Liminal Thinking Blog

Anna Curran shared a ton of insights about listening, observing and developing customers.

Watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ronIs6owyo

Anna’s company: http://cookbookcreate.com

Anna on Twitter: @annacurran

Things we spoke about:

Usertesting.com: http://usertesting.com

Steve Blank: http://steveblank.com/

I spoke with Erica Kochi about how design and innovation in uncertain, complex and volatile environments.

Watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jauS5dLob8Q

UNICEF Innovation: http://unicafstories.org

Erica on Twitter: @ericakochi

Things we discussed in the interview:

UNICEF Innovation’s nine innovation principles: http://unicefstories.org/principles/

On failure: http://unicefstories.org/2013/12/18/institutionalizing-risk-taking-unicef-failure/

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC): http://one.laptop.org/

Story Corps: http://storycorps.org/

Frog Design: http://www.frogdesign.com/

I spoke with Madeline Gannon about architecture, 3D printing, communicating with robots and how she uses “What if” questions to drive her research.

Watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4ORpVr96QY

Madeline’s website: http://www.madlab.cc/

Madeline’s lab at Carnegie Mellon: http://code.arc.cmu.edu/

Madeline on Twitter: @madelinegannon

Things we discussed in the interview:

Gizmodo article about Madeline’s work: http://gizmodo.com/these-intricate-collars-look-like-fish-bones-are-actua-1506846404/all

Alan Kay’s experiments in graphic display and object-oriented programming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad

Maker spaces: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

I spoke with Jeroen van Geel about product personality, how scrum is a great approach for transforming large companies, what makes a great agile team and much more.

Watch the interview.

Jeroen’s company, Oak and Morrow.

Jeroen on Twitter: @jeroenvangeel

Things we discussed in the interview:

Fabrique: http://www.fabrique.nl/

9292: http://9292.nl/en

Amy Silvers and Lori Widelitz-Cavallucci on designers and fear: http://2014.iasummit.org/were-not-worthy-understanding-and-escaping-imposter-syndrome/

I spoke with Melissa Perri about her experiences in product management and user experience in agile/lean teams.

Watch the interview.

Melissa’s company.

Melissa on Twitter: @lissijean

Links to things we talked about:

Open Sky: http://www.opensky.com/

Conductor: http://www.conductor.com/

MVP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Jared Miller (on Twitter): https://twitter.com/_JaredMiller

Scrumerfall: http://scrumpig.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/scrumerfall-scrum-waterfall-in-3-weeks/

Design studio: http://tlclabs.co/articles/

I spoke with Nikita Dyer, Sr. Product Manager at Knewton, about her experience working with agile teams in educational technology. One thing came through loud and clear. It’s all about the team.

Watch the interview.

Knewton.

Nikita on Twitter: @nikitadyer

Links to things we talked about:

Planning poker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker

Fibonacci method: http://andystitt.com/agile-estimation-using-the-fibonacci-sequence/

Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Pivotal Tracker: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/

Pixable: http://www.pixable.com/

I spoke with Tonya McCarley about her experiences moving from waterfall to agile, and how agile design and development is done at JSTOR, a digital library of academic texts and a division of Ithaka.

Watch the interview.

Ithaka.

JSTOR.

Tonya on Twitter: @tmccarley

Links to things we talked about:

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_interaction

Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Morae: http://www.techsmith.com/morae.html

Will Evans: http://www.semanticfoundry.com/

Design studio methodology: https://vimeo.com/37861987

Design jams: http://www.designjams.org/

I spoke with Lane Halley about how to mesh good user experience and design practices with agile teams and lean startups.

Watch the video.

Lane’s website.

Lane on Twitter: @thinknow

Links to subjects discussed in the interview:

Eric Evans and domain-driven design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-driven_design

Tim McCoy on integrated teams: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2011/02/lean_ux_product_stewardship_an

The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507
Luxr: http://luxr.co/

Carbon Five: http://www.carbonfive.com/

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries: http://theleanstartup.com/

Steve Blank on customer development: http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/

Ash Maurya on innovation accounting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU3MZXW3uXw

Jeff Gothelf on hypothesis-driven design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq_4UPGKEkE&feature=youtu.be

The Ladders: http://www.theladders.com/

Luke Hohmann and Innovation Games: http://www.innovationgames.com/about/team/luke-hohmann/

Knowsy: http://www.innovationgames.com/knowsy/

Ian McFarland: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ian-mcfarland/0/12/539

Jared Spool on the magical short-form creative brief: http://www.uie.com/articles/short_form_creative_brief/

Jeff Patton on story mapping: http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/the_new_backlog.html

I spoke with Eleanor Vajzovic about agile innovation, how to create a backlog of awesomeness, getting over fears, stories about moving from waterfall to agile, and more.

Watch the interview.

Eleanor’s team at Adecco.

Eleanor on Twitter: @evinterests

Links to topics and tools discussed in the interview:

Trello: https://trello.com/

Spotfire: http://spotfire.tibco.com/

KPIs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_performance_indicator

The Multipliers by Liz Wiseman: http://www.amazon.com/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-Everyone-Smarter/dp/0061964395

Liz Wiseman speaking: http://thewisemangroup.com/vids/

I spoke with Carolyn Taylor about what it means to have an agile culture, and her experiences helping leaders and large organizations shift their organizational cultures to be more agile and innovative.

Watch the interview.

Carolyn’s website.