Joe Belfiore

🔥Hot Take for PMs: Please don't hand me a solution to a problem. Instead, focus on detailing the problem and help me understand the why. We will ideate and find a solution together. Next week, in our first episode of ⚫️Bounce, Claire and I continue to unpack the PD + PM working relationship. Buckle up. Subscribe today - links in comments 👇

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Truly mature design systems are almost always looking to have fewer components and less complexity at their core. Let composability and inheritance (systems of systems) build on top of a core foundation. There is a budding "ecosystem" model for design systems that have a maturity / adoption curve we should be able to model.

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How has the new wave of AI impacted QA? Come find out in the latest clip of "Baked, Baking, or Dough?"

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🚀 **Embracing Continuous Discovery at ServiceChannel** 🚀 I recently watched the insightful "Product in Practice" video featuring Stephanie Leue's journey in transforming Doodle's product approach. It truly resonated with our mission at ServiceChannel to embrace continuous discovery and build products that matter. 🌟 Stephanie's story is a testament to the power of empowering teams and fostering a culture of continuous learning. At Doodle, she navigated challenges, aligned her teams, and emphasized the importance of proper discovery to build amazing products. Her experience highlights a crucial lesson: success in product management isn't just about delivering features but about understanding and solving real customer problems. 🛠️ This aligns perfectly with our ongoing efforts at ServiceChannel. We strive to create an environment where our product managers, designers, and technical program managers collaborate seamlessly, continuously validating and refining our understanding of customer needs. 🔄 Stephanie’s insights on mapping the problem space, fostering transparency, and building strong cross-functional teams are invaluable. They remind us that while the journey may be challenging, the rewards of a well-aligned and empowered team are immeasurable. 🌐 I’m proud of our team’s commitment to this approach, and I’m excited about the innovative solutions we’ll deliver to our customers. Let’s continue to push the boundaries, embrace continuous discovery, and build products that truly make a difference! 💡 #ProductManagement #ContinuousDiscovery #TeamEmpowerment #Innovation #CustomerCentricity #ServiceChannel #Leadership #ProductInPractice

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Shreyas is spot on. Below are the headers to my most recent First 30 Days Plan: = = = Week 1: Assessment and Familiarization Week 2: Operations, Vision & Strategy Week 3: Team Building and Development Week 4: Research Integration and Process Refinement = = = My goal was to have enough structure to create space around investigating, assessing, and ideating *without* stopping any trains from leaving the station. My new boss had two areas of focus he wanted me to impact out of the gate, which I agreed to do. Expectations. Alignment. The explicit nature of the plan, and buy-in from my boss gave me the space to witness how my people were operating and how other teams were engaging with them. And within that same held space, situational insights into projects, vision, reviews, etc. surfaced in ways that I could either immediately reinforce or begin to tease apart and counter with communicative intent.

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Very insightful article on common mistakes in journey mapping. Have a look to find tips to help you hone your journey mapping process.

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If you're running a data or AI-focused startup, connect with Stephan Goupille and his team! When three of the industry's brightest data minds join forces to back your venture, you get more than just funding – you gain invaluable operator expertise. They understand the challenges and opportunities you face because they've been there themselves.

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One of the world's largest canyons, the #GrandCanyon in Arizona sits along the Colorado River and is one of the Wonders of the World. It has stunning layers of red rock that attract more than 6 million visitors yearly. More than 6 million visitors per year travel to take in the breathtaking layered bands of red rock. The Transcanyon Waterline, built in 1970, provides water to the Grand Canyon's millions of tourists and local communities. The 12.5-mile water line has had over 85 major breaks since 2010 that have affected water delivery. The National Park Service selected Bentley user HDR to design the replacement of the water system. Reaching depths of over a mile and containing some of the earth’s most severe topography, the Grand Canyon presented many logistical challenges. HDR used drones to collect visual and point cloud data to create a reality modeling solution to design the improved #water #infrastructure accurately. Providing the information digitally eliminated the expense for manual surveys, saving approximately 1,000 resource hours, and reducing design contingency by approximately 5%. The TCWL replacement is expected to be finished in 2027. Once completed the new water delivery system will meet the water demand for the next 50-plus years, while preserving natural and cultural resources, keeping the visitor experience, and lowering maintenance requirements. #bentleysystems #itwin #digitaltwins #iot #itwiniot #infrastructureiot

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One of the world's largest canyons, the #GrandCanyon in Arizona sits along the Colorado River and is one of the Wonders of the World. It has stunning layers of red rock that attract more than 6 million visitors yearly. More than 6 million visitors per year travel to take in the breathtaking layered bands of red rock. The Transcanyon Waterline, built in 1970, provides water to the Grand Canyon's millions of tourists and local communities. The 12.5-mile water line has had over 85 major breaks since 2010 that have affected water delivery. The National Park Service selected Bentley user HDR to design the replacement of the water system. Reaching depths of over a mile and containing some of the earth’s most severe topography, the Grand Canyon presented many logistical challenges. HDR used drones to collect visual and point cloud data to create a reality modeling solution to design the improved #water #infrastructure accurately. Providing the information digitally eliminated the expense for manual surveys, saving approximately 1,000 resource hours, and reducing design contingency by approximately 5%. The TCWL replacement is expected to be finished in 2027. Once completed the new water delivery system will meet the water demand for the next 50-plus years, while preserving natural and cultural resources, keeping the visitor experience, and lowering maintenance requirements. #bentleysystems #itwin #digitaltwins #infrastructure #infrastructureiot #iot #itwiniot

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I often find myself trying to communicate how the depth, breadth and nuance of thoughtful, contextualized product design can create systemic ripples across the landscape of society, culture, and economy. The principle of larger effects and systems seems rather timely given the impacts and implications of the work we find ourselves in the weeds. What might mindful, thoughtful innovation look like? If we are disruptive, working from a place of care and positive intent, are we still able to see the larger picture and the possible ripples from decisions? There is a power differential in recognizing the effects on systems. We often hear things like “technology is not neutral” or “the victors write the history”. This may mean there are far-reaching implications of decisions and systemic impacts without the realization of unintended consequences. If we are seeking to consider equity within a product we must increase our awareness and research, design, develop and execute from a space of curiosity without weaponizing approaches based on moral codes, personal beliefs and misaligned values. What does “for good” look like in practice, and to whom is it good for? We are often reliant on dominant narratives and frame things as edge cases. Those on the “edges” are often perceived as more work than necessary, less important, or statistically insignificant. This leads whole human identities to be framed as outliers.   These focused threads demonstrate how a product can drive change by reshaping perceptions and practices at both individual behaviours, choices, industry standards and cultural narratives. It’s about initiating change that can be sustained, leading to a reimagining of systems that have gone unchallenged. This guides us to examine the influence on social structures, economies, and ethical frameworks. A decolonization perspective asks us to critically examine how historical contexts have shaped products. Dismantling the inequities that are embedded within current systems, our journey begins in a world saturated with products designed without the richness of human difference in mind. The one-size-fits-all mentality prevails. Systems innovation would mean designing products that do not perpetuate colonial legacies but instead respect and uplift local knowledge, traditions, and needs. Who benefits from these innovations? Are these technologies accessible to all, or do they widen the digital divide? Do these innovations respect locality, or data sovereignty? Product equity must address global complexities, considering how a product fits into various cultural contexts and the impact on different communities. It's not just about doing no harm but actively doing good. Understanding balance—the need for steady iteration and the courage for radical change. We can build currents strong enough to redefine systems, rewrite narratives, and reshape these ecosystems. #ProductEquity #PrinciplesOfEquity #SystemsInnovation #SystemsThinking #Decolonization

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Today we unveiled the next era of Asana AI — Asana AI teammates. See how this new suite of AI teammates can help your organization tackle complex workflows and elevate teamwork:

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How we frame problems defines the solutions we see. There’s a significant opportunity to support teams designing AI systems through effective problem (re)framing. The goal: building useful solutions for people, rather than creating technical solutions in search of a problem. This week’s newsletter is the first of a two-part series that explores what we know about problem framing and reframing, challenges people are facing with problem (re)framing in AI product design, and takeaways for how we teams can build useful AI systems. Today, I examine origins of problem framing and reframing, the reasoning process behind (re)framing, and general takeaways for product design. We’ll get into AI applications next week. Check it out! #design #product #ai

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I will be attending this session May 9th. #AIagents #AI

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Metrics come up all the time in talking about how to prove design systems value. The prevailing idea is that increasing adoption is the key to unlocking value. I disagree. I think it may be a part of success, but it is a bad way to express value. Here is why! Adoption is the kind of metric you get when you throw up your hands because you can't get the right data or you're more focused on building the design system than what you can build with it. It is the equivalent of "well, people seem to use it, so it must be great!" this can be fine if you're just starting out, but it doesn't tell you how your system is actually delivering value. Heck, NPS (which is also pretty imperfect), or a qualitative ask of product teams of "how valuable is the design system to your daily work?" or "what would change if the design system went away tomorrow?" is a better proxy for value than just "do people view some pages or login once a week?" Adoption can be pushed as a mandate. After seeing hundred of design systems up close, I can say definitively that high adoption doesn't differentiate between dream design systems and that 17 tool spaghetti monster that has documentation in Excel with hundreds of links to a private Git repo along with a 22 swim lane flowchart that you just... keep... scrolling... down. The only reason why adoption persists as a common metric is because even really bad design systems have the ability to generate significant value. So what's better? First, we need to hone in on the unit of repeatable value. This differs depending on the stated goal of the design system, but the vast majority of good design systems that operate at a significant scale are focused on how fast the organization can build products using the system (that's not the same as building components or designs in the system itself). At Knapsack, we tend to express this at this as cycle / iteration time from design to code across product teams that consume the design system -- either faster iterations or fewer iterations. We tend to focus on capacity because individual cycle velocity is often poorly understood and varies between product teams or disciplines. However, most teams have a fair handle on their capacity both for a single cycle and across a historical range of cycles. These can also be expressed easily as a relative percentage increase or decrease. It also accounts for a lot of secondary things (e.g. QA time) There is a goldilocks zone that consistently lands between 20 - 40% greater cycle capacity. For most of our customers, that's literally millions of dollars. If you're using adoption, you're not alone. We've heard time and again on the Design Systems Podcast that folks look at this metric ALL THE TIME as a measure of success, but it certainly doesn't paint the full picture, nor is it the north star for understanding value.

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A former manager compared product management to learning to surf for the first time. This article reminds me of that conversation. #communicate #productmanagement https://bit.ly/2KwkNcQ

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Hello world! I have a career update to share :) It’s in two parts, here’s part 1: Eight months back I left the magical team at at IDEO Last Mile Money. It was hands one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do - harder than deciding to start a company or even shut it down. But the chance to set-up and run a rapid prototyping practice at Lab45 focused on GenAI was just too tempting to pass up. My time at Lab45 has been brilliant, and more on it in my next post - but this one is about saying thank you and goodbye to a truly special workplace. As my final month at IDEO wound down, I kept telling my team, our partners, our portfolio companies that I don’t have the words to say goodbye yet. I kept putting off sending farewell emails until I got locked out of the system. I now realise I will never have the right words, but I must say them anyway. In August 2020, I managed to find my way into a team building consumer fintech at IDEO. I had just crashed and burned a startup, and the bulk of my net-worth into the ground. It was May 2020, the COVID lockdown had been in effect for months, and I was convinced my career was finished. I remember asking in the interview, ‘what exactly is the role’ and they said ‘business design’. And I thought to myself, cool that’s decks. I can do decks without f**king everything up. Decks are safe. Then day one came around, and right off the starting line I was thrown into a Figma to start building sacrificial testing concepts for a lending product. I was dumbstruck. This idea that you don’t have to start with knowing exactly what the product is, you can iteratively build your way to it with the users (and have fun doing it) - it just blew my mind. Over the next 3 years I learnt how to build product right and learnt to love the craft once again. I built products that now reach more than 30M users. I outgrew the fear of sucking at something that mattered so much to me. Every product review, I kept hearing “be brave” and “push the edges”. And I did. Again and again till it became my default style. My team at IDEO found me in the dark and walked me (sometimes outright shoved me) into the light. There is no higher service one human can do another. I am grateful. I am also somewhat mad at everyone I ever met there for setting such high standards of craftsmanship, kindness, and vision that close to a year later I still feel a sense of loss. Thank you Becca Carroll, John Won, Anukriti Kedia, Kanika Kumar, Ichung'wa Gichuki, Shesley Crustna, Shalu Umapathy, Edwin Mwai, Tushar Ghei, Tolu Odusanya, and Mira Dahiya for teaching me how to do magic. But more importantly, thank you for making me believe in magic once again. (Pictured R to L: Kanika, Anu, and I at our last offsite together in Lisbon. We still do weekly 'let's make something cool' calls. I hope that never stops ❤️)

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Are your organization's departments chasing different user goals, leaving you feeling like you're spinning your wheels? It's time to unite under one powerful vision! Align your teams and watch your efforts soar towards meaningful impact. User segmentation is a great place to start! #TeamAlignment #SharedVision https://lnkd.in/g42dgCgu

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Learn how our CPO, Amanda Grant, shifted our focus to put customers first this past year. Check out her story on Mind The Product. #ProductTransformation #OneAdvanced #PoweringTheWorldOfWork

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