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?), …

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…