My last post was a while ago (30 days ago).  And just like that post suggested, we did have a problem.   However, this problem came in the form of a large client wanting to help make our launch a success by financially promoting the product to their advertisers.  Great win for our sales team.  The problem became how do we accomodate their timelines and the financial issues in "the system".  We all immediately went into the mode of working this.  Been 10 days now and the team has performed great and reacted well to this challenge.   The financial windfall from this deal definitely helped motivate.  Never underestimate the power of a number with a lot of zeros has to clear roadblocks on a team.  

Along this same line though, I wanted to comment about how individuals approach issues.  I like to watch how people interact when an issue is brought up.  Some people will take an issue to a meeting and present the issue that they found.  And that's it.  They leave it there.  That is so frustrating.  It is a momentum killer.   Everyone gets spun up if you just go in and drop a bomb.  The appropriate way to handle that is to present the way you are going to defuse the bomb right after you drop it.  You need to tell people, "here's problem X, I think we can solve it by either doing A or B.  I'm going to let you know how we are going to handle this by the next meeting."  Something like that preserves momentum.  It manages expectations.  Dropping a bomb does nothing but cause issues.  Don't be a bomb dropper.  Be a bomb diffuser.  

Actually, there isn't a problem right now, but there will be sometime in the next 60 days. Times ticking away. We are in the middle of launch a major new product. One that requires coordination across all parts of the business. Many teams are involved. Sales and services need to be trained up. Major work to add new ways of billing and supporting this new product. Not to mention getting buy-in from internal and external stakeholders. Migrating existing customers. Not least, developing new features and scaling the system to handle new load.

We've worked hard to get momentum and buy-in. These are essential for a successful launch. We've done lots of planning to determine which areas are at risk and plan around even the long-tail use cases. We are really watching out for all the details.

However....

Something is going to happen. A problem will come up. One that derails our momentum, causes doubt in people, and tests our will. We, the business leaders should expect it. It's going to happen. There is no way it won't happen.

We'll need to pounce on it quickly and communicate often. Make people feel better. This is the key. It isn't about finding the problems before they happen. Sure, you need to do your best to do that. However, it takes too long to figure out every contingency, every detail. What you need to do is a reasonable amount of due diligence. Then, when the random problem you missed hits, you need to react with professionalism and use some of that good karma you've earned by working well with others. It isn't about the problem. It is how you react to the problem.

Oh yes, there will be problems. Yes there will. Here's to a fun start of 2012. Tick tock, tick tock.

Huge screen, fast speeds and the "new car smell" of Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.  I was looking forward to playing with this device and getting a feel for it.  For all the hype, and all the "newness" of it, I can't get it out of my head the disappointment of it.  It doesn't "just work".  

Want to get gmail and exhange mail on it?  There are two mail apps on the phone, and really find that to get it to work you need to download another, better, 3rd party mail app.  

Want to get music from the #1 music service (iTunes) onto your device?  The instructions in the Music app are vague at best.  I'm very technology inclined, but it took me 2 hours of trying to get music onto the device in an automated way so it will work going forward easily.  Playlists and all.  

Photos?  Haven't tried yet since music was so difficult.  

Anwyays, these are just quick examples.  This is not an in depth review.  But I was pretty stunned at how "rushed" the product feels.  Considering how many revisions Google has gone through with Android, I expected a little more polish and ease of use.  Yes, the beauty of the operating system is that I have a ton of choice and options.  I can add widgets, control my notifications well, and a bunch of flashy features.  But the things that should be easy, just aren't.  Yes, this is where Apple shines.  But I expected Google to be closer on this.  

The potential is there.  Can't wait until they begin to get it right.  For now, I'm going to stick with my iPhone.

Check out the book on Amazon

As our business grows, so does our business group growing pains.  We are finding it harder and harder to support all the people vying for our attention.  Our structure worked great for a long time.  Now it is time to change.   

Our product offering has the same challenges.  Originally, we were able to gain large adoption and market share based on solving a core market need.  But, by getting large adoption, we've shifted the market need.  Now the customer needs more.  We need to change the product structure to meet this need and to grow the product to the next level.  

Is there a central theme we can rally around?  I believe that central theme is "Delighting our Customers".  If that is the forefront of our conversations, then both product and structure will follow. 

In this case it comes down to momentum.  We've done much larger product releases, in shorter time.  By setting out initially saying that this would be a minor customer release it made it easy for us to fill in other things and share the focus.  Momentum was killed.  

The Product Managers that work for me are hyper focused on delivering quality for our customers continuously.  They are constantly finding the simple solutions for our current biggest problem and executing with agility.  However, I've noticed that this leaves only a little room for Engineers to innovate on customer facing problems.  Engineering uses their extra time working on "technical debt".   

I've often wondered about innovating in something like Google 20% time and the way that Facebook gives their engineers more control.  Could we slice off some time for the engineers to work on the parts of our business that they see as a priority.  

Potential issues will be making sure the business feels like they are getting valuable product and time boxing the effort.  

I like the idea of giving all the engineers 2 weeks of time to work on this.  And by giving them extensive prep time with direct meetings with customers.  I'm also thinking that we potentially need a quick review of each engineers idea before we start they are building something that is in the right ballpark.  

Soon I'm going to see how the rest of our organization reacts to this idea.  I'll update the blog with what we end up doing.  

If anyone has any experience with setting up something like this, I'd love to hear your experience.

I'm not one of the fortunate tech elite that has a Google+ invite.  However, in my brief overview of what they have done with the product launch, I'm pretty impressed.  

Thinking about a couple of their previous releases around social type products.  Google Wave was nearly impossible to explain.  It solved a very limited use case.  Mainly for technical people who were sharing in document creation.  

Google Buzz suffered from not being baked enough.  And then they went wide with it immediately.  I'm often supportive of just getting an early Minimum Viable Product out.  However, this was too minimum. They could have controlled this if they made it Beta.   

With the failed release of Google Buzz, I hear that the team that was working on that continued working, but under the goal of what was to become Google+.  

Google Plus has the hallmarks of a great release.  It is well thought out.  The design is improved and modern.  Not only did they apply the design to Google+, they applied it to the rest of the properties at the same time.  You even see this design theme in Google Maps.  And it is clean and simple.

It addressed the issues with the two major competitors of Facebook and Twitter.  It is open like Twitter and more personal and controlled than either Facebook or Twitter.   Circles took a hard concept of "List Making" and makes it easy (from what I can tell by the demos).  

Basically they made a very solid first product in both design and concept for a social network.  

Then they turned that product release to 11.  They added the great idea of "Hangouts".  10 person, easy to execute, video conference.  This is the "Shinny Object" that we all want to try out.   I often want to try and use Skype this way so my young kids can visit with their grandparents, aunt and uncle.  Having this just built into the social network experience will be great.  

Now, if only I could get ahold of one of those Google+ invites.  Can't wait to try it out.