque

1:11:15

period , you've got the Pre-Baroque period , which goes

1:11:18

by various names . You've

1:11:21

got

1:11:23

your classical , which is its own period

1:11:25

You've got your romantic and

1:11:27

then you've got your modern , which can be split into different

1:11:30

things that if they

1:11:32

had sent me those different categories I would

1:11:34

have been a very impressed young man . In

1:11:38

fact I was an infuriated

1:11:41

bitter boy . And

1:11:45

again , when my partner was

1:11:47

like , oh , that's two Spotify RAPT , I was

1:11:49

like , yeah sure , the

1:11:52

top listen to thing is the thing I

1:11:54

have on my alarm every fucking morning and

1:11:57

six of my eight genres are all

1:11:59

the same . So

1:12:02

not the most optimal experience for me , but

1:12:04

I'm just a different

1:12:06

user .

1:12:07

I'm the same . I'm the same Because

1:12:10

I've got songs of kids play bed

1:12:12

, because they're just kids over there . Once

1:12:14

there's a popular song , that's it

1:12:17

Number one all the time

1:12:19

.

1:12:21

There's a good point in this , though , which

1:12:23

I was going to say before , and I just remembered users

1:12:26

will use stuff even if they don't like it

1:12:28

, and now this one we're talking about is just because it's

1:12:30

trendy , right . You're like , yeah , and

1:12:33

there's different reasons . But I

1:12:35

think one thing that sticks out in my mind

1:12:38

is I went to talk it was at the product tank

1:12:40

in Manchester and it was someone from the government and

1:12:42

they had this absolutely

1:12:44

atrocious looking form , right . It

1:12:47

was , I think it was like 120 multi-select

1:12:50

fields on a webpage

1:12:52

with no design and it was like

1:12:54

slightly agree to strongly disagree

1:12:57

or whatever . It was All the

1:12:59

way down 120 . And

1:13:01

he said , right , raise hands . How many

1:13:03

people do you think just didn't fill this in . And

1:13:06

obviously everyone put their hand up and then they went down and

1:13:08

down the percentages and it had a 98%

1:13:11

completion rate , right , so the

1:13:13

form was filled in . And that's for two reasons

1:13:15

, right , one is there

1:13:18

was no other option , so they had to do it . So that

1:13:20

was the only way they could collect the data . And

1:13:22

the second thing is sometimes

1:13:24

people will just do it Like we know that

1:13:27

people will just go through a bad

1:13:29

user experience . Sometimes , if

1:13:31

the product is , it

1:13:34

does give them something because you can't get everything

1:13:36

right , there might be a bad bit in it

1:13:38

, like you're saying , mark , that it

1:13:40

is a bit of a pain in the ass

1:13:42

that you're going to have to if you continue using this

1:13:44

app , that you're going to have to map those

1:13:47

things , but in the future

1:13:49

maybe they've got a plan in the roadmap that can automatically

1:13:51

do it based on your previous mapping .

1:13:54

That would be yeah , or the mapping that

1:13:56

other people do . You know , salt

1:13:58

Dogs Limbs in Manchester has been around

1:14:01

for a little while now . I was

1:14:03

surprised the system hasn't picked

1:14:05

it up already . The

1:14:08

interesting thing , though , is I realized and

1:14:10

about this was it was the same problem

1:14:12

I had in Monza

1:14:14

, I

1:14:17

think I did , but and Nat West , my bank

1:14:20

, so it wasn't actually solving

1:14:22

the problem for me , it was just giving

1:14:24

me another place to experience it .

1:14:26

Yeah , that's true . I've got one at a minute actually

1:14:28

, I'm going to call someone out and

1:14:30

I do this a lot and I should . I've

1:14:33

emailed , like Jira last year

1:14:35

. They're the worst . You know . They're a product company that

1:14:37

literally designed tools for people

1:14:39

that build on some of their UX is shocking

1:14:41

, and I always , always , give them feedback

1:14:43

. Never , never , have they ever contacted

1:14:45

me back and Facebook my God for such a big company

1:14:47

. There's a lot of

1:14:50

people that I call it . Some

1:14:52

of their UX is shocking , however , this one's

1:14:54

the National Lottery app . It crashes

1:14:56

every time you

1:14:58

open it . You close it , you open it again

1:15:01

. It crashes . Right , I'm

1:15:03

putting money into this app , but the

1:15:06

I will still use

1:15:08

it because it's the only place that I could potentially

1:15:10

win 15 million quid on a Tuesday and a Friday

1:15:12

. Yeah , yeah . And they

1:15:14

probably know that it crashes . I do assume

1:15:16

they will know that it crashes and they're just like

1:15:19

is it the amount

1:15:21

of people doing the lottery going down ? No well , it might be a really hard

1:15:24

bug right . It might be something that

1:15:26

they just can't figure out , but

1:15:28

you still use it .

1:15:30

It's possibly more likely that

1:15:32

people are still getting

1:15:35

lottery numbers the old fashioned way

1:15:37

rather than migrating to the app . Because

1:15:41

does the app support things like syndicates

1:15:45

, lottery syndicates and stuff

1:15:48

like that people going in together

1:15:50

and going out together ?

1:15:52

No , but that's a good idea you do

1:15:54

the UX , I'll

1:15:56

do the other bit , we'll find a team to build

1:15:58

it . Yeah , yeah .

1:16:00

We'll start our old lottery fucking .

1:16:03

We'll sell it to the National Lottery . Yeah , yeah .

1:16:07

Well , we , because it's going out at

1:16:10

some point . So if we can get

1:16:12

that done before Paul

1:16:15

edits this episode together , we might have

1:16:17

something before National Lottery just picking up

1:16:19

and run . Anyway , this is assuming out of

1:16:21

our four listeners , one of them's working

1:16:23

at the National Lottery .

1:16:28

Nice , we're going to have to

1:16:30

wrap it up . Yeah , and

1:16:36

now UX tomorrow .

1:16:39

No , and to think I got AI to put

1:16:41

together some tasks . I

1:16:45

was going to sit down with my partner Ethan , and say , right

1:16:48

, we need to as a little icebreaker

1:16:51

not icebreaker like a little

1:16:53

break , icebreaker implies

1:16:55

I don't know who my partner is as

1:16:58

a little kind of break , let's think up some

1:17:00

random shit , put in the UX umbrella . And

1:17:03

then I thought , hold on a minute , open up chapter

1:17:05

BT and said

1:17:07

to it give

1:17:11

me a simple list of 50 random tasks

1:17:13

, object things , activities , products , events . It

1:17:16

did that , but it did so in a far more helpful

1:17:18

way than it thought , in the sense

1:17:20

that it was like plant a flower , it was like things

1:17:23

to do , solve a crossword puzzle

1:17:25

. So I said remove

1:17:27

anything that isn't known . And

1:17:30

so it came back with flower crossword

1:17:32

puzzle , chocolate chip cookies . I

1:17:35

said remove the numbers before each item

1:17:37

and then so pluralize each item

1:17:39

were grammatically correct . And then I

1:17:41

put that into our little tomb , all the wheel , for

1:17:43

it to apparently sit and collect fucking dust . Sorry

1:17:46

, I'm glad I've had a trip

1:17:48

there with my partner and spent 15

1:17:50

, 20 minutes thinking of all this shit

1:17:53

.

1:17:56

Well , we will do it soon , Simon

1:17:59

. You come back on , come back on

1:18:01

for another episode and we'll do UX tomb

1:18:03

all the way proper . Oh absolutely

1:18:05

yeah .

1:18:07

It's been great fun to you . Not quite the same

1:18:09

as the last time after the UX meet in the pub , was

1:18:11

it .

1:18:12

No Opinions are the

1:18:14

same .

1:18:17

Yeah , we're getting a bit more random , but

1:18:19

welcome back any time .

1:18:21

Yes , so , simon , what

1:18:23

can people find you if they are ? Too

1:18:25

, fine , oh yeah .

1:18:29

LinkedIn Simon Berry when

1:18:31

else .

1:18:31

There you go .

1:18:33

Burnage in Manchester .

1:18:37

Oh sorry , Most specific . I'm really hooked .

1:18:39

Yeah , you're excited . I did have

1:18:41

a website , but I just turned it off .

1:18:47

Most people kept calling me from it . It's

1:18:49

annoying . So instead of taking my phone number off

1:18:51

, it was built in HTML by

1:18:54

myself a very long time ago . I was just

1:18:56

like I can't be bothered to turn

1:18:58

it off Full of dough . Yeah , no LinkedIn

1:19:00

, well LinkedIn it is yeah

1:19:04

brilliant .

1:19:05

Nice .

1:19:05

Well , thank you . Now you

1:19:08

noticed , at the start of our podcast

1:19:10

we spent that awkward 15 seconds spinning

1:19:13

up . This is where we bookend it with

1:19:15

the 15 seconds of awkward

1:19:17

mumbling and silence .

1:19:19

and thank you , goodbye and good bye

1:19:21

.

1:19:21

Good bye and good bye Before

1:19:23

we just hard cut off the episode

1:19:25

.

1:19:28

Yeah , just tails off . We

1:19:30

should perhaps be like songs

1:19:33

of like the 60s 70s , where they're just

1:19:35

kind of like we just carry on talking and

1:19:37

they just fade off into oblivion

1:19:39

If

1:19:42

you do that at the point where you

1:19:45

should say we should just fade off .

1:19:47

Yeah , just fades out .

1:19:49

Yeah , that

1:19:54

requires a bit of Edison , so that's not going to happen

1:19:56

.

1:19:58

You could just talk very slowly , right ? This is the

1:20:00

end of the podcast we're going to fade off

1:20:04

Done , that's

1:20:06

it .

1:20:13

Oh well , no , thank you for that , that was

1:20:15

really interesting . Yeah , it was really

1:20:17

good .

1:20:18

I managed to display some of my internal

1:20:20

blame I had for the way

1:20:22

I've done things in the past on to ineffective

1:20:24

product managers and product

1:20:28

owners . So that was

1:20:30

vindicating .

1:20:32

It did feel a bit like therapy , which is

1:20:34

good yeah .

1:20:36

It's kind of what this does actually to

1:20:38

serve that purpose .

1:20:40

I think more people just need to talk and work

1:20:42

together . The

1:20:44

concept of work doesn't feel like

1:20:46

work anymore . It feels like everyone doing

1:20:48

different things , doesn't it ? It's a bit

1:20:50

of a weird time .

1:20:53

Yeah , I think you know

1:20:55

I've seen a bit

1:20:57

about work-life integration

1:20:59

over work-life balance and I think what that I

1:21:02

was so very cautious of that

1:21:04

. I think a lot of that comes

1:21:06

down to just

1:21:08

the communication . What

1:21:12

the fuck did that do ?

1:21:15

I was trying to ignore that because

1:21:17

it was like Hello , what are you doing

1:21:19

?

1:21:22

Mortal right , yeah , you

1:21:24

can download it

1:21:26

yeah .

1:21:28

My God .

1:21:28

I was very serious .

1:21:30

Yeah , I was very serious . I've

1:21:32

got a serious face , resting product

1:21:35

manager face .

1:21:36

Resting yeah .

1:21:38

I'm not sure if in a photo where all you can

1:21:40

see is my fucking filthy laundry in the background

1:21:43

.

1:21:43

Yeah , I cleaned the

1:21:45

room , forwarded it . Yeah , all

1:21:48

my laundry is piled up on there . It's on the bed

1:21:50

.

1:21:50

Yeah , I mean , that's not actually

1:21:53

mine , though , that's my brother's , but

1:21:55

this is my dressing going on the back of you .

1:21:57

Cheers for your time , thank you .

1:21:59

Lovely to speak to you again .

1:22:00

I'm an ant . Yeah , we'll speak again soon

1:22:03

, love you all .

1:22:05

Contact me about that UI person

1:22:07

.

1:22:08

Oh yeah , oh well , he is very good . He

1:22:11

is like a real one now . Okay

1:22:14

, okay , that's great .

1:22:15

Brilliant . Bye . Kids , Cheers

1:22:18

Sweet .

1:22:19

Bye , see you later . Bye

1:22:22

.