Brian de Haaff's Blog, page 18

Busy Is Not a Badge of Honor

A whole lot of “busy.” The person in the grocery store tapping out messages between two cell phones at once. The jogger whose eyes keep darting to the notifications blipping on their smartwatch. And the dinner party conversation that turns into a one-upping competition over who has less free time. Calendars double-booked! Overwhelmed at work!

I get it — we are all busy. I often tell people who ask for some of my time that I am, unfortunately, oversubscribed.

But is all the activity leading to...

The Founder’s Paradox: How Do You Build a Company Without Venture Capital When People Want to Give You Lots of Money?

“Can we grab a cup of coffee?” For some reason, this has become the casual beverage of choice for venture capitalists and just about anyone else who wants to get together and talk “growth.” But I do not drink coffee. And I have been pretty clear that our company is not looking for outside funding.

Aha! is growing fast, wildly profitable, and yes — we did it all without any funding. We are proud of that and will do our best to continue on the same path.

When I tell people this, I usually get...

5 Skills You Need to Lead Enterprise Transformation

Enterprise transformation has been a popular topic on this blog lately. By now, you should be familiar with the framework I have laid out. And you may be wondering how it gets done. What can you actually do to have an impact at a company going through major change?

In one of my most recent posts, I explained how product managers are in a great position to drive change — whether the change needed is a digital, data, or solutions transformation. And I presented the steps shown below, which are...

Is There a Squirrel in Your Office?

Someone in the office is driving you nuts. Hoarding information and forgetting where they stashed it. Zipping from one thing to another without any focus. Running ahead of the team. Tough to pin down. Does this sneaky co-worker sound familiar?

Chances are, you are working with one of the most common pests that runs rampant in the workplace — the office squirrel.

And you are not alone. Squirrels are found in nearly every habitable region of the world, except Australia. (Although Australia ha...

This Is How You Build a Radically Responsive Product Development Team

“I wish we could work this fast.” This is something our Aha! team hears a lot. It is true that our team works fast — really fast. Faster than any team I have ever worked with. But if you are thinking our speed is due to some top-secret sauce, you would be wrong. In fact, I will reveal the ingredients right now.

We are able to work fast because we make speed a priority. We release new functionality continuously. And when people reach out to us, we want to respond right away — while the need is...

Why Strategic Thinking Is So Hard for Product Managers

Daily standups. Planning poker. Estimates of time (or points). It is all collaborative fun and games until that new product launch lands with a customer thud. And then the big boss comes strolling down wanting answers: Why did this flop? Hm, good question. You were so busy working that you barely left the office. And the product development team was grinding — sprint planning, grooming, more standups, retrospectives, and then wash/repeat.

But while the details of the work may have been top of...

6 Steps to Achieve a Successful Enterprise Transformation

What does real transformation look like? An automobile manufacturer overhauling their digital sales operations. A multinational IT company changing how they use data. A major fintech provider undergoing a solutions transformation and starting to think more holistically about how to bundle services that customers need.

But when I saw a company call a website redesign a “digital transformation” — well, I knew things were getting a bit diluted. You can use the word however you want. But achievi...

5 Years of Aha! — This Is What We Have Learned so Far

Something different. This is what my co-founder Dr. Chris Waters and I had in mind when we founded Aha! five years ago. We had spent nearly 20 years working in Silicon Valley and building breakthrough products at both large technology companies and smaller startups. And in plain terms — we were successful in lots of meaningful ways but we experienced a lot we did not like in the process.

Growth at all costs. Hype. Out of touch board of directors. A big loss of focus on what really matters: p...

The Founder’s Paradox: How to Always Work and Avoid Burnout

Burned out on burnout. No, that is not a typo. You read it right. Although it can seem like the flames are inescapable. This person is smoldering, that person is about to flare up, and over there Sam took a 6-month sabbatical. Spontaneous combustion — narrowly avoided.

Everywhere you look, there is another article about job burnout. Consider these recent headlines from CNN, Fortune magazine, and Harvard Business Review:

“How a Burnout Culture Led to Record Attrition”
“A Psychotherapist Share...

How Product Managers Are Driving Enterprise Transformation

The future of product management. I have written about this before. And I think that change really is here now — we see it happening with our customers at Aha! every day. Today’s product managers are more strategic, customer-centric, and team-oriented than ever before. Many are fundamentally changing the way their entire company thinks about its products and services.

Product managers are increasingly being recognized as superheroes. Confronting really big challenges every day and bringing m...