Kassen Qian

4. Celebrate wins

I want you to consider instead the possibility that Waterfall came to exist, and continues to exist, for the convenience of managers: those who need you to promise them something specific, and then deliver exactly what you promised them, when you promised you’d deliver it.

Amazon’s ‘working backwards process’ is a pretty fascinating example of an alternative to Lean Startup that works . It's simple to describe, but difficult to do. Amazon’s method for  betting on new products is to start from the customer experience and working backwards from that by writing a press release that literally announces the product as if... See more

2. Strong Product Leadership: in strong product companies, the product leaders are among the most impactful leaders in the company.

But an orientation toward storytelling and vision can sometimes cause challenges with execution : The only new product launch that succeeded was Airbnb.com. Every other big launch over the last eight years has actually been a complete flop.

Your team dynamic is something you can always affect, even if you have no meaningful influence over the major strategic decisions of an organization.

2. Put Everything in Writing — Then Tier It : Executive summaries, wiki pages, PRDs, and launch plans are four types of documents that can aid in operational excellency.