Nils Neubauer

This week marked our annual Product Barcamp at XING. While around 40 Product Managers gathered in the New Work Harbour, another 40 or so joined online. As the days get shorter and the cozy winter season is about to start, I sat down to read a story to my fellow peers. It’s a story about obstacles, failure, and even war from past experimentation endeavors of mine.

📖 Story Time!

The story kick-started a valuable discussion about how we Product Managers approach experimentation and in particular AB-testing at XING. It concluded into a new working group that will try to progress on this topic on a regular basis.

Maybe it will spark new thoughts, questions, or impulses for you too? Here it is.

Three Experimentation Pitfalls Experimentation

Pretty much exactly 5 years ago, in the fall of 2016, I worked in the UK on a game called PokerStars. With millions of daily active, paying users, it’s an enormous business.

I was in charge of growing new users, making sure they get to create an account, fund it, understand how to play the game and find a game that suits them so they get the most out of their time and money and come back again in the future.

After doing some research and sparring ideas with stakeholders, one opportunity stood out as the one to pursue further. The idea was to insert a visually engaging screen that features a welcome offer for new users.

Everyone was on board. It was a no-brainer. No questions. But those were just opinions, right. I needed scientific evidence!

So, I got to sit down and prepared the JIRA tickets needed in order to get an AB Test started. Old, obviously shitty screen versus shiny, obviously much better screen. It went into the magic of engineering and as we approached a state of readiness, I got to spend more and more time with my analysts. So far, so good?

Hmm no. From there, it went downhill. We had multiple hypotheses and couldn’t agree on the most important one. With that, we weren’t on the same page regarding which KPI should be the deciding factor. We couldn’t even agree on whether this should really be an AB test. Why? Because we didn’t play by the same rules.

The Analysts goal was to simply answer a question in a clean and accurate way. He wanted to test a hypothesis. My goal was to prove that my grand idea is as grand as I think it was. And I decided to make it an AB test because people know that the results are non-discussable. They are proven by science. In a way, I was asking for any positive number that I can use in a way to make this look like a success. I was asking for absolution and didn’t really care much about the data. What should I have done instead?

At the beginning of every experiment, make sure that there is a clear hypothesis to answer. Be honest with yourself that it’s not about producing some evidence to prove your point. There are easier ways to get that! Evaluate together with your analysts and user insights colleagues what methods to use. If you decide on one, agree on the rules and stick to them. And only let data drive your decisions if your data basis allows it. If it’s broken or you don’t trust it. Invest in getting it right. Finally, be an advocate for your data to make sure everyone understands and uses it in the right way for the right reasons.

Alright, let’s continue with the story because it got worse. The Analyst and I continued to argue and fight over all sorts of details. We were still at war over the nature of the AB test when the implementation hit production. When we checked it, we noticed that the group split wasn’t as random as we thought it would be (because of a technical race condition, I spare you details) and we couldn’t be 100% sure about which user saw which variant.

That didn’t help and as a Product Owner, it was my fault. I saw the analysts as a service provider. I get the stuff built and they will check the numbers if it was successful I thought. That’s not how it works.

The Analyst should have been involved from the very beginning. Even though they might not always join your standups or refinement and planning sessions, Analysts are part of your team. What we talk about as Product Owners might be fascinating to us, but really is Kindergarten for them. They are the experts and if you don’t team up with Analysts, involve them early and most importantly trust and value their contribution, you won’t get the results you are looking for. So, instead of creating an analysis ticket in JIRA alongside your implementation ticket, meet at the discovery stage and continue to collaborate throughout the process. Finally, remember that we are all after the same goal. The questions they ask or the assumptions they challenge are there to ensure better progress towards the goal of creating great products.

Alright, let’s continue with the story because it got worse. Well, we got the issues sorted with some more iterations. But because I was just a little too motivated, I sneaked in a few more variants making it an ABCD test. The Analyst was speechless and went back to his desk. A few days later, he came back with the calculated runtime: 2 months. Of course, I couldn’t believe that. “That long? Can’t you do better than that?” I asked. The analyst bluntly said, “I can’t. But you can certainly do better”. And he was absolutely right.

When we Product Managers demand complex experiments then the result will be more complexity in engineering, planning, design, analysis and so on which not only increases time and effort but also the chance for mistakes.

Less complexity means less time, less effort, fewer mistakes.

If you get results faster, then you can bring value to users faster. It doesn’t always have to be an ABCD test, maybe it’s better to test A versus B, if B wins, get it live and test it against C, and so on. But have that discussion on the best experiment design with your analysts. They will provide you with the best option. Follow it.

Alright, let’s summarise the key messages we had so far:

1. Play by the Rules & Advocate for your Data
2. Team-up with your Analysts
3. Simplify Always

Final Message: Fortune Favours the Brave Have you read Ryan Holidays great new book “Courage is Calling” yet? It’s brilliant.

We should lead by example and focus on the right process. If you feel the pressure to cut corners or maybe to look the other way when there is something wrong with the test design or data then be brave and take a stance. Because you want to base decisions on valid answers driven by data, driven by our users. Everything else is a waste of time.

To wrap things up and give you some closure on how the story ends, I’m happy to report a happy end. The ABCD Test went live and was a wild success. But that’s not the happy end.

My son Lasse was born in August 2017. On my first day in the office, the Analyst welcomed me with the biggest smile and a lovely gift for my newborn baby. And it wasn’t much of a surprise for me. Because we dealt through our conflicts and we got a chance to understand each other’s perspectives. It made us an awesome PO-Analyst duo and we had a much smoother sailing from there.

🏈 NFL Update: We are past week 9 already! While the Cowboys play a great season (6-2), my 49ers (3-5) are last in NFC West. Mixed feelings!

Last week, on the day of my birthday, we went back to the office. After more than 1,5 years of working from home, without seeing most of my colleagues face to face, this was huge.

⛴ Our new office, the “New Work Harbour.” is described as one of Germanys most interesting places to work at and I couldn’t agree more. Overseeing ships cruising through the Hamburg harbour, it’s fabulously designed, featuring a variety of spaces that invite to collaborate and have fun. We have a band room, gym, pub, library, fire place and family rooms. A canteen that grows it’s own herbs inside the building, sports classes every day and even a very good barista coffee bar. There are so many spaces designed specifically for collaboration that I really really really want to have as many workshops as possible in the future.

It’s the office from the future.

🤝 Going back to the office also means seeing people again. In any kind of organisation, humans and their connections are the most important thing. And that connection really took a hit during the pandemic. While the bond within our team, grew even stronger, the whole company suffered. When you don’t see the human side, it’s so easy to dismiss others and judge them. Especially our leadership team had a very hard time. Even though they made plenty of mistakes, they are fighting for the same mission as every one else at New Work. And as every human, they make mistakes too. And they will learn from it and do it better next time. It’s difficult to see that with distance. It’s easy to see that with proximity.

🙌 That’s why I’m a big fan of our Mobile50 policy. We ask everyone to work at least 50% of the time from the office and the rest can be used working from home. It’s not controlled, checked or tracked. It’s a trust-based ask. Because we believe that our great company culture is part of our way of new work. And our culture consists of shared experiences, putting post-its on the wall, having kitchen chats, partying until the sun sets and last but not least to conquer obstacles together, as a team. How can this ever be done in a sustainable way if everyone sits in front of their screens? How will a new starter ever get to really know her colleagues? How will we ever trully celebrate our wins and learn from our failure if we don’t even see each other?

👏 Imagine if you are alone in a room, clapping by yourselves. Feels wrong, doesn’t it? In our monthly Cluster review this Monday, we clapped after every presentation. And we enjoyed it so much! Because we were a group of people in the same room. Such a good feeling.

Follow the sign to find Growth

🚴‍♂️ Of course there will be challenges. My legs still hurt from cycling an hour to the office and then back for an hour. This means 2 additional hours that I have to find in a day. But also, 2 additional hours I spend outside, exercising on my bike.

I didn’t even know I can cycle at 45 km/h!

My new hybrid working week will look something like this:

• 🏢 Monday: Wake-up before anyone else to get some work done, bring kids to Kindergarten, cycle to work, shower and change, meet the team (Monday is our office day when most of the team will be present), collaborate on challenges as much as possible, meet people, share coffees, change, cycle back home.

• 🏡 Tuesday: Wake-up before anyone else to get some work done, then bring kids to Kindergarten, then working from home - Focus Mode with a few meetings like planning sessions.

• 🏢/🏡 Wednesday: Wake-up before anyone else to get some work done, then bring kids to Kindergarten, then sometimes working from home for focus work, sometimes going to the office for more collaboration work.

• 🏡 Thursday: Wake-up before anyone else to get some work done, then working from home - Focus Mode. I try to have no meetings on Thursdays except for the team standup and our Leadership Team weekly.

• 🏢 Friday: Wake-up before anyone else, then be at the office before 7 a.m., exercise at the gym, shower and change, followed by a mix of meetings and using the various spaces at the office for some inspired, creative work. Fridays are my favorite office days. Because the weekend is near, people are less stressed and therefore I can get more done than on any other days.

I’m already looking forward to Monday.

🏈 NFL Update: In Week 2, the 49ers beat the Eagles and Dallas defeated the Chargers in a very close game. So far, so good.

Days get shorter and nights longer. Mornings start with crisp, fresh air until the first ray of sunlight. Summer officially didn’t end yet, but you can certainly feel that something is about to change. 🍃

I hope you had a fabulous summer! After the long, cold and - thanks to the pandemic - lonely winter, we all deserved a proper break, didn’t we?

The Neubauer’s household spent a lot of time outside with many long camping weekends and a proper multi-week vacation in 🇩🇰 Denmark. The whole extended family made their to Kerteminde. It’s a lovely little coastal town on the island of Funen, north of Odense. Nice beaches, high quality design stores, great restaurants and the most delicious liquorice ice cream! We rented this Airbnb and were once again super happy to use Airbnb instead of more traditional rentals. You just get so much more bang for your buck.

Our VW Bus “Kalle” ready to board the 🇩🇰 Ferry

Even though the Covid-19 pandemic is far from being done, it feels like we have it under control. At least here in central Europe. Two thirds of Germans are vaccinated and pretty much everything is open again. There are strict measures of course, like social distancing, wearing masks, getting tested and so on. That’s a bit annoying but so much more better than lockdowns. Also, borders are open, giving us back our freedom to move as we please. Denmark even just dropped all Covid-19 measures!

For us, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. After maternity and parental leaves as well as “home office only”, our life as a family is changing drastically. Rike just started in her new school, as the head teacher of a new first class. Lasse goes to his Waldkindergarten and Jonte did a fantastic job at getting used to his child minder. When I drop him off, it takes a minute and he waves toward my direction. That’s his way of saying “Daddy, please leave now” 😢.

Next week will be the Grand Opening of the New Work Harbour, our fancy new office in the Hamburger HafenCity district. I couldn’t be more excited as it also means that I will return to the office for at least 50% of my time. Working with my team face-to-face is the best. We actually met last week already as I invited everyone for a 🥩BBQ in my garden. That was the first time we all saw each other since 1,5 years. Insane!

Do you spot our 4 colleagues from 🇵🇹 Porto who joined remotely?

It’s been quiet on this Blog in the past months. I could blame it on summer, family and work busyness. But that would be too easy. Truth is that Blogging on a regular basis for an infinite time is hard. Probably too hard to keep it enjoyable and creatively inspiring over the long run.

Hence I decided to go for a seasonal publishing schedule. And the first season starts now. Since I’m an 🏈 NFL fan ever since the NFL Europe came to Berlin in 1998, the NFL season will guide my Blogging schedule.

This week, Tampa Bay kicked things off against the Cowboys. And so will I. Welcome to the season. Welcome to Blog S1!

This is the next post about my parental leave during April 2021 on the beautiful Açores Islands.

Getting to Pico Island was easy. We dropped the rental car off and paid a 10€ extra cleaning fee because kids 🤷‍♂️ and boarded probably one of the smallest commercial air planes. Siting in row 9 meant that we sat in the very back. That comes with the luxury of having a middle seat. Biggest leg room ever 👌

Middle seat view in row 9

After a short 45 mins flight, we got a new rental car to make our way to Prainha - a little village on the north shore. The Airbnb we booked was one of the many reasons we decided to go to Pico instead of one of the other islands. And we weren’t let down.

Boathouse view

“The Boathouse” as the Airbnb is called is an early 20th century boathouse. Nowadays, it’s a cozy oceanfront cottage with the most amazing view. We arrived quite late in the evening, so I asked our host if there will be drinking water in the cottage if not, we would have bought a few bottles on our way there. I also asked about wine recommendations because that’s one if the island specialities. This is what came back:

Did I already say that I love Airbnb?

The village of Prainha does not have many things to offer but it was so perfect. Walking a few meters past the cows got us to the little grocery store. A few meter further, there was a local bakery and also a Tapas Place right next to the water. The place actually felt more like British pub with outside seating and delicious food. It was soooooo good to have a pint of beer by see again. The cottage was super high quality. We especially enjoyed our breakfasts and dinners on the outside terrace.

Getting ready for dinner

Pico is a small, volcanic island. Known for whale watching and wine. While we skipped on the Whales because our young kids wouldn’t yet enjoy being stuck on a small board for a long time, I made sure to discover the unique, local wines. There weren’t many tourists, so many smaller places were shut, but we still managed to eat out at a different restaurant almost every day.

My Pico recommendations

1. Get a rental car. They are a bit pricy but it’s essential to get around.

2. Try the wine. Terras de Lava is a good start.

3. Restaurants:

   1. Adega Açoriana - Our little Tapas Pub in Prainha
   2. Restaurante Faia - Good food and great ice cream, operated by a nice German couple.
   3. Cella Bar - Fancy-ish restaurant with a very inspiring architecture.
   4. Fonte Tavern - Great garden to have coffee and cake.

4. Take a swim in a natural pool. You’ll find them everywhere on the island but the one in Prainha, right next to Adega Açoriana was our favourite. Soooo refreshing!

5. Go on a hike. Since it’s a volcanic island, going up to the Pico mountain is the most famous route. We opted for easier but still challenging options so we are still able to carry the kids. Starting from Igreja de São Sebastião is a nice one.

Pico was amazing but after a week, it was time to say goodbye. We then spent another week on São Miguel, but this time, on the western part of the island. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of Corona cases, so the island became a risk territory. That meant closed restaurants, a curfew after 20:00 on weekdays / 15:00 on the weekend and a mandatory quarantine of 5 days plus another PCR test when we get back to Germany. Not ideal, but we made the best out of it and had another lovely week in paradise.

We actually met another German family who had a boy of Lasses age. It was so much fun watching them play at the beach. They flew to the Açores in July 2020 and then simply didn’t board their return flight. Instead, they are now buying a house to permanently stay on São Miguel. I guess we are not the only ones who like this jewel of the Atlantic 😁

The flights back were pretty smooth. As we started the trip super early in the morning, the kids slept for most of the flights. So, Rike and I enjoyed a bit of quiet reading time. When we changed planes in Lisbon, we met a XING colleague. Crazy, how small the world can be.

Back to Hamburg 🇩🇪

After a 3 hour flight from Hamburg, Germany to Lisboa, Portugal, followed by another 2 hour flight, we landed in Ponta Delgada which is the capital of São Miguel, Azores.

Green and beautiful Azores

After checking-in with the authorities to present our negative PCR-Test results and scheduling our 6th and 12th day PCR-Tests, we picked-up our rental car (booked via billiger-mietwagen.de as always), met our AirBnB host for the keys and drove to Furnas.

Furnas is located in the mountains (one of the many calderas) and known for it’s geo-thermal activities. We picked this Airbnb because of the great location in town and the beautiful garden. Furnas was a great base to explore the eastern part of the island with various hikes, beaches and activities.

Green and beautiful Garden in our Azores Airbnb

Experiences we enjoyed the most:

1. Poça da Dona Beija, a thermal bath with 39’C natural swimming pools. The kids and we loved it.

2. Hiking around Furnas Lake which is the place where they place their pots underground to cook meals. I tried it the classic Cozido das Furnas. It wasn’t good (basically a mountain of meat and veggies) but it was special.

3. Fogo Beach in Ribeira Quente and Praia dos Moinhos in Moinhos. Our favourite beaches to play with sand, go with the waves and sun-bath. We had to be mindful of the Portuguese man o’ war which appears during this time of the year though.

4. Eating fresh fish (Thuna steak 🤤) at Bar Caloura. The view and the food was mind-blowing.

Bar Caloura View

Next blog post: Our week on Pico Island, our favourite.

It‘s April 2021 and I‘m on parental leave. Why this month? It is my second son‘s 14th month in this world and that‘s the last month that I can take parental leave and get Elterngeld (monetary support from the state).

Our original plan was to go to New Zealand. Then the Covid-19 pandemic kicked-in. Glad we didn‘t book anything yet!

The new plan was to take our VW California camper bus „Kalle“ and drive to some place warm, like Spain, Italy or Croatia.

Then, the so called 3rd wave of the Covid-19 pandemic kicked-in. Either countries showed astronomic infection rates or the weather forcast was full of cold temperatures and rain which makes camping aweful.

Until the very last day, we planned to pursue our one-month-living-in-our-camper-van dream. Switzerland first and then off to Istrien, Croatia actually looked super promising because borders were open and infection rates at a manageable level, especially when you plan to be in nature most times anyways. But then Istria became a „Risikogebiet“ and Switzerland was at -1‘C with rain. Urgh.

So, on Karfreitag, Rike and I had an intense all-day debate on how to spend our probably last parental leave. As a teacher, it will will take a very long time until she can take a long time off during this time of the year because she is bound to the official school breaks.

Staying at home was not an option. We have done that for more than a year now. While we can pin-point every month, every development stage of Lasses first year to a certain moment or location, Jontes first year is much harder to re-call. We mostly stayed at home.

We thought about driving somewhere anyways. Partly because I probably invested something like 4K€ into fixes and upgrades for our Kalle-bus (more on that in a separate post) and wanted to benefit from that. Also because that has been our dream for the past year.

But we reaaaaaaly want to have a special, memorable time with the boys. Outside in nature. Exploring new territories together. And for that, we need warm, at least Spring-time weather. Not this crappy, wet, continental weather at the moment.

• So, on Easter Sunday, we booked flights to the Azores!

• On Easter Monday, Rike, Lasse and I did a Covid-19 PCR test.

• On Tueday, Jonte and I went to the local authorities to get him a passport.

• On Wednesday, we boarded a plane to Lisbon with a connecting flight to Ponta Delgada, Azores.

The Azores islands are located right in the Atlantic Ocean, pretty much half way between Hamburg, Germany and Boston, US. They belong to Portugal and are therefore a part of the EU.

The Covid-19 infection rates are around 23 (per 100.000) and they have quite strict measures to keep them at that level. Rike and I have to do a PCR Test (through nose and mouth) on the 6th and 12th day. No problem for us but probably frightens other visitors which (we hope) keeps the visitor and infection rates low.

It was a spontaneous decision. There was a lot to get organized, forms to fill and traveling with a mask on for 10 hours isn‘t perfect, but it was already worth it.

We spent 1 week on Sao Miguel, the main island, and yesterday we flew to Pico island. In my next post, I will report on the first week.

Cheers from the ocean!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the lack of clarity, hope and perspective in the communication by the 🇩🇪 Bundesregierung. Well, they read my blog post and came back with a plan! 😏

There even is a (not so) fancy (but very clear) timeline of measures to ease the lockdown:

Image by Bundesregierung.de

Every state or Bundesland can still make their own rules according to those measures. For us in Hamburg it means that non-essential shops aren’t open yet but 2 km away in Schleswig-Holstein, they are open. There is nothing holding us back from crossing the boarder. But of course, we continue to avoid any unnecessary exposure to gatherings.

Kindergartens are going back to a somewhat normal operating mode as teachers getting vaccinated which means that my older son can go there more often for the next 2 weeks. And then, we are off to a month of traveling in our 🚐 VW California camper-van. I’m so excited.

Impact on Travel Plans

We don’t know where we will go. It all depends on weather and Corona measures in the southern European countries. Maps like this one from pincamp.com help to monitor current developments.

Image by pincamp.de

We’ll decide on the direction in about 2 weeks. So excited! 🚀

Ryan Holiday is among my favorite authors of all time. Most of his content does a fantastic job at bringing the wisdom of the Stoics to a modern context.

Just yesterday, he sent out an email on 100 (Short) Rules for a Better Life which he also shared on his blog. Not all of it is necessarily Stoic but most is. Or at least follows the same stream of thinking.

This is a great list.

Some of my favorites that had a big impact on me for the better are:

• Wake up early.

• Comparison = unhappiness

• Always choose “Alive Time.”

• The present is enough.

• Have kids.

• Amor fati.

And these are the ones, I want to follow more often:

• Take walks.

• No day without some deep work.

• “Always say less than necessary.” — Robert Greene

I will print it out and place it close to my bed as a reminder before and after sleep.

Rules #98, #99 and #100 are Ryan’s books which I love. I have re-read The obstacle is the way 5 times and I plan to do that over and over again in the future. It’s a great book.

Pick the rules that resonate with you to become a leader, parent or simply a human being who lives a better life.

Get Cozy

While a new year provides me with plenty of energy and motivation, I am not a big fan of January and February. It’s just too long until the next event, like spring, school break, Easter and such. Let me know if you are interested in signing a petition to delay Christmas by a month to make January a bit more exciting.

The days are dark and cold during this time of the year. That’s no problem at all. Combined with dry air and snow, it can be a real treat. But here, in Northern Germany, it usually is wet and rainy.

The best antidote: fly to some place warm (not possible at the moment) or get real cosy. Take a good book and a brew yourself a nice cup of coffee. Snuggle up on the sofa and enjoy the quite time.

But of course, that’s not an option for a 3 year old. A kid of that age would usually spend the time at Kindergarten, meeting other kids or ging to some classes like Sports and Music. All of that is not possible at the moment, thanks to Covid-19 restrictions. For more than a 100 days now.

Never Ending Lockdown

November 2020 lockdown to lower Covid-19 infection rates is still ongoing here in Germany. The Bundesregierung even introduced further restrictions so that we can meet with only one other person from another household. That includes kids of any age. I get the limitation to one household, but to one person? I mean, after a single person met with another household and got infected, she would then go back to her own household and infect the people there. How is that better than if the two households met in the first place? Making lockdown life a bit more pleasent?

I’m sure there is a perfectly solid, scientifically proven logic. It’s just not being communicated.

Todays Corona Map for Germany at zeit.de:

In general, the German government is doing a bad job at giving people clarity, hope and perspective. Lockdown is extended by a few weeks, only to extend it again for another few weeks. That would be fine if there would be a clear plan to understand, when restrictions can be lifted (e.g. based on numbers). They somewhat did that but only with a “if this happens, then we can open up these instituations”. The important word is “can”. It doesn’t mean they will do it.

Fighting the virus is important. But for that, we need the support of the people. If Angela Merkel doesn’t provide people with an outlook, with a plan that they can understand, they will become less and less supportive. I see and learn that over and over again, every day: clear communication is key.

If you can communicate well, your life and the life of the people around you will be well. I will forever aim at improving my communication.

Our silver lining

After a couple of nice, super cold, -15°C, snowy days last week, we just had +15°C today. A 30°C difference over the course of a week. Crazy.

The start of Spring and especially April is our silver lining. With the warmer temperatures, we can spend more time outside, especially in our garden. Big plan: build an awesome tree house for the kids.

And then, in April, I will have a month off work for parental leave. We plan to take our Volkswagen California (his name is “Kalle”) to some place warm. Most likely Italy or Spain, depending on the local Corona-situation. The kids and we as parents will love it.

This is our clarity, hope and perspective.

The New One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard arguably is the shortest and best book on leadership.

I first read it 5 years ago after attending a class on leadership and management. It opened-up my mind to what efficient management could really be.

As written in my last post, my goal is to do less but better this year. This came out of my un-healthy level of busyness last year. It wasn’t because I had too many responsibilites but rather because I decided to do too many things myself instead of empowering my team-mates to solve problems on their own. A re-balance is in order.

That’s what made me re-read or in this case re-listen the audiobook. It was a much needed re-fresher and I will probably repeat that on a yearly basis from now on. It only takes 1 hr 27 mins.

Instead of summarizing the key tools from the book, I share the game plan which has it all:

shared by khanmjk-outlet.blogspot.com

Go ahead and get the book. It’s worth it.

I’m off to give some one minute goals, praisings and re-directs 👨🏻‍💻

Same as for last year, I put down 3 goals for 2021:

1. Do less but better: Decentralise work by default. Focus on fewer projects. Contribute to my peers.
2. Keep good family routines and adapt to changing circumstances.
3. Invest in mental and physical health.

These are a bit vague, so here is some more meat to make them SMART-er:

I’m a massive fan of the Objective and Key Results (OKRs) methodolgy, ever since we introduced them at the Stars Group back in 2017. Neither at Stars nor at XING they are used in the right way which is why many colleagues have doubts but I’m keen on changing that. Although not as strongly as making it an OKR for myself 🙃

Objective 1: 👨🏻‍💻 Do less but better.

1. Decentralise responsibility as possible to other owners.
2. More investments into my new product are planned for 2022 (because it is a success).
3. I published 12 written pieces and gave at least 2 talks on product management.

While 2020 was a great year work wise, I noticed the balance in my responsibility distribution was off. Too many time, I “did it myself” because I didn’t took the time to enable someone else to do it instead. This ended in more and more things on my plate which caused a lot of stress for me and the people who had to wait for my response. Instead, more members of the team will share and be able to handle responsibilites so that I can do less things but better. This will put me in a spot to bring my new product to success and contribute to the product management community more often.

Objective 2: 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Keep good family routines and adapt to changing circumstances.

1. Every day starts and ends with family.
2. I work from home for half of the week.
3. Rike feels confident going back to work while the kids are taken care of.

The pandemic has been great for our family as we got to spend so much time together. I will keep it that way even though Rike ends parental leave and I will go back to the office.

Objective 3: 💆🏻‍♂️ Invest in mental and physical health

1. Meditate on 3 days a week.
2. Do 100 push-ups in one go.
3. Have a think week.

Before Covid-19, I cycled to and from the office each day which adds to 2 hours of exercise every day. This comes back once we are back to normal. In addition I will get stronger, hence the push-ups. For my mental health I do regular mediation sessions as well as a think week: a quite week with as few distractions as possible. Bill Gates does it, so it can’t be too bad.

Tomorrow is the first work day of 2021.

I can’t wait for the morning to begin ☕️

It has been a while since my last post. I focused December on bringing this turbulent year of 2020 to a good end.

What a year it has been! The Covid-19 Pandemic dominated headlines with a few stints about Brexit and the US-Election here and there. Sometimes I feel bad about saying that, but for me and my family it has been a great year.

At the end of a year, between Christmas and NYE, I sit dow to reflect on the past year and to plan the year ahead. My method is rather simple:

1. Check-in on the 3 goals set for the past year.
2. Review Fantasy Story for the past year and write the actual story.
3. Set goals for the new year.
4. Write fantasy story for the new year.

So, let’s check-in on 2020 goals:

Goal #1: Become a family of 4 –> ✅ Feels it always has been 4 of us

Goal #2: Know where to establish our base (which house to buy) –> ✅ We bought a house this year and love it soo much🎉

Goal #3: Revolutionize how XING does Onboarding –> ✅ the FIRST ONBOARDING flow is alive a newly created Onboarded KPI established 🚀

Checked all of the three goals which is why 2020 was a great year and I will always remember it that way.

This is my story of 2020:

Wow, what another amazing year that was. My second son “Jonte Frederik Neubauer” was born and we got to spent so much time together as a family of 4. Lasse struggled a bit to adjust to his new role as an older brother but now is super cute with Jonte, helping out and playing with him. When Jonte was born, I was able to stay at home and remained to work from home for the whole year due to the Covid-19 / Corona pandemic. Who would have thought that I would get so much family time this year? It was a bit of challenge to balance family (managing 2 kids and Kita Eingewöhnung for Lasse) with work time but it was definitely so much better than only seeing my kids shortly in the morning and not all evenings.

We also bought a house in Hamburg and moved-in! The goal was to find a house this year but we didn’t expect it to be in Hamburg because all the affordable areas we didn’t like and everything else was just too expensive. We call our new home Chestnut Cove because it is in Kastanienweg and we love it sooo much. It’s beautiful, cozy and perfectly set. The neighbours seem great too as well as seeing the woods and horses every morning. It could not be better.

At work, I got my pet project, the FIRST User Journey to a great output. The Onboarded KPI is established and used across the organisation. We didn’t get as much Personalization done as I was hoping for and also the parts ahead of the Onboarding journey aren’t perfectly connected but we will catch-up on that next year. My colleagues will lead that effort so that I can focus on a new pet project. I wasn’t able to go to Porto this year due to Covid which was a shame. The team did a great job fighting through the remote situation though. We had some friction which we probably wouldn’t have had in normal life but we got through it and came out better in the end.

I’m looking forward to more face-to-face time with my team in 2021 though! That will be mixed with 50% working from home. Everyone in the team feels comfortable working from home now and for me, it’s just the best balance between family and work time. I miss the office but I don’t need it 5 days a week.

Tomorrow, I will share my 2021 goals.

I just finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport on Audible.

Recommended Read or Listen? Yes.

While it didn’t blow my mind, I found the ideas in Digital Minimalism worth spending time on.

10 years ago or so, the people who could afford it, where connected all the time. Today, it’s the wealthy people who can allow time for being disconnected, not being available on demand all the time.

10 years ago or so, our devices were able to perform impressive things. But only one thing at a time. Switching from a document to a new browser tab for example took some effort and time. We thought that was bad for our productivity, but what if, the opposite is true?

10 years ago or so, Facebook mobile ad revenue was $0. Today it’s $34.35 billion dollars. Our attention, our data is the new oil.

While many apps aim at getting the most of our attention, we have to manage how we spend it.

Technology isn’t good or bad. It’s what we make out of it.

Some of my highlights from the book include:

1. Digital Declutter: Clean up your devices. Clutter is costly. Remove all clutter. I removed all bad* social apps, any app that I haven’t used within the last month and disabled push notifications.
2. Reclaim Leisure: Schedule seasonal high-quality leisure plans, like crafting something, reading, engaging in a club. Schedule low-quality leisure too (e.g. browsing Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) to fight FOMO.
3. The Bennett principle: We get more energy out of doing something seemingly more demanding than some passive activity. E.g. instead of falling onto the couch and binge-watch Netflix every night, do something real first, like crafting a blog post ;)

Digital Minimalism is about

… the quality of your life in our current age of alluring devices. … it rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools. …

We cannot unlock this potential (of technology) until we put in the effort required to take control of our own digital life’s to confidently decide for ourselves, what tools we want to use, for what reasons and under what conditions.

The book energized and motivated me to live a more mindful life. I’d say, attention well spent!

*that excludes micro-blog and XING. I explain why in a future post.

Paul Osman’s blog post on Production Oriented Development is pure gold.

With my limited understanding of technology and therefore without knowing all implications, I’m convinced by all of the arguments of that blog post.

I haven’t worked in a company where pre-production environments are on par with production. Hence, any QA performed on such environment can never be fully trusted.

Instead

… teams should optimize for getting code to production as quickly as possible …

Thanks to @jthingelstad for sharing this content piece in the recent Weekly Thing.

Building products with my background in gaming, the topic of “Gamification” comes up regularly. Usually with the idea of making a mundane user task more entertaining and therefore increasing the likelyhood of completion.

First, a bit of theory:

There are three so called brain loads:

1. Cognitive/Mental: Memory, Thinking etc.
2. Motor: Moving hands or arms
3. Visual: Stimulation through visuals

Games raise (= increase) one or more of these brain loads to create an entertaining and engaging experience.

• Visual & Motor: Fruit Ninja, Point and click shooters
• Motor only: Press buttons as soon as you can
• Motor + Mental: Candy Crush, Starcraft
• Mental: Puzzle games

Back in the 80’s, the goal was to lower brain loads to make everything as easy as possible. Now, there are software/web structures that are very established so they can be made more complex again to make things more engaging.

Some fail, and some succeed. I will write about that in a future post.

Epictetus, one of the great Stoics, already said

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.

This is still true today.

In a 2-day workshop on the topic of “Lateral Leadership” last year, I got introduced to the Circle of Influence and Control. Originally created by Stephen Covey and covered in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, it helps us to focus on what matters.

The three circles are mutually exclusive:

1. What we control are things like our words, our food, our mood, our actions, our thoughts or the output of our work.

2. What we influence are things like our family, the outcome of our work, other people’s choices, our close surroundings or who reads this blog post.

3. The things we may be concerned about are politics, traffic, results of a sports match, comments and actions from a stranger, where we were born or the outbreak of a pandamic.

We have to remind ourselfs of what we can control and influence to shift our focus away from what’s just a concern.

What we truly control is fixed. We can expand what we influence. We can’t do much about the rest.

Focus on what you control and influence.

Our government, the Bundesregierung produced some TV ads around behavior in times of the current pandemic.

No big deal.

But these are actually really good!

In order to get us citizens motivated, they tell an interesting, amusing story.

It’s about being heros by doing nothing during the “Corona Winter of 2020”. In the spots, elderly people from the future tell their story.

How they became a hero … by doing nothing.

See the first comment for an English translation.

Be brave.

Do nothing.

Winter is coming.

🙃

When developing products, having one team or part of a team focussed on Discovery and then others on Execution is a very bad idea.

It drives silo thinking and a throw-over-the-fence mentality.

People feel less committed when they weren’t there in the room from the beginning.

That’s why “cooperate innovation” labs mostly fail. Product teams have to go through the whole cycle. It will be much faster.

Avoid having teams of mercenaries. Have teams of missionaries.

———— Wise words that I paraphrased from a recent AMA session with the godfather of Product Management, Marty Cagan.

Today, I attended a short webinar on “Conversational Interfaces” hosted by Applause in collaboration with lautmaler. Conversational Interfaces offer great possibilites to onboard and guide users.

It wasn’t a sales event which I was afraid of but actually had some interesting content on the topic. Even though it was rather high level.

My most valuable takeaway is a better understanding of the anatomy of conversational systems.

I also appreciated their separation of the user intent versus the trigger of a message. My intent could be to eat a burger. What triggers a conversation could be me opening the DeliveryHero app. Identify your user intents first, then think about the triggers.

Here are my notes.

1) Conversational UI offers the opportnuity to interact with machines on human terms.

2) There are two formats: Voice interfaces that allow to talk. Chatbots that allow to type.

3) Six factors should inform our strategy to “unmute our brand” to give it a voice: Use Case, Context, Channel, Language, Knowing the User, Brand impersonation

4) Use Cases: Voice for when hands are busy. Chat for others.

5) Consider how your users talk. What could be their intents to communicate.

6) Develop a brand persona e.g. tone of voice, jargon, what kind of connection should be established (long-term or short-term; professionally distanced or amicably familiar…)

The anatomy of a voice Interface looks like this.

(ASR Automatic Speech Recognition) –> (NLU Natural Language Understanding) –> Context User Management and Situational Routing) –> (Logic Implementation of Business Logic) –> (Output Text and Visual CMS Integration) –> (TTS Text-to-Speech)

Remove ASR, NLU, TTS which leaves you with the anatomy of a chatbot interface.

7) Voice is more difficult to get right as it needs a wake up phrase (a la “ok Google”) and a “No Input” timout. A chhat is simple and save as the user just writes a message. The chat can theoretically wait indefinitely.

8) When designing system responses, we need to - identify the users intent - trigger backend calls - keep track and update dialogue context - execute business logic

9) Managing the dialogue could be handled via simple if/then statements and/or machine learning

10) The System should be tested, especially when several use cases exist to ensure proper conversation flow. Pretty sure that’s the Applause pitch here but it’s also true

Especially with remote teams, building relationships and a sense of team spirit is challenging. What helps our team are casual get-togethers so we are not in meeting-mode everytime we see each other.

We recently did that, playing the following games which was a lot of fun:

1. scribble.io - This basically is the drawing-guessing-part of Taboo. One by one, team members draw random terms (from a prepared, custom pool) and everyone else guesses what they are. Expect a lot of wrong answers.
2. Werewolf - Like back in summer camp, this also works perfectly online. And it gets everyone talking.

When I joined XING in 2018 I was happy to hear there is an office in Porto.

It’s the perfect city:

• proximity to the ocean
• great food and beverage industry (try Bacalhau and wine from the Douro valley 🤤)
• strong education sector
• a passion for high-quality, hand-made craft
• a beautiful, mostly well preserved old city
• affordable, high standard hospitality options
• loads of small, independend shops

For us as a company, Porto offers access to stellar engineering talent. For me, it’s the place that half of my team calls home. They are great people and I feel very lucky to work with them as well as to visit their home from time to time. Unfortunately, I haven’t been there since a year ago because of the birth of my second son and a certain pandemic.

My favorite print magazine Monocle just released their latest product The Forecast 2021 which features an article called Bright lights, small city and guess which city topped their annual Small Cities Index?

Right, it’s Porto 🎉

To celebrate that and to soften my wanderlust, I digged out a few shots from my last trip:

Working during the day, …

oberserving sunset afterwards,

while having a beer with the team

to hit the local restaurants afterwards.

Monocle and Nils ❤️ Porto.

Plan for 2021: be back for an extended visit ✈️

When optimizing user onboarding flows, the completion rate number of users who started the flow / number of users who finished the flow isn‘t the right KPI.

If that wouldn‘t be true, you could reduce the number of screens to a single one with a big fat „click here“ button and your completion rate will be 98%. 2% always drop-off, no matter how easy it is to click through 🤷‍♂️.

That‘s not why there is user onboarding. It exists to achieve a specific goal of getting your new users to their Aha!Moment - the moment when they realize the value of your product for them.

That‘s not at the end of a series of explainer screens, walkthrough tours, setup screens or other-things-to-get-out-of-my-way-to-finally-see-and-use-what-I-came-for. It‘s when I understand and use your product so it delivers meaningful value. Try to measure that instead.

—— We recently re-designed the onboarding flow of XING and ended up with twice the amount of screens in the flow. Our onboarding completion rate dropped 😎 Here is how it looks like.

A UX Designer actually suggested we should reduce the screens to get more people through the flow. I suppose he didn‘t understand the aim of the flow. It‘s not about maximizing the number of users at the end but to maximize the number of new users who turn into happy, engaged members of our network.

Not sure if we‘ll achieve that it‘s currently running as an AB test but if we don‘t, I‘m sure it won‘t be because of the number of screens but because their content isn‘t the right fit for purpose.

I‘ll let you know when the results are in 👨‍💻