{"id":442,"date":"2007-11-07T23:16:40","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T06:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/442\/aza-raskin-on-cooperation-fence-throwing"},"modified":"2014-09-27T20:53:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T01:53:09","slug":"aza-raskin-on-cooperation-fence-throwing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/aza-raskin-on-cooperation-fence-throwing\/442\/","title":{"rendered":"Aza Raskin on Cooperation Throwing Things Over the Fence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>In today&#8217;s post, Aza Raskin tackles a reader&#8217;s question about Product Management, cooperations with other groups, throwing stuff over the fence, why large teams generally suck, and political in-fighting and politics.<\/p>\n<p><em>I work as a product manager for a <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.yahoo.com\" target=\"_blank\"><em>technology company in the valley<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00a0 In large companies like mine, the department of Product Management, Software Engineering, and Customer Experience work together, but in a clunky way, to build a product.\u00a0 What is the best way, in your opinion, to infuse the Humane Design Principles in a hot political environment?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For example, the classic problems of: product will define a feature based on market research and define the personas.\u00a0 Engineering feels like we define something and &#8220;throw it over the fence&#8221; to them to develop.\u00a0 At the same time, Customer Experience is bothered that Product Management didn&#8217;t involve them, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to read our other <a title=\"interviews with leaders series\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/leadership-interviews-innovation-thought-leaders\/\">interviews in our leadership series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>My question is turning out to be more of a human resources question than about design, but wanted your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you should start an &#8220;Ask Aza&#8221; column, like a Dr. Phil segment, or something.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Successfully bringing a product to market is a holistic endeavor.\u00a0 User requirements drives customer experience; customer experience drives marketing; marketing drives user requirements.\u00a0 Nobody should feel that a set of requirements has been &#8220;thrown over the fence&#8221;.\u00a0 When this happens, the recipient-of-the-throw is beholden to an abstract deliverable and is no longer connected to the end-user.\u00a0 <em>That&#8217;s a real problem<\/em>.\u00a0 Combating this requires a tight-feedback loop which is most easily created with a small team: engineering gets to see the market research come in, and the usability people can guide engineering throughout the actual creation process.<\/p>\n<p>In an ideal world, everyone on the team would have a foot in engineering, design, and marketing.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this isn&#8217;t always possible.\u00a0 What <em>is<\/em> possible is that we can create small, tight teams that collectively have intimate knowledge of all three disciplines.<\/p>\n<p>The small-team idea is by no means new.\u00a0 In the book In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters explains over-and-over again that it&#8217;s the small groups; skunk works, home-brew projects, and strike teams that drive innovation at companies both large and small.\u00a0 The most successful teams are those of 10 people or less &#8212; preferably between 4 and 8 &#8212; that include people from the required disciplines.<\/p>\n<p>By keeping teams small, products don&#8217;t get commitee-ized.\u00a0 The team is directly responsible for success.\u00a0 Success is dependent on making a product that meets the needs of the user and to the user, the interface <em>is<\/em> the product.<\/p>\n<p>P.S.,\u00a0 I like the idea of an &#8220;Ask Aza&#8221; column: Anything that&#8217;s alliterative must be good!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Aza&#8217;s point above about team size is important, and one that I&#8217;ve discussed before.\u00a0 Quantitatively, we can show why, in general, large teams aren&#8217;t the best way to go.\u00a0 Here is what I wrote back in Ocotober 15, 2006:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Other articles in the &#8220;Ask Aza Raskin&#8221; Series:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Aza Raskin\u00a0discusses the <a title=\"aza raskin infinite scroll\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/aza-raskin-on-google-search-results\/441\/\">infinite scroll<\/a>\u009d approach to Google search results.<\/li>\n<li>Aza Raskin\u00a0shares his thoughts on\u00a0<a title=\"aza raskin on feature bloat and featuritis\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/aza-raskin-on-feature-bloat-clutter\/421\/\">Feature Bloat<\/a>\u00a0(aka, Featuritis\u009d)<\/li>\n<li>Aza Raskin\u00a0describes the concept of\u00a0<a title=\"aza raskin quasimodal design\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/aza-raskin-on-quasimodal-design-the-atm\/420\/\">Quasimodal Design<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Aza Raskin\u00a0explains the role of\u00a0<a title=\"aza raskin error proofing\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/aza-raskin-on-poka-yoke-humane-interfaces\/419\/\">Poka Yoke in the User Experience<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In today&#8217;s post, Aza Raskin tackles a reader&#8217;s question about Product Management, cooperations with other groups, throwing stuff over the fence, why large teams generally suck, and political in-fighting and politics. I work as a product manager for a technology company in the valley.\u00a0 In large companies like mine, the department of Product Management, Software [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":10961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Aza Raskin on Agile and Teamwork<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Aza Raskin shares his thoughts on 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