The 3 stages of my career

I started my career as a software engineer. My passion was learning how to solve complex problems in saleable ways. It was a thrill to get code running successfully for the first time and to design ways to break down complex problems into the pieces needed to solve them. In this phase of my career, I learned a lot about dealing with complexity, understanding how pieces fit together, where things can fall apart and how to identify them. But I also learned that not every problem is worth solving. While some products I worked on turned out great, others flopped and were quickly forgotten. While this built a great ability to move on from my failures regardless of effort put in, I wanted to change how I worked.

Enter design strategy. Along my career path I found a path forward where I could focus less on HOW to solve a problem and more on WHAT problem to solve. I learned a lot about understanding user problems, understanding the users who have these problems and design techniques to help them solve these problems. I worked in a very effective product trio with a product manager, engineering lead and myself collaborating closely on bringing a new product to life. I also worked with a lot of talented designers who helped me learn the value of thinking visually and appreciating the importance of good user experiences. The product launched, was well liked by those who used it, but there was a problem. We didn't understand the market dynamics enough to prepare for the launch effectively. We created a great tool for solving a meaningful problem in a way better than the market had before, but didn't prepare our got o market efforts enough to enter the market in a way the market was ready for. I knew I needed to change something, so I made another career pivot.

And so we land on the strategist that was in me all along. I had always been interested in solving meaningful problems in interesting ways. But I didn't understand the need to understand how we take people from where they are today to where they could be in the future. Learning from our mistakes I co-created a program dedicated to product validation. The idea was simple enough, help different products analyze parts of their product they want to build to understand where the biggest risks are, identify ways to test them and incrementally learn how best to move this idea forward; and when to move on. It was here I discovered the true power of workshop facilitation and framework design. Tools I have honed ever since to help teams pull untapped expertise out of their people, create a shared understanding and identify the right next step to drive things forward without overcommitting. I have developed a knack for framing problems in a way that helps the team best understand the situation, what matters most and what the options are. These teams leave my workshops with a clear path forward, an iterative approach to dealing with the complexity we uncovered together and a feeling of purpose that what they are doing is making real progress

Today I still work as a full-time product strategist, but I have begun to expand who I help. I have developed a knack for framing problems in a way that helps teams best understand the situation, what matters most and what the options are for moving forward. These teams leave my workshops with a clear path forward, an iterative approach to dealing with the complexity we uncovered together and a feeling of purpose that what they are doing is making real progress. It's something that can help more than a single company, and it's why I have expanded to offer my services directly. If you need help navigating complexity, untangling ambiguity or aligning people with different perspectives, reach out to book a free project scoping session with me today!