The Magic of a Working Session

I'll never forget the magic in our virtual room.

I was locked onto my laptop in a remote village in Guatemala, in a proper socratic debate.

The founder, the designer, product and engineering all together on one call.

We had just pivoted to a B2B offering, and had a very large and complex design to contend with, and new market segment we badly needed to test.

Would this next move give us any more traction?

The most critical thing needed doing first: scale back the design.

Pare it down to its minimal (hypothesized) value.

My laptop was hot. Heck, that remote village was hot.

How can we identify the value proposition in its minimal state - and build that first?

We debated heartily for two hours.

Eventually, we found it: that minimal feature set that we could deliver in under two weeks.

We beat that two-week estimate. And the customers confirmed: this is what they wanted.

You see, it takes a keen eye for paring down your product to its core value. And every feature thereafter. In fact, it can take multiple pairs of eyes.

But the importance of this process cannot be overstated.

You must reduce your features ruthlessly. This reduces risk. Risk of delay. Risk of bugs. Risk of churn.

And worst of all: risk of never finding what lands with your market.

As a wise product manager once said: the real work occurs in meetings.

You can't do this without a working session.

DM me if you are missing that powerful moment where everything comes together, and you can cleanly execute.