“grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – the Serenity PrayerThe concept of “High Agency” burst into the online leadership conversation in recent years. And it sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to be high agency? Who wouldn’t want to have high agency employees?As with many such “obviously good” concepts, turns out it’s not that simple.In this episode, Corissa and Tom also look at the other side of hopes for high agency.We talk about how some leaders might wish for high agency employees, but would balk at what a very high agency employee would do in reality.And we talk about what you need to know if you’re an employee being expected to demonstrate more agency.And we signpost a whole load of lovely rabbit holes to go explore.“imagine that I could sell you a magic pill and you could give it to two of your employees and overnight they would suddenly become high agency. What would be the first thing you’d notice was different when you went into work the next day?”Linky GoodnessMushfiqa Monica Jalamuddin - the Estuarine coach you’re looking forEstuarine MappingMultiverse Mapping (free course)Venkatesh Rao’s Gervais PrincipleJeffrey Pfeffer’s Leadership BSBrendan Reid’s Stealing the Corner OfficeLuca Dellanna’s 100 Truths You Will Learn Too LateTimecodes to help you navigate00:00 Introduction00:28 What is High Agency?01:10 The Serenity Prayer02:00 Estuarine Mapping is the Serenity Prayer in map form03:45 High agency as a positive trait … & its permeation into leadership mythology 04:06 “Sound like a challenger, but be an obedient drone”06:20 Perhaps it’s about not waiting for permission, while also not doing silly things08:09 Tools to create higher agency if you want that – including Multiverse Mapping13:01 What if the traits we want in leaders are not the traits that get you promoted?17:31 A magic question for you to use18:34 What would have to be true for that stupid thing to make a lot of sense?19:42 “You can choose the game you play, but not its rules” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Surveys are almost always biased in several ways, notably both the way questions are asked but also sample bias: who in the population even answers surveys?In this episode we discuss: is the SenseMaker collector we shared biased just the same as any other survey? And if so, is that a problem? And if so, what can we do about it?Plus stories about skullduggery in presenting data, hiding gorillas in radiologist scans and the "magic" or standard questions:What's similar, different and surprising?What, so what, now what?Linky goodness:Don't send that survey! Here's what to do instead.Complex facilitation principles and the standard questions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a rain-soaked chat this time as Tom and Corissa wander through Bournemouth in a downpour.We tackle a thought-provoking LinkedIn question from WP Engine's Jason Cohen – a question about how to listen to customers when they ask for features.00:29 LinkedIn inspiration and the big question we're tackling today02:28 Customer feedback creates an apparent puzzle03:40 Mistakes we've made by asking people what they want05:14 Secret 1: what do people already do?07:37 Secret 2: imagine your company is a big metal box10:50 You're always limited by your own internal perspective, and that's OK16:51 Secret 3: there's no such thing as a feature19:48 The story in your customer's head is different from the story in your head20:18 Don't make things look simpler than they are20:48 "Feature" is just a label to make your own life easier21:41 Secret 4: build as little software as possible to enable the most behaviours that create value23:32 When customers are reduced to a metric24:18 Why an Impact/Effort Matrix to decide on features will fool you27:32 Real-world example: a Calendly integration project33:33 Unfolding ideas by soaking in rich customer context36:25 SenseMaker for generating insights in a very different way38:30 When you try to make too much explicit, you get in troubleJason's original post"Ask a customer if they’ll use a feature…They say “yes” but don’t use it.Ask them to name a feature they actually want and there’s the “faster horse” problem of incremental improvement instead of vision.What’s the answer? Just “gut feel” and sometimes you’re right?" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jamie asked: "anyone got good exercises for evolving your brand (and in particular visual identity) in-house? Did I remember you (Tom & Corissa) mentioning an exercise like clustering examples into "we want to be more like this" vs "we want to be less like that"?"So we wanted to give the exercise we designed its own special episode.Time and again, we saw projects get in a pickle when people tried to choose adjectives to define things like brand qualities, tone of voice, product principles or corporate values.This kind of ambiguous, subjective stuff is impossible to define perfectly with words, especially upfront.You could choose to work with a grizzled expert who can read between the lines of what you're saying to intuit what you really want.But if you're on a shoestring and want to figure out this kind of thing with your team, then the exercise we share in this episode is for you.Here's simplified instructions on a card: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2rjpbrj1vqklcfc8glgw8/Sense-2D-Comparison-Back.png?rlkey=71v3muppoho2pnac2v9b9luim&dl=0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about alignment. Especially, we talk about relaxing our beef with the word alignment, and embracing the reasonable desire for alignment.00:00 Welcome!00:28 Alignment in companies00:49 Challenges and misconceptions about alignment04:07 Coherence vs. alignment; JP Castlin's ABCDE framework, and one line in the sand vs two lines in the sand08:27 A real-world example of a misaligned project10:38 Strategies for effective alignment, including "via negativa" alignment12:52 Aligning teams with reality as well as intent13:25 The role of the "strategy whisperer"13:47 Empowering teams to find alignment13:58 Back briefing for effective communication16:13 Understanding the need for leadership governance vs the needs of teams17:30 Challenges with leadership expectations19:49 Navigating company growth realities20:37 Dropping our beef with alignment and going vegetarian23:34 Are you clearly a berry? Clear communication taps the forager's gathering instinct24:41 Exploring alignment beyond the team25:42 Final thoughts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world of digital/tech is going through "a moment" just now at the end of 2024.And we've launched a project to share and explore diverse perspectives from across the tech world, using a particular tool and methodology called SenseMaker. The goal is to showcase the diverse range of perspectives and stories of the moment in a way that's normally impossible.Some topics:Why is Tom so excited about SenseMaker?Who sees the gorilla?Contrasting Likert scales versus triads and dyadsHow standard "feedback surveys" are ruined by averaging and dominated by recency bias and the Halo Effect.Cynicism about the annual 360 feedback gameWhat if feedback could be descriptive instead of evaluative? And real-time instead of averaged over 6 months?Beef with the "product trio" conceptA few nuggets we've picked up in the early data.Our plans for open sense-making workshopsPatterns of care and rule-following in healthcareVector change using "more stories like these, fewer like those"Want to see the responses we've collected? Take 10 minutes to share your experience, and you'll be able to opt in to access all the responses at the end.👉 https://bit.ly/stories-from-techThank you for contributing ❤️Linky goodness:How to use a new generation data collection and analysis tool? https://thecynefin.co/how-to-use-data-collection-analysis-tool/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about a question posed in Innovation Tactics Slack - about a stakeholder who’s skeptical that design research can help with genuine innovation, and wants to create speculative use cases instead.Topics we touch on:Are speculative use cases a "thing"? Is it helpful to imagine people doing something that's just not happening today? Like, 500 years ago, nobody got their shoelace trapped in an escalator. In 2003, nobody was planning out how they'd price their product on the App Store.Is it reasonable to be skeptical about design research?What do you do when you're working with someone who's already decided what they want and isn't interested in evidence?Radical repurposing as an alternative – follow the pathfindersSnowmobiling as a possible approach – remix the adjacent possibleJamming with your stakeholder to understand and clarify (with the side effect that you might expose gaps or incoherence)Bias in researchSome quotes:"Getting a shoelace trapped in an escalator - that's not a thing that happened 500 years ago.""Just doing something because you think it's cool is totally valid as a way of operating a business""Everyone who has a brilliant idea thinks that their idea is the next big thing. And everyone but one in a million is wrong about that. And even the one in a million tends to be wrong about exactly how it's going to work.""Play Doh was invented, not as a toy for kids, but as a putty for removing coal soot from walls. It was repurposed into the kids' toy after people stopped having coal fires""You're very unlikely to invent something novel that works. You're very likely to find somebody doing something novel that you can scale.""You can absolutely go and do the best interviewing in the world and not come back with anything that's going to be a breakthrough innovation for your company. It may be that your company is not positioned to make a breakthrough innovation.""this is the trap that so many people fall into and I've heard it more times than I can count. It's that need to educate the market. Do not, do not try, red flag, back away slowly or run, run speedily off into the distance." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the last episode, we introduced Rob Snyder's framing of finding your repeatable case study instead of building your tech product.This time, we step back into the Pain Cave to talk through some of the criticisms that Rob (and we) often face when we suggest the approach we do. We think they're misunderstandings of what we're advocating, but they're also sound points.First, we consider the scolding that we should follow a proper research and design process and build the right thing at high quality from day one, not throw spaghetti at the wall. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes it's just not possible.Second, we face the fear of selling "vapourware" – nobody wants to follow in Elizabeth Holmes' footsteps, promising stuff that can't be realised (Theranos). Absolutely right! But that's not at all what we're recommending.And all this brings us to the concept of Bounded Applicability. No ideas are suitable for all projects, products, etc. So how can you think about what's appropriate in a given situation?Linky goodness:Bounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306My diagram showing some methods' Bounded Applicability: https://www.notion.so/Pitch-Provocations-54ad05d5740e451db0fa82479debeb91Previous episode about Rob Snyder: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/077-do-you-have-to-spend-years-in-the-pain-cave Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to listeners who've been referred by Rob Snyder of Path to Product Market Fit!In this episode, we talk about Rob Snyder's core ideas for founders and consider the interplay with our thinking. As ever, you'll hear some stories from our pasts, some methods to try, and some background noises from blustery Bournemouth.Why no, you can't break down your idea into a set of clean hypotheses to "validate"Why you want to ship a case study instead of shipping codeCan you bypass the Pain Cave if you have a Time Machine?How to spot founders who are going to drag you deep into the Pain CaveHow to use Pivot Triggers to scaffold doing the case study approach instead of writing all the codeIntroducing "unfolding" as a way to design buildings, businesses, even lives How to save face while taking the risk of looking silly (won't you get cast out from polite society?)Is the optimisation game dying?A puzzle: what do you do when you care about building a business you'll love working in more than you care about just building a business?Do we need to go deeper into the Pain Cave?Linky goodness:Rob Snyder's Path to Product Market FitInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10Solve for Distribution: Front | BackTime Machine: Front | BackA great article that references Christopher Alexander's Unfolding Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Survivorship bias is unavoidable. By default, we see what survives and not what doesn't. This is OK but it creates the risk that we take the wrong lessons from the survivors.In this episode, we talk about how we might mitigate the downsides of survivorship bias. We touch on a bunch of topics:rejecting simplistic Sinekismstheory-informed praxis, rather than copy-pasting patterns across contextschallenges to Estuarine Mappingzero-sum gamesbounded applicabilty – asking when something doesn't apply, or who shouldn't use a thingDouble DiamondsShiny FrameworksPortfolio of small bets in parallel – as a way to optimise for survivalAnd an invitation to you: what are we missing? How do you handle survivorship bias?Linky GoodnessBounded Applicability: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9306Trigger Strategy website: https://triggerstrategy.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We recorded this one on a whim and we didn't have our microphone with a little hat on it, so the wind noise makes a guest appearance. Apologies – return to quality sound soon.Corissa grabbed a snippet from an article:Over at one of my favourite blogs, Common Cog, Cedric Chin writes that there is a style of thinking that is reliably exhibited by successful entrepreneurs. It is called effectual thinking, and it's the type of improvisatory, reality based thinking that follows the question, what effects can be produced with the spread of resources in front of me? He contrasts this with causal thinking, which is the opposite pattern, looking towards an ideal outcome and then trying to work backwards to derive the actions required to eventually bring about that future. And this inspired us to talk through effectual thinking. We go on a blustery journey through chefs in high-end experimental kitchens, John Boyd's Snowmobiling, Mr Beast, Steve Jobs, Estuarine Framework and Small Bets.The big question: can effectual thinking give you a happier, healthier way to operate, or is it just the case that, as Andrew Wilkinson put it, "most highly successful people are “just a walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity”?Linky goodness:Sasha Chapin's article: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/our-perfume-line-is-hereCedric Chin's Common Cog: https://commoncog.com/when-action-beats-prediction/Vaughn Tan's Uncertainty Mindset: https://uncertaintymindset.org/Snowmobiling podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/072-granularity-part-2-snowmobilingDo 100 Thing podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/043-do-100-thingInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10Small Bets: https://smallbets.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A live thinking through of the next chunk in our series of articles about the Vision Chasm – that gulf between the glorious future people are talking about and the reality of where you are today. In this episode we look at situations where a Vision is unreachable because it's actually deceptive – either deliberate deception to keep everyone looking the other way while people deploy a secret strategy; or accidental self-deception because your reality has shifted but your narratives haven't caught up. We talk through a few stories from our past. 1) A company workshop where trying to crystallise a vision of the future fell apart - because nobody was ready/able to be honest about the true direction of the company. Still clinging to a cultural heritage that was no longer a fit for their market position?2) A deep misunderstanding between a C-suite and design team – talking past one another because we were operating in fundamentally different worlds. A third party was able to show us why we were stuck in loggerheads. Looking back, we can see how daft we were being. But could we have done things differently at the time? 3) How the misunderstanding played out when the C-suite brought in an external agency. In one way, it was a disaster that made a mess and broke some hearts. In another way, it was a success that broke the deadlock and massively moved things forward for the company.References:Vision Chasm Part I: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/061-tumbling-into-the-vision-chasmVision Chasm Part II: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/066-feeling-the-edges-of-the-vision-chasm2D Comparison / Card Sifting method: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All credit to friend of the pod Pete Shaw for the "Founder mode sounds like brat summer" observation.Founder Mode triggered a beefstorm on LinkedIn, so we take a little stroll around the topic and share our takes. 3 parts nuance, 2 parts spicy, 1 long run-on sentence where Tom gets lost and forgets what he was trying to say.Topics include alignment, coherence, intuition, taste and more.References:Paul Graham's Founder ModeOur article We need to talk about Airbnb Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we zoom back in time to a situation when a load of meetings were frustrating people at this one company. Tom used Snowmobiling with a small team to break down the meetings into smaller pieces and then remix those pieces in a new way. We share some of the details and pitfalls along the way. This same decompose/recombine approach can be used in lots of different situations where you need to find something new. Because everything new is really just novel recombinations of existing stuff.We read out the steps on the Snowmobiling card (Innovation Tactics) – the exact instructions you can follow to harness the power of the remix. References:Everything is a RemixAustin Kleon's Keep GoingJohn Boyd's Destruction and CreationSnowmobiling card from Innovation Tactics: Front | BackInnovation Tactics: https://bit.ly/innovation-10 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we start by adding some corrections to terminology we used in episode 70, which will be confusing if you haven't listened to that one. But it doesn't take long, and then we get into our main topic, which is granularity. When you work with too coarse a granularity, you can find yourself stuck or confused about what to do. When you work with too fine a granularity, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed, drowning in data, paralysed by too many options. The magic is to find the sweet spot, where you break things down just enough to create good options for action.We talk through ASHEN as a typology for decomposing people or roles to a more legible and actionable level of granularity, and Corissa tries it out for real with one of her old bosses.LinksASHEN on the Cynefin wiki: https://cynefin.io/wiki/ASHENArticle about stages of companies vs different people's natural propensities: https://newsletter.thewayofwork.com/p/stage-fright Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Q. What do these three situations have in common? Taking a friend for a lobster dinner, business strategy workshops, and personal coaching. A. They all feature in this episode as examples of how constraints, constructors and actants play out.The main chunk of this session is us talking through Tom's personal experience being 1:1 coached using Estuarine Mapping. We found this enormously enlightening, and we're excited to share.If you've been looking for definitions or examples of constraints, constructors and actants, then you're in the right place.Links and resources:The article about unfolding: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/unfoldingCoach Mushfiqa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mushfiqajamaluddin/More about Estuarine Mapping: https://triggerstrategy.com/estuarine-mapping-2-half-day-pre-strategy-workshop-for-execs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we coin the word "bungus" ...If you've ever complained about misalignment, or rallied people with the cry that "we need to get aligned", then this one's for you. Of course the feeling of alignment is a pleasant one, but what if you're in one of the situations where seeking alignment is actually hurting you?Corissa and Tom unpack the concept of alignment, including some discussion about different kinds of alignment and misalignment, some stories from the real world about situations where strategic misalignment can be good, and some references to our episode about the bees (episode 44: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/044-the-one-with-the-bees) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Corissa and Tom explore more nuances and wrinkles to do with vision and strategy, with examples, metaphors and practical tips. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom had a coaching call with someone who had been on the hook to run a one day workshop. A one day workshop that was expected to both work as a team building exercise AND deliver a complete new concept to go ahead and build. And it was sorta vague what that concept would be. What could go wrong?Sometimes, you can get a clear, crispy brief. But often, you can't. It's more of an "I'll know it when I see it" situation. It's tempting to try asking more questions, trying to pin people down to get a clear brief before you start making anything. But that doesn't work. Often people can't tell you exactly what they want, until you give something to them and they can tell you, "not that".One of the issues is about the tricksiness of language. You can't satisfactorily constrain creative work using adjectives. We share one of our favourite exercises for handling this.Another issue is that you can't get people to predict what's going to make them say, "that's it!". We share some thoughts for how you can quickly and efficiently share ideas for them to react to. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is one of our "thinking about things in real time" episodes. Tom & Corissa talk through the next part of the Vision Chasm blog series. For nearly an hour!We talk about when visions are good actually, as well as when they aren't, and when we could hold many visions lightly instead. And we explore the challenges of doing that.We look at the squickiness of emergent strategy through lots of examples and stories.We refer to a post by Stephanie Leue that does a great job of capturing what it feels like when you're in the weird reality distortion of the Vision Chasm: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop... but we don't agree with her prescription for fixing the problem.We criticise the common approach to strategic "wisdom" that won't say this out loud but implies, "if you don't know what to do, then just try knowing what to do instead!" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When something that starts small becomes bigger and bigger, we can lose sight of what we were trying to do in the first place. We talk through some examples: from workshops, from designing flyers for dance classes, and from Lego bridges.The trick is subtraction. The knack is knowing what to subtract."When putting on accessories, take off the last thing you've put on." – Coco Chanel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom & Corissa talk about how understanding and tackling problems requires more than just a linear approach, like is often inferred through something like the Double Diamond. A bunch of metaphors, real world examples and other fun in this one. We also offer practical tips for engaging with solution-oriented colleagues and suggest some methods and recipes to see and solve more problems differently. Plus: a somewhat tortured supermarket metaphor.00:00 Welcome to Trigger Strategy Podcast00:11 Dental adventures00:31 Exploring problems and solutions02:09 The arrogance of designers02:54 The horse poo problem06:12 The Double Diamond design process13:32 The Iron Triangle and trade-offs14:37 Abductive logic and interconnected systems19:49 The over-reach of the Enlightenment20:13 The secret life of trees21:12 Complex vs. complicated problems22:33 Problem "validation"24:16 The supermarket metaphor28:34 Be more Cal Newport by putting solution recipes first? 33:25 What to do with solutionizing colleagues38:34 Wrapping up in utopia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about the good and the bad sides of stress. We tend to treat stress as a negative, but sometimes stress is helpful, and sometimes you want to provoke stress deliberately. But be careful.References: Happiness Lab with Dr Laurie SantosThe Experience Machine by Andy ClarkEstuarine Mapping – find links and resources at triggerstrategy.comThat clip from Apollo 13: https://youtu.be/ry55--J4_VQ?si=FV3l_OZJklkmm-aS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We explore the story of a classic zombie project: where the team had the evidence they needed to know that a project was doomed, but carried on with it for 6 months anyway. These happen all the time, and we spend a few minutes unpacking the dynamics behind the trap. We also share some thoughts for how to ease open the jaws of the trap.We also reference Annie Duke's book QuitAnd Set Your First Pivot Triggers, available via a link here: https://pivot-triggers.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Strap in for some high-quality sleep deprived thinking out loud.We talk about the standard approach towards vision and strategy in organisations, and we challenge it. With some stories of past triumphs and pratfalls based on setting vision and suggest of alternative ways to go about Doing Strategy.We refer to some LinkedIn posts during this chat ... here they are!Dr Jabe Bloom's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jabebloom_scanning-the-future-requires-a-diversity-activity-7211396177232060417-kCeb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktopStephanie Leue's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7211982950198894592-jQsX?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktopJohn Cutler's post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnpcutler_theres-a-big-thing-missing-in-most-it-starts-activity-7212101683579953153-55qS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we talk about the appendix, fences, SaaS for lawyers, putting Shoggoth in a box ... and more.Some links we mentioned:Why aren't smart people happier and how that relates to well-defined problems: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/why-arent-smart-people-happierExplainer on LLMs and why they probably won't take your job: https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/a-hallucinogenic-compendium Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one's quite focused on business and building products ... OR IS IT?In this one we respond to a question that Tom's received from several people recently. We'll call one of them Dave. Dave has a friend who has a big product idea they want to build, or big business project they want to do. The plan Dave's friend has landed on is to do the whole thing (how hard can it be anyway?) and then receive the (as yet unspecified) rewards. And Dave wants to know: how can I help them see that's not the only way, that they'll probably fail, and that there's a better way ... without being preachy or lecturing them?We talk about the impossibility of reasoning someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and share a few ideas for thought exercises that can help Dave figure out what flavour of situation he's dealing with.For example, the "I'm going to A even if it means I never B" exercise and the Time Machine selling manoeuvre.We also talk about "the inherent bigness of ideas", about dogfooding when you're not actually a dog, and the shocking distribution of returns for start up entrepreneurs.Beans and noses: https://articles.centercentre.com/beans-and-noses/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is kind of a follow-up to our previous episode that was recorded before the UX London conference. With the whirlwind of travel and baby-care, this was the first chance Tom & Corissa have really had to talk about the conference, and we captured it for the podcast too.In our longest episode yet, we touch on Pitch Provocations, Multiverse Mapping, Zenko Mapping, rewilding, research repositories, behavioural design, regulations, stories, metaphor, communication, collaboration, validation, information architecture, design systems AND MORE. Whew.Also lots of shout outs and thanks to folks who gave talks and workshops, including Serena Verdenicci, Luke Hay, Emma Boulton, Dr Harry Brignull, Ben Sauer, John V Willshire, Tshili Ndou, Alicia Calderón, Stéphanie Walter, Peter Boersma and Brad Frost ... and the folks who curated, helmed and scaffolded a great few days: Jeremy Keith, Louise Ash, and many other awesome folk from Clearleft. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is one of those where you walk along with Tom and Corissa while we're trying to figure something out. This time, Tom's giving a conference talk next week (which is last week from the podcast's perspective). He knows what he's talking about, but there's TOO MUCH of it! We try to figure out the one point he wants to make and why someone should care. Do we manage to tame this unruly topic or does it get away from us? You be the judge ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom saw a discussion on LinkedIn about why Cynefin hasn't caught on in some scenes. One take was that it's the "academic, technical" language that puts people off. Corissa has lots of experience of the power of simplifying your language from her background in copywriting, and especially usability testing her copy. On the other hand, weird new words can provoke weird new ways of thinking ... but it's also easier to dismiss weird things if you don't like their implications. Perhaps there's no right answer.We talk about our experiences getting to grips with ideas like Cynefin, our experiences sharing such ideas with others, and we even talk about a dance class to explain the idea of the disposition of a complex adaptive system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spoiler alert: when I shipped an idea in an hour it did not meet the pivot triggers I'd set for the probe. That was one of a whole array of probes we've been putting out into the world here at Trigger Strategy Group. The general sense we've been picking up is that we haven't nailed our positioning yet. That's normal for a business in the early days like ours, but figuring this stuff out is emotionally challenging. We talk through some of the journey we've been on, an epiphany we've had, and where we're thinking of probing next. For more on the original idea, check out:the podcast episode: https://shows.acast.com/triggerstrategy/episodes/663109cbcff31b0012ae9311and the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Kma97f9v4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Corissa recently re-learned to drive and noticed links between the stresses on the road and the stresses in the office. So we talked it through. We touch on the difference between complicated and complex, and between uncertainty and risk. When do you follow the rules in the highway code, and when do you muddle through and figure it out on the way? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Short little punchy one today: we bumped into one of our dad friends, who told us a lovely story about a parenting moment that was also a great example of emergent strategy and exaptation (radical repurposing). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom has a challenge: to convince Corissa that something called "Opportunity Method Format" is actually interesting and useful. We talk about examples like printing flyers to publicise dance classes and building MVPs in digital product companies. Tom reckons using these layers can help you make your experiments more effective for learning what you need to learn faster. Does Corissa agree? You'll have to listen to find out. And let us know: were you persuaded? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Of course it makes sense to build only exactly what customers will value – the Minimum Viable Product. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple in practice, and chasing the MVP dragon leads many a team into a life-sucking vicious cycle. There are a bunch of common conditions that lead teams into the MVP Death Spiral, from narratives about how product works to the very concept of features.If you've ever had a debate about MVPs — or felt that particular feeling of despair as yet another MVP fails to land with customers — then this episode is for you. Feel free to think of it as an MVP for some ideas that can free you from the dreaded Death Spiral. Wrapped in shiny paper with a big bow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

HALF WAY TO DO 100 THING!One night, Corissa messaged Tom:"It’s often unhelpful to get trapped in simple stories, but how do you know when to trust your gut? Our instincts aren’t always wrong. And pushed too far, obsessing over telling lots of different stories (overthinking??) could also become a trap in its own right?"Today, we tell some stories, and we talk about how to get untrapped.Overthinking vs underthinking. Rumination vs experimentation. Gut instinct vs rational consideration. When are you telling too many stories? When are you not telling enough? We talk through this question, and share ideas for how you can escape from all the traps. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In SWOT analysis, you list your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.Maybe you love it? Maybe you hate it? We've been in the second camp for a long time, but it was worth revisiting our thinking about the method. If it's so terrible, how come it's so enduring? Maybe there's some good in it? Or maybe our concerns and criticisms are warranted.Strap in as we walk and talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this simplistic strategy 2 by 2. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one's definitely designer-centric. And it's pretty hard to explain without visuals, but we give it a good go.Tom talks about the shift that conceptual models enabled for him. When he was a younger designer, he often struggled to articulate design decisions, struggled to defend elements of the design that were crucial for things to be coherent, and constantly butted up against technical architecture that made it weirdly hard to design easy-to-use software. Once he figured out how to make and socialise a conceptual model, and then evolve the design around it, everything got way easier.We talk through what a conceptual model helps you do if you're designing a software product or service, how you can use them to diagnose tricky problems, and share some references to help you get started.References:OOUX by Sophia V PraterUX Magic by Daniel RosenbergDomain Driven DesignElements of Product Design by Jamie Mill Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this one, we talk about complexity in parenthood and in business. In both cases, there are plenty of people willing to sell you "the way" in their book. And there are millions of books that disagree, so anyone can cherry pick one that fits what they would like to be true. This is what you get when you try to treat a complex, dispositional system as if it were ordered and causal. And it's why so many of the efforts to determine what is the "best" way to parent, or run a business, or live a good life, end up inconclusive, contradictory and confusing. We talk about how we cope with all this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some constraints are limiting, some are enabling. But what's the difference? What if most constraints are both at the same time? (Depending to some degree on your perspective.) We talk through lots of examples of constraints from design and Twitter poetry, through Lindy Hop and yoga, all the way into business breakfasts and research operations.We reference a book by Alicia Juarrero. we can't remember the title during the podcast. It's Context Changes Everything: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545662/context-changes-everything/We also reference some past episodes where we talk about emergent properties and hint at constraints – check out episodes 10, 11, 12 and 14 in particular. But if you listen to most of our episodes we bet you'll find examples of constraints and emergence :D Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our jumping off point today was a video from YouTuber Caroline Winkler about making friends as an adult. She instructs us to tell ourselves that when someone doesn't want to be your friend, it's always something practical in their life: they're too busy, they're about to move away, things like that. And it left us wondering: but what if it IS you? We've all met people we didn't like. What if you're a person someone doesn't like?But hey – perhaps it's helpful to hold on to the delusion that it's never about you? What we call "distribution" is a painfully slow, ambiguous investment. Maybe we need some delusion to carry on when it feels like a slog? Maybe that's healthy? But then how will you know if it is in fact you?We unpack more stories that might be going on when we can't seem to find friends or customers. Whether you're trying to make bookish friends at a gabba rave, or trying to find customers for your achingly cool new startup, this one's for you x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Important note for this episode: scientists have recently discovered that humans are in fact not exactly the same as bees. But we don't let that stop us taking some metaphorical lessons from our tiny, stinging, honey-making buddies. We share some cool bee facts, and consider how we could be more bee in our lives and businesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wanna be a YouTuber? You have to make a lot of videos. Wanna be a blogger? You have to write a lot of articles. Wanna be a startup founder? You have to make a lot of sales. For lots of goals in life and business, there's at least one necessary (but not sufficient) activity that you need to do over and over again. So you need to be able to do it a lot. At least 100. In this episode we talk about why this approach works and how it's different from more common styles of business objective.PLUS: new recording setup! What we were using before has just shut down so please bear with us as we figure out new tools. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we talk about how energy gradients affect the chances of a strategy succeeding, and imagine people pushing concrete wheels around. Tom shares the story of a client and how energy gradient thinking got them to finally identify the thing that was stopping them from making sales. It’s a cautionary tale and an encouragement for you to think about energy gradients sooner rather than later. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you get through life without ever oversimplifying something? If not, when is it OK? And what does that have to do with parenting, politics and pole-climbing professionals? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about a post that Tom saw in Reddit: a Product Manager complaining about the designers they worked with (shock horror!). The underlying vibe of the complaint looked eerily similar to many situations we’ve both seen. And the responses in the Reddit thread tended to jump to mono-perspective “root cause” type reasoning (also a familiar pattern). So we took a few minutes to break down the situation from different angles, unpacking more of the conditions and dynamics that might be modulating the situation. Note: the specifics of this situation are quite product/design-specific, so bear with us if we slip into jargon. Because we suspect the general dynamics at play will rhyme with situations you’ve found yourself in. Let us know: what dynamics or conditions do you think we missed? Plus: towards the end, we share Jabe Bloom’s Ideal Present exercise, which is a collaborative and multi-perspective approach to managing the evolutionary potential of the present. Here’s the link we mentioned to a video where Ben Mosior walks you through the exercise in 5 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/live/19KUsV_qeyk?si=r4hOSMZ_CtFTvCcS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How come your favourite methods don’t always work? We know one-size doesn’t fit-all, and we know that it depends on context … but *how* does it depend on context? We’ve been exploring a framework or model that can help iron out the fiddliness, and today we talk through some of the ideas, introducing a sort of spectrum that covers what we might call Solution Oriented — Outcome Oriented — Emergence Oriented (though we don’t use exactly those words in the conversation). It’s a bit of a meaty one today, enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you know if you're being creative or innovative? Does it even matter? We talk about art, business, feathers, and Corissa's fury with an underperforming coffee machine that set her on a path of creativity or innovation or maybe something else entirely ... and if you have a story of creativity or innovation you’d like to share, record it here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trigger-strategy/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.