Part 1 of 2: Collecting product feedback without sacrificing product discovery. — This is part 1 of a 2-part blog series. This post discusses the foundation for a novel approach to concept testing, while part 2 walks readers through the methodology step-by-step. Lately I’ve been stuck in a paradox. With the explosion of interest in our partnership with Open A.I. and the…

A model for empowering your developers to achieve more — Lately, I’ve been hearing from a lot of organizations about their desire to increase the productivity of their developer teams. Every company is now a software company and it’s clear that the industry is in short supply of talented developers and technologists who can help companies achieve their “digital transformation”. …

How the best UX researchers engineer moments by design This post is from a presentation I gave at UXR Day 2021, an internal conference for UX researchers at Microsoft. When reflecting on our time cultivating Customer-Driven Engineering in the Developer Division at Microsoft, there has been an important lesson we’ve…

A list of tips for facilitating any group activity — Collaboration is an imperative skill in any workforce. However, being able to facilitate groups toward successful collaboration, is a skill that can make you a superstar in any organization. Whether you’re organizing business strategy or an office potluck (remember those before the pandemic?), helping teammates communicate effectively and reach consensus…

Using integrative thinking to improve the “heartbeat” of customer, product, and business development — In the Developer Division at Microsoft, we embrace a model of building products we call Customer-Driven Engineering. It’s a process that focuses on reducing the distance between product teams and their customers, by coaching them in the art of user research and design-thinking. …

Part 2 of 2: The Process — This post is part 2 of 2 in a blog series. If you haven’t already read part 1, you can find here. Customer-Driven Engineering (CDE) is a culture and product development process that has been cultivated within the Developer Division (DevDiv) at Microsoft; the division responsible for creating tools and…

Part 1 of 2: The Culture — I grew up with Microsoft. As a kid, I remember using MSDOS to help my brother launch a pre-Internet BBS from our childhood bedroom. After college, I used Microsoft Visual Studio and ASP.NET to build websites for my first real career job at a children’s hospital. …

This is part 3 of 3 in a series where I’ll share our learnings in transforming an in-person workshop into one that was run completely online. In my first post I discussed our strategies and goals for transitioning our in-person workshop to a remote workshop. …

This is part 2 of 3 in a series where I’ll share our learnings in transforming an in-person workshop into one that was run completely online. In the previous post, we discussed our goals for running a remote workshop. One of our biggest goals was to create a fun, vibrant…