My big flop

One of the projects I cared most about was a massive flop.

I called it the User Shoes program, a way for me and my fellow product managers to visit consumers in their homes each month. 

It was ethnographic-research lite, where the objective was to expand our perspective by seeing how real people were using our products in the real world.

Knowing the corporate politics of the situation, I invited our sister brand to include a team member in the pilot program. 

What a mistake.

She came. She saw. She languished. 

I’ve seen this time and time again.

Someone is nominated to join a project, usually by their boss, without any proper briefing.

😶 They turn up but they’re not really sure why they’re there.

😶 They go through the motions because, really, they’ve got their own work to do.

😶 Then they start to drift. To distance. To absent themselves.

And if they’re asked, they diminish the project because, hey, they never thought it was important anyway!

Rather than a cross-brand involvement bolstering my precious User Shoes program, it ended up undermining it. It was a flop.

While I can now clearly see how I should have handled the situation, at the time I didn’t have the skills in behavioural science to influence stakeholders in an effective way.  

Does your team have the right skills? Do you?

See: Influencing Action