What To Do When Everything Breaks At The Worst Time

I was working with an Ed Tech client who was having trouble simplifying the on-ramp for new customers.

The interface looked friendly, but there were a lot of features and you had to learn a lot of new jargon to really get the benefits.

Plus, it was super buggy because they had just pushed a new version that wasn’t rigorously tested.

So as part of being a consultant, I was working through the on-boarding workflow with a live customer.

It made sense when I walked her through everything but then, later in the week, when she needed it most, the software broke.

She emailed me in a panic saying she wasn’t going to have her charts for her big meeting on Friday.

I worked through it with her and got her half of the way there. I got her the data but she has to make her one charts in excel because our tool wouldn’t be fixed in time for her meeting.

She said “it’s okay, I’ll just have to use my old excel charts. I was just really excited to look cool in front of everyone at the meeting.”

But here’s where it gets good.

Immediately after we hung up, I ordered a pair of wayfarer-style sunglasses (in the color of Ed Tech company’s branding) and sent them to her office, making sure they’d arrive on Thursday.

I also included a message saying: “thanks for your patience as we fix or software. We’re super bummed that it broke right when you needed it most. That was so frustrating and we’re in the process of improving our testing environment so these massive bugs don’t hit users. In the meantime, I hope these sunglasses help you look cool in your big meeting. You have the data you need to melt faces and blow minds. Go get ‘em.”

Do you see what happened?

It took a little extra time and about 15 minutes.

She emailed me on Friday morning saying that our company was the best. She was bragging to her co-workers about how we handled the situation and that she knew we were in an early stage where bugs were normal. She was going to stick through it with us because we believed in the same thing and gestures like this really made her feel like we had her back.

Boom.

Customer for life.

And it cost $14 on Amazon.

2 Minute Action

Maybe you don’t have customers, maybe you do.

Maybe you have students, or attendees, or subscribers.

Pick someone who doesn't seem to be having a good day or maybe who had it rough yesterday.

Take 2 minutes to do something special for someone.

You don’t need to spend a lot of (or any) money.

You just need to make them feel special like you’re on the same team.

Because that’s how we make the world better, right?

By bringing people closer together.

How To Do Anything You Want

There are no tasks, there are only stories.

This concept is directly from Jeff Sutherland, one of the creators of Scrum (Agile).Here's the idea: a "user story" is a way to describe the problem a user (or customer) faces.It's formatted like this:As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.This helps keep the task "user-focused" and pointed directly at the true need of the customer.For a story to be “ready” for work. It must meet the INVEST Criteria:

• Independent - actionable and completable on its own. No dependencies.
• Negotiable - Until it’s being done, it needs to be able to be re-written. Allowance for change is built in.
• Valuable - It actually delivers value to a customer, or user, or stakeholder.
• Estimable - We have to be able to size it.
• Small - The story must be small enough to be able to estimate and plan for it easily. If it’s too big, rewrite it or break it into smaller stories.
• Testable - A story must have a test that it must pass for it to be “complete.” Write the test, before you do the story.

For a story to be “done,” it must meet any conditions or tests defined by “Testable.”Testable just means "pass/fail."If stories are really ready, teams can double output. If stories are really done, they can double output, again.This takes discipline and it takes clarity.

2 Minute Action

Convert your to-do list from tasks into stories.Too hard?Does that mean you don't do it at all?You know better.Make it smaller and just convert your first task.Do it again and again. You'll get the hang of it.

The Unlikely Lesson My Bike Taught Me About People

I just bought a new bike computer.It’s the little gadget that sits on the handle bars and tells you your speed.Anyway, I opened the box and look what I saw:Do you see this huge piece of paper?Look at the size of it compared to my bike.These are the setup instructions.It took me 10 minutes to read this thing and figure out how to program it for mph, and a 24hr clock.But wait, it’s not rocket surgery.

So why all this reading!?

This is a classic example of how frustrating documentation is.This documentation is here instead of the developers of the bike computer just building something that makes sense without instructions—this is called “intuitive.”I’m paying the price, as the end user, for bad design.But, Chris, how is this relevant to me? I’m not a designer of any kind.The point isn’t about the mechanics of the computer, the point is about how the designers weren’t focused on the end user. You can take this approach in ANYthing you do.Let’s take writing an email for example.Most people read emails on their phones and most busy people get hundreds of emails a day.

How does this translate?

Write in quick, easy to read sentences. Use bullets. Hit the return key a lot and avoid big blocks of text.Reply here if you have more ideas of how to put this into action.The more we share our approaches and examples, the faster we can improve.

2 Minute Action:

Who is your end user?Students? iOS users? Chefs? Painters? Cyclists? LEGO enthusiasts?Thinking about how painful the experience is for your end user, how can your interaction with them easier?How else might you improve your interaction with them?Hit reply and let me know.