Brian de Haaff's Blog, page 19

The Best Way to Handle the Office Meddler

“If it were me…” This is the motto of the office meddler. You know who I am talking about. It is that co-worker who thinks they always know what is best. So they take it upon themselves to dig into your work — offering plenty of unsolicited advice. Good intentions, maybe. Big annoyance and big problems, definitely.

See, the meddler likes to get involved in a lot. But the meddler does little of the actual work.

Every office seems to have someone like this — the person who needs to be involved...

What Is a Solutions Transformation?

Remember planning vacations in the 1990s? You spent a lot of time talking on the phone. Separate calls to airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. This was just to compare rates — you had to make another set of phone calls to book services. Or you used a travel agent and accepted the fact that it was likely going to be more expensive than if you just did it on your own.

Then along came deal-aggregator sites like Expedia and Priceline. And with one click, those phone calls were gone. (Unfo...

14 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

I read a lot of books about strategy and leadership. But not in the way you might think. I find the best strategic lessons often come from the books that are not taught in business school and were not purposefully written about strategy. The authors probably did not even know they were providing strategic guidance.

I have found great insight in books that require me to connect hard-learned lessons from others to my own real-life opportunities and challenges.

For example, I recently read Phi...

8 Things Product Managers Should Do Every Monday

I never understood why Garfield hates Mondays. He is a cat after all — why does he care what day it is? Personally, I have always looked forward to the start of a new week. I have a strategy that gets me into a productive mode fast. (And it does not involve lasagna.)

Product managers are planners by nature and by job function. But the demands on your time can quickly turn the week into a jumbled mess that weighs you down. Maybe you have not thought about setting up a Monday morning routine of...

The Founder’s Paradox: How Do You Listen to People You Trust Tell You It Cannot Be Done?

The brother of a friend — I had spoken with him in the past and he was thoughtful. Plus, I knew he was an experienced product manager who had built a number of important products. So after we launched Aha! in 2013, I thought he would be interested in our private beta. Well, he ended up stopping me about two minutes into my demo. This is what he said.

“No one needs Aha! — spreadsheets work well for roadmap planning. Besides, there are tons of bug tracking systems that product managers already...

Is Your Company Ready for a Data Transformation?

“Today’s customers want more.” You have been reading this a lot lately — especially from me. Customers want a personalized experience and want it delivered fast. Many companies know that change is needed to meet those expectations and demands. But they do not know what that change should look like. This is where data can help.

Data, digital, and solutions are three different strategies that can be used independently or together for an enterprise transformation. Your company may not need to in...

How to Spy on Your Team

The corporate spies are out there. Monitoring emails. Tracking phone calls. Even peeking into your computer. What is this covert operation? It is the company — the one you work for. I once even had an employer start backing up my computer automatically without telling me. Why were they afraid? There was no reason to be. I already backed my computer up regularly (per the company policy).

I am definitely not a conspiracy theorist. So here is the evidence: One survey found that at least 66 perc...

6 Questions to Ask If You Want to Grow Into a Leadership Role

Difficult work is often the most rewarding. This is especially true for those in leadership roles. I am incredibly proud of our software and the high-growth business we built at Aha! — but I am even more proud of the leaders we have helped grow. I am amazed at how we have grown our leadership team entirely from within the company.

Helping people grow skills and into new roles is the noblest type of building I can imagine. It is why I believe that leading a company is important and truly rewa...

What Does Digital Transformation Really Mean?

Yes, it is true. I did recently write that I do not believe in digital transformation. Foolish? Maybe. But my point was a bit more nuanced. Improving technology and digital capabilities is not an end game. The goal is to deliver better customer experiences. Digital transformation is just one strategy that companies invest in as part of an enterprise-wide effort towards better serving customers and employees. That is the real objective.

So if you want to deliver experiences that customers wil...

Product Managers Are Smarter Than a Spreadsheet

Does greatness come from a spreadsheet? Probably not if you are a product manager. Yet many are attempting to do so at this very moment — using a spreadsheet to manage the building of a product. Really, those spreadsheets are nothing more than a glorified list of features and priorities. This may work for a while. But spreadsheets are not meant for roadmapping the future.

No offense to spreadsheets. But they are not that smart. And that is understandable. A spreadsheet is a general purpose t...