Articles by Andy Johns
Designing an Organization that Can Optimize and InnovateAndy argues that the most common drawback of functional organizations is that they start to over-index on business growth, and aren't designed to provide new and innovative value to customers (as opposed to optimizing the existing value propositions). The solutions are to design product organizations around the needs of the user and to provide explicit guidance on how to balance effort between optimization and innovation by product group.
A Simple Tool for Managing an Executive Staff as a First-Time CEOAndy covers: • A Preamble on Hiring Executives • A Simple Tool for Managing Executives • Common Pitfalls
- How to know when to stop
Andy provides a deeply personal story on the impact that a singular focus on success had on his health. He then provides a framework for evaluating your work and life goals, how to diagnose how close you are to burnout, and what to do about it: 1. Define your personal range of tolerance 2. Pick your career progression 3. Pick your life progression
- Why “Standups” are Useless and How to Run Great Product Team Meetings
Andy adds to the position that status updates are not a productive use of time, and suggests an alternative: organizing a product development meeting agenda around decisions that need to be made in order to unblock various team members.
- Designing an Organization that Can Optimize and Innovate
Andy argues that the most common drawback of functional organizations is that they start to over-index on business growth, and aren't designed to provide new and innovative value to customers (as opposed to optimizing the existing value propositions). The solutions are to design product organizations around the needs of the user and to provide explicit guidance on how to balance effort between optimization and innovation by product group.