CDOQ

The desire to be right often outweighs the need to understand.

Why do some companies thrive while others falter? This question captures the essence of business strategy and is crucial for every business leader and investor. The key to success often lies in the dynamic interplay between a company's strategic direction and its executive team's ability to execute. Using the business outcomes matrix below,  we will explore a framework that provides insights into this question. Business outcomes matrix Understanding the Matrix This matrix is divided into four quadrants, each representing a unique combination of the quality of your strategy and the strength of your team: 1. Failure (Bad Strategy, Bad Team) This quadrant represents the worst-case scenario for any company—having both a poor strategy and an ineffective team. A bad strategy might involve misreading market trends, focusing on the wrong customer needs, or failing to differentiate from competitors. Coupled with a team that lacks the necessary skills, vision, or drive, companies in this

Problems arise when we outsource our thinking to models—AI or otherwise.

Failures repeat patterns, success requires novelty. 

One is not fascinated with the familiar. 

In the fast-paced world of technology, being a product leader is like walking a tightrope. You’re constantly balancing four critical objectives—each pulling you in a different direction, yet all essential for success. As shown in Figure 1, balancing these four objectives—User Experience, Profit, Competitive Advantage, and Technology Advancement—is the key to successful product leadership. Let's look at the interplay of these four objectives.  Figure 1: The art of balancing four objectives 1. Making the user experience (UX) better At the heart of every great product is an exceptional user experience. It’s not just about solving a problem; it’s about making the solution so seamless and delightful that users keep coming back. Whether you’re tweaking software daily or rolling out hardware updates over months, the goal is always the same: better UX.  For enterprise products, reducing the total cost of ownership ( TCO ) is an essential part of enhancing the UX. By minimizing the time, ef

All software products are a result of hundreds or thousands of small decisions made by a group of people overtime. Not everything can be captured in Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) and Jira (a project management tool) tickets for the engineers to make these small decisions. Furthermore, with remote and globalized workforces, it has become increasingly important that all engineers operate with the same set of principles to create a good product. Over the years, I found the following principles to be helpful:  1. Build trust with the users  For example, if you are releasing an update, ensure that it does not disrupt customer operations.   2. Let fresh eyes verify the code before release (peer code review)  Framework, culture, and tooling are needed to support this principle.  3. Everything that could change with time should be implemented as a configurable parameter (high configurability) Over-configurability can lead to increased complexity.  4. Speed does not mean lower quality fo