I posted this on the WebTide blog for the UA web design community, but it’s just too good to not share here as well as there is practical application for it that reaches well beyond us web folk.  This comes from a panel I attended at South By Southwest last month, from a co-founder of a small but successful Chicago software company who also runs a blog with great tips and ideas for getting things done.  His talk was basically focused on how to be more effective at doing what you do best – your core competency – and not allowing roadblocks or distractions to sidetrack your progress.  Their philosophy about doing work is viewed as radical by some, but it really resonates with me given my role and the volume of requests I receive on a daily basis.  Here’s a paraphrased summary of his talk – it’s worth a read.

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South By Southwest Interactive 2008
3/8 3:30 p.m. - Ten Things We’ve Learned at 37Signals
Jason Fried, 37Signals
37signals is a small company committed to building the best web-based software products possible with the least number of features necessary. Their products do less than the competition — intentionally.

The great unknown
There is a cloud that hangs over a new project.  The uncertainty can scare you away if you let it – but don’t let it, because no one knows what will happen exactly.  Who knows, who cares?  Decisions you make today don’t have to last forever. Change if you need to change, and optimize for now.

Red flags
These are things that you should pay attention to.  There are a few words that can cause projects to go wrong – words like “need”, “can’t”, “easy”, “only”, and “fast.”  “Need” puts a barrier up and doesn’t allow you to discuss things anymore.  Very few things NEED to get done.  Try using “maybe”, “how does this sound”, etc. instead.  “Can’t” (i.e. “We can’t launch unless we do this”):  in most cases, this isn’t true.  “Easy” is usually used to describe someone else’s job.  Think about what it means to someone when you call their work easy.  “Only”: very rarely do you only need one more thing. “Fast” is similar to easy.  These words are bad enough on their own.  Together, they can be project-killers.  Example: “It’s only one feature. We really need it.  We can’t launch without it.  It should be easy.  Can’t you just do it real fast?”

Be successful and make money by helping other people be successful and make money
Learn to spot chain reactions.  For instance, Basecamp created successes for clients because it helped them make money, so they were willing to pay for it.  Be the catalyst.  Don’t worry about charging for things if they have value.

Target nonconsumers and nonconsumption
A nonconsumer has a problem and needs a solution, but can’t find an acceptable solution because it’s too difficult, too expensive, or existing players are not targeting them.  There are potentially exponentially larger markets, and they minimize the chance for competition from entrenched players.  Often products that meet these needs are ones that are simple, straight-forward solutions that solve real problems.  The big guys don’t care about those markets so the opportunity is there.  So start simple with users that aren’t currently using something, and it will build from there.

Question your work regularly
Ask yourself: “Why are we doing this?  What problem are we solving?  Is this actually useful?  Are we adding value?  Will this change behavior?  Is there an easier way? What’s the opportunity cost?  Is it really worth it?”  A good example is post counts in a blog – does it really matter and will it change user behavior to know how many posts are in a category?  Maybe, maybe not.  Think about what opportunities are you missing in other areas by doing some things.

Read your product
The biggest sin for web sites?  Bad copywriting.  Not design, not functionality.  The sites just don’t make sense.  Too much focus on pixels, and not enough focus on words.  Words are the easiest and cheapest things to fix.  Read it out loud.  Rewrite first, redesign second.

Err on the side of simple
Don’t do too much.  Every error 37signals has made as a company has been caused by doing too much.  Start with the easy way – don’t start with an involved process.  Try the easy first, and if it doesn’t work, expand. Things are easy by default.   Aim to get three things done in one week instead of one thing done in three weeks.  Morale, motivation, and momentum is important; people love to deliver something and move on to next projects, and hate working on the same project forever.  The longer it takes to develop something, the less likely you are to launch it.  People’s motivation is always highest at the beginning of the project.  Resist the urge to do MORE the next time around.  Companies make the mistake of delivering something successful, and then trying to do something way more complex the next time around.  Focus on what you’re good at – that is the first thing you did that was successful, so don’t expand into things you’re not if it limits your successes.

Invest in what doesn’t change
Think about, in your role, things that are important today and ten years from now (for example, Google: speed and accuracy, Amazon: fast shipping and good customer service).  People need simple software.  No one is going to wake up in 2018 and say “I wish this product or software was REALLY hard to use.”  So think about the CORE things in your product that people will always want, and stay focused on them.

Follow the chefs
Be inspired by famous chefs, who SHARE.  They’re experts but are telling you everything they know.  They’re building their empires by becoming the authority on their topic, and they’re not phasing themselves out by giving away their secrets.  In the business world, people are afraid of sharing.  But chefs give away their recipes, cook on TV, etc., and people still want to buy their cookbooks, their sauces, go to their restaurants, etc.  So what’s your cookbook?  Don’t think what you’re doing is so original and important that have to hide it from the world – tell everyone.

Interruption is the enemy of production
The closer you are to people, the more apt you are to interrupt them (through a tap on the shoulder, required meetings, impromptu meetings).  And a fragmented day is NOT a productive day.  So evaluate how important the thing you’re sharing with someone, even if it’s not malicious, is in the context of their overall productivity.   If this approach isn’t followed, a person’s longest uninterrupted time of the day can be 30 minutes or so.  Passive communication (email, etc.) reduces interruptions, and allows the other person to get to it when they’re free, not when YOU want them to see it.  What happens is that you’ll talk less, but more things will get done.  So focus on opportunities for a team to not talk as much, but to use passive communication more.  Maybe even schedule days or afternoons where it’s not allowed to talk to each other, outside of emergencies.

Road maps send you in the wrong direction
Business and financial planning are well-known to lead down the wrong path. By saying “We’ll deliver this feature on X date, and that one on Y date”, you lock yourself into the past by setting definitive deadline dates. The key is setting expectations that what you’ll be doing is delivering things that MATTER, WHEN they matter.  Follow the principle of “It’s ok to think about the future, just don’t write it down.”  Do the right thing, at the right time, and pay attention to what’s important NOW.

Be clear in crisis
Be open, honest, public and responsive to your stakeholders.  If you fix a customer’s problem, they’re likely to love you even more than if there’d never been a problem.  You build up goodwill and trust by talking about downtime, problems, etc.  And remember the web doesn’t stop talking just because you have.  So if you don’t talk about what went wrong, others will do so for you, and it’s less likely to be accurate in that case.

Make tiny decisions
Break problems down to the atomic level.  Knock one little thing off at a time, then move on to the next.  Celebrate little launches, because morale feeds off progress.  There’s nothing worse than working on something forever.  New stuff is exciting, old stuff is not.  The other benefit:  When you make tiny decisions, you can’t make big mistakes.  Companies are terrified about huge decisions, so they’re SLOW to roll things out because the stakes of failure are so high.  Most decisions you make, you make too big.  Chop them up into smaller decisions.

Make it matter
Everything you do should matter – every pixel, every word, every site, every page.  If it doesn’t matter, DON’T DO IT. When you look back on your days, you may find that most things you do really don’t matter (in terms of impact).