Most of the time, during the development stage of a certain project, we are often focused on the functional side of things. While there is nothing wrong with making sure that features works 100%, bug-free and delivered on-time, I believe that design should have it’s own place in the cycle.
It is often overlooked that people who will be using the product is not only driven by the features but also by the visual experience delivered by the design.
Designs are a product of intensive thought-process from UX to UI to make sure that the product is not only functional but also engages users to stay, interact and have a better experience which makes it as equally as important as the functional features.
<h2>What is Design QA?</h2>
Design QA is a process of making sure that visual designs, micro interactions, and copywriting are properly followed throughout the development process.
A Design <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/5-myths-about-qa-and-testing/">QA&#8217;s</a> main objective is to make sure that production is carried out with the required level of quality and design output.
<h2>The Challenge of Implementing Design QA?</h2>
Initially, design QA can be extremely difficult. It can eat up time during a sprint and be quite costly. However, incorporating it into your process ensures high-quality output and better user experiences.
<img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2422" src="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Design-QA-workflow-300x128.png" alt="" width="300" height="128" srcset="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Design-QA-workflow-300x128.png 300w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Design-QA-workflow-1024x437.png 1024w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Design-QA-workflow-768x328.png 768w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Design-QA-workflow.png 1476w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The challenge of adding <a href="https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/what-the-design-qa-process-means-for-products-and-how-to-do-it-7484e5eaa4e2">Design QA</a> layer in the workflow may receive a lot of friction from the whole team especially the front-end developers.
Devs may want to focus on integrating the API endpoints to their work instead of adjusting paddings, colors and spacings but the moment the team starts doing this, we can be able to reduce design debt which is “all the good design concepts or solutions that you skipped in order to reach short-term goals”
While it is always good to focus on skipping some design details specially when we are pushing for a faster delivery, if we continue neglecting Design QA and the product is out, we’ll realize that no matter how optimized our code structure is, if the interface looks totally out of place, all of our efforts will be futile.
If we continue neglecting Design QA and the product is out, we’ll realize that no matter how optimized our code structure is, if the interface looks totally out of place, all of our efforts will be futile.
<h3>“Users interact with the interface, not with the code.”</h3>
In the art world, there is always the conflict between form and function and I believe that a balance of a high functioning code and a powerful visual component is what makes a highly successful project.
Apps needs to be a multi-sensory experience. Design, ease-of-use as well as audio will give another layer of flavor.

Importance of Design QA workflow

<div class="available-content">
<div class="body markup" dir="auto">
When I was starting out I didn’t have a large team or a long runway to experiment with products and features. Despite those constraints, I was always the one who advocated getting the design just right and adding a few small features that would make all the difference in the product.
&nbsp;
Building products is exciting work! The thrill of putting pen to paper, sketching things out and seeing those things come to life is the trip that most product founders live for.
&nbsp;
It is also a primary leading source of death for most startups.
&nbsp;
Building something that no one wants.
&nbsp;
I have become more self-aware when I start to go overboard with product development over the last couple of years. However, days like today I fail at holding that line. During a product scoping meeting I bulldozed my way through getting an additional piece of software added to the scope.
&nbsp;
I am very thankful to have a team around me that is able to use inversion to get my heads out of the cloud and onto what truly matters.
&nbsp;
</div>
<div class="body markup" dir="auto">
<blockquote>Getting engaged customers. Nothing else matters in the early stages of a startup.
&nbsp;</blockquote>
Here are a couple of things I am doing to hold myself more accountable and not be the person on the team who is continuously pushing scope creep:
<ol>
<li>Our <a href="https://identifi.substack.com/p/early-optimal-work-cyclesa35ee6265df9" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">shorter work cycles</a> are the ultimate constraints as we can only fit a very specific amount of work into the queue. While sometimes I am the product managers and designers worst nightmare, the damage remains limited to the design stage and doesn’t get pushed to engineering.</li>
<li>We have created a meta map of the top line functionality of the product which avoids us moving wide into tangential new features. While this doesn’t stop going more granular on features it does slow down the surface area of feature/scope creep to a limited zone.</li>
<li>Empowering the team to challenge and use inversion frequently about why the feature may make the experience worse for users. This is hard to do as founders can be very forceful with their vision. It requires a high level of self-belief in the team’s capability in their own domains.</li>
<li>Using time to value metrics to benchmark experience. In the early stages of product building any feature or scope addition that doesn’t make the initial experience and establish habit loops isn’t accretive.</li>
</ol>
Building a good product is difficult. There isn’t a perfect formula to how big or small your MVP needs to be. It depends on who your <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/who-is-your-customer-2/">customer</a> is, the severity of the problem you are solving for and how quickly you can deliver a meaningful experience to the customer that makes them stick.
</div>
</div>
<div class="visibility-check"></div>
<div class="post-end-cta-full">
<div class="visibility-check"></div>
</div>

One more Feature

<blockquote>
<h3 class="subtitle">“The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.” &#8211; Sybil F. Stershic</h3>
</blockquote>
<div class="post-subheader meta-subheader">
<div class="right">
<div class="post-ufi style-button themed">
<div class="">
<div class="available-content">
<div class="body markup" dir="auto">
There is a common belief that your best people need the least time and attention from the leadership. They are these highly motivated individuals who with some direction can move mountains and generate outsized returns for your business.
I wish that belief was true.
While I am sure we hear about the fabled stories of individual contributors who were able to come up with breakthroughs that changed the fate of the company, those are usually the exception and not the norm.
As someone who has built multiple companies from 1 to over 100+ employees, the successful ones have involved my taking an inordinate amount of time crafting the employee experience in great detail. 
There isn’t a single magic bullet that I can give you which will help you get high engaged team members overnight. Here are a few tips on what has worked for us:
<ol>
<li>Building a high trust environment: I have a personal principle that I call <a href="https://share.descript.com/embed/zE1EEFVJWau" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Trust First</a>. By building an environment where the default stance is for you to be trusted rather than ‘earn’ the trust, everything moves faster. It helps build confidence for everyone on the team to stretch themselves and know that the company will do right by them if things don’t work out. Leaders keep promises and commitments and create a stable environment. Without this core tenet, I believe a business will struggle to nurture highly engaged employees.</li>
<li>Empowerment with <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/the-five-levels-of-autonomous-organizations-2/">autonomy</a>: Most businesses talk about empowering their team and then strangle them processes that slowly bleed them dry. Engaged employees need a defined wide space to operate in. Leadership needs to establish the parameters and then let them find their own path. Autonomy gives them the freedom to experiment and in a high trust environment, they thrive.</li>
<li>Real-time coaching and building relationships: Hoping to send your staff on a retreat or installing a piece of software isn’t going to do the hard work of building relationships. Practices such as 1-1’s are a central component in creating a space where everyone in the company gets immediate feedback and coaching on how they are doing. People only take this seriously when they are treated as partners. When they understand the bigger picture and how they fit into that narrative.</li>
<li>Values alignment: If two people have a singular goal but opposing value sets I believe it is going to be very difficult to create an engaged unit. Many companies pay lip service to have a set of values on their website. Very few of them integrate them into their core processes of recruiting, performance evaluations, recognition programs and their day to day communication. As a result, they build teams without a core that binds the team together. Values are an integral part of building a highly engaged workforce.</li>
<li>Recognizing excellence: The world is filled with recognition tools and training that organizations can deploy to increase ‘engagement’. I call BS on most of these tools that are using the outdated carrot and sticks model for engagement. What may have worked for the industrial age doens’t work for knowledge workers. Recognizing excellence requires us to have a set of clearly defined values and behaviours that we know deliver results. More than just giving the person a badge we need to coach them, challenge them and continue to create a pathway for them to do great work.</li>
</ol>
Every CEO wants a highly engaged workforce. Yet, a large majority of leaders are not ready to put in the time and effort that is required to get to that level. It is either because they do not know where to start or have other short term objectives.
At Identifi we are looking to work with leaders who are serious about investing in building an organization that is filled with highly engaged employees. Reach out if you want to be part of our early beta program. We are looking to work with leaders who are managing teams/companies of at least 50 &#8211; 250 individuals.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

The Secret behind Engaged Employees

One of our team members shared this post which goes into detail why the creator community needs to reward quality artwork over quantity. He has an interesting observation which is:
<a href="https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1354151043014287363?s=20"><img class="wp-image-2383 aligncenter" src="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-11-at-1.37.34-PM-300x153.png" alt="" width="377" height="192" srcset="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-11-at-1.37.34-PM-300x153.png 300w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-11-at-1.37.34-PM-1024x523.png 1024w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-11-at-1.37.34-PM-768x392.png 768w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-11-at-1.37.34-PM.png 1210w" sizes="(max-width: 377px) 100vw, 377px" /></a>
<div class="tweet" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1354151043014287363?s=20&quot;,&quot;full_text&quot;:&quot;I’ll concede that quantity can lead to quality. That’s true, and new creators should work daily and publish as often as possible.\n\nBut once that becomes a habit, your attention should shift towards quality — the stuff of your life’s work. But today, the incentives are misaligned.&quot;,&quot;username&quot;:&quot;david_perell&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;David Perell&quot;,&quot;date&quot;:&quot;Tue Jan 26 19:35:42 +0000 2021&quot;,&quot;photos&quot;:[],&quot;quoted_tweet&quot;:{},&quot;retweet_count&quot;:1,&quot;like_count&quot;:25,&quot;expanded_url&quot;:{},&quot;video_url&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false}"></div>
&nbsp;
Most people never get to the point where they can create art without large amounts of friction. Amateurs usually have visions of grandeur and talk a big game, when it comes to putting in the work to build those key habits, they always have an excuse.
The amateur worries about perfecting every sentence before they learn how to put pen to paper. They let their imaginations run wild and as a result, never get to the point where they need to execute.
Undisciplined imagination is usually the obstacle that gets the amateur stuck.
At our company, one of our core values is being learning machines. We have several processes in place that promote the creation of systems rather than vague goals. Yet, very few people build the habit of building their skills on a day to day basis.
The large majority of people need to <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/components-of-a-winning-attitude/">focus</a> on putting in the reps and focus on quantity rather than quality. Only when you have achieved the point where you can discipline your imagination and have learned the skills to direct your creative energy does one aim for quality.
Unfortunately, most people live life in reverse and never build the habits ever to do epic work.
<div>
<hr />
</div>
<h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget">🧰 Resources</h2>
<div id="§-resources" class="header-anchor-widget">
<div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container">
📚 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17859574-how-to-fail-at-almost-everything-and-still-win-big" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big</a>
Scott Adams is a brilliant author and I enjoy all of his creative work from the cartoon series Dilbert to the many books he has written. In this book, he goes into the importance of building systems over goals. Providing examples from his own life which help to solidify the important principles.
</div>
</div>

Quality over quantity

No matter how hard we work to hide our true self. It finds a way to the surface. The fact of the matter is that we always project outside what we feel on the inside.
I was speaking to someone who was very chirpy on the surface. As we spoke longer, several negatives began to drop into the conversation (Active listening is one of the critical superpowers anyone can develop).
Soon we began to talk about their future and how they saw it from a pessimistic lens rather than an optimistic one.
Our future outlook has a direct impact on our attitude towards life. When our expectations do not match our reality, we tend to have a pessimistic view of the world.

<blockquote>
<h3 class="subtitle"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=charles+r+swindoll&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8">Attitude is more important than the past</a>, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill &#8211;</h3>
<h3 class="subtitle">Charles R. Swindoll</h3>
<div class="post-subheader meta-subheader">
<div class="left">
<div class="facepile bylines-facepile">
<div class="facepile-faces">
<div class="profile-hover-wrapper"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
There are three things I have found constant among people who have a winning attitude.
There is no secret behind what they are:
1. Vivid North Star: We need to know where we are going in life. Without some direction, it is like having a weight attached to your ankle that stops you accelerating. Many people confuse goals with north stars. Once achieved, they lose the zest for life and their attitude with it. The &#8216;why&#8217; behind your <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/planning-ahead/">goals</a> is more important than the goals themselves. 
2. Unshakable Confidence: When we look at the people who have accomplished great things. Whether that be in politics, science, sports or business, they all achieved things that didn&#8217;t seem possible initially. They had to establish within themselves that belief that they are capable of achieving these ambitious goals. Along the way, they all faced significant setbacks. Obstacles that broke them down. At this point, most people lose their confidence. However, they ploughed through and ended up being part of the group of people that changed the world.
3. Extraordinary Effort: Winners know that they need to match their ambition with the corresponding amount of effort to achieve their goals. However, many people work very hard but do not get the results they want. Test their confidence, and this is when they waver. The trick here is to make sure your priorities and goals are in sync. The right actions will take you outside your comfort zone. Repeating this daily with consistent effort is what gets you past the finishing line.
If you were to sum it up:
Vivid North Star + Unshakable Confidence + Extraordinary Effort = Winning Attitude
There are so many people in the world who work hard but do not get the results they want because they are missing one of the three factors.
When you are clear on the goals you want to achieve and have the confidence, there is nothing in this world that can stop you from achieving your dreams.

Components of a Winning Attitude

We have sessions every week about the product we are building and I get the entire team to contribute thoughts on how we can make improve our foundation.
Most of the time our discussions revolve around the 10% incremental changes we could make that could improve the product. The truth is that it takes the same amount of effort to build a 10% better product and a 10X better product. 
Startups that straddle the safe option with some bravery sprinkled into the mix never win big. They relegate themselves to the group of forgotten pieces of software that never have a meaningful impact on the world.
10X thinking requires you to have an opinion on where the world is going. Teams need to lean on bravery and creativity rather than taking the safe path.
This way of thinking is challenging for most people. We have been brainwashed into picking the safe path, the one where we can see all the steps before we start the journey. Where we can measure our effort and not the impact.
To enable this type of environment we need to have a transparent culture, one that promotes openness and where people are brave enough to fail. 
At <a href="https://www.identifi.com">Identifi</a> we are building products that we hope will be an integral part of how all of us will work in the future. Where teams will be distributed, will rely heavily on async work and yet need to feel that they are connected to a core.
As someone who has spent over 14 years in the people management space, I am a firm believer that most products in this category are becoming incrementally better. They have their roots based on a world view that is very different from the world we live in today.
We don’t need another HR product, we need a whole new way of imagining of how will<a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/positioning-talent/"> teams work</a> and grow together today.
<div>
<hr />
</div>
<h2>🧰 Resources</h2>
📝 <a href="https://hackernoon.com/moonshot-thinking-growth-marketing-is-all-about-the-10x-rule-f2b3189db7db" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Moonshot Thinking</a>
This article has many great references that you can refer to from Astro Teller at Google to Peter Thiel talking about the power of thinking big.
📺 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h5lCPpccAA" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">10x Not 10% Product management by orders of magnitude</a>
This is a great video that every founder and product manager needs to watch. Ken Norton is an accomplished product leader at Google and this talk is one that I refer back to regularly whenever I think about 10X products.
📚<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39863447-loonshots" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries</a>
This was one of my favourite reads of 2019. The <a href="https://tim.blog/2019/03/15/safi-bahcall-loonshots/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">author’s interview with Tim Ferris</a> is also one that I would highly recommend for people to watch as well.
📝 <a href="https://www.usertesting.com/blog/10x-products" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">How to Build Products That Are 10x Better Than the Competition</a>
This article provides an expansion on some of the points that were listed above.

10x Products

As a company grows, it becomes critical for each individual to know how they contribute to its growth. A common mistake is to assume that your title alone determines that position for you. 
At a company, at any one moment in time, several initiatives are happening simultaneously. A few of those initiatives will be the highest priority (P1), others&#8217; mid priority (P2), and some low priority (P3) ones.
<blockquote>“Strategy is style of thinking, a conscious and deliberate process, an intensive implementation system, the science of insuring future success.” Pete Johnson</blockquote>
It is only natural that most people try to <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/position-or-be-positioned/">position</a> themselves on the highest priority initiatives. First off, these projects ideally are <a href="https://identifi.substack.com/p/high-conviction-asymmetric-bets" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">high conviction high asymmetric bets</a>. Which makes them risky are the ones that are most likely to face the greatest amount of volatility. The internal competition for these is the highest, and management will closely watch contribution.
Unfortunately, the aggregation of strong talent in these P1 priorities slows companies down, and inefficiencies start to creep in. Management can easily do a couple of things that will unlock productivity if they do see this happening:
<ol>
<li>Position your highest performers on the P1 priorities that are ready to take on the volatility and have the experience to deliver. Placing early rising stars into these opportunities is risky, and those individuals may not be ready for them yet.</li>
<li>Use P2 priorities to position your rising stars as these initiatives benefit from the momentum a growing organization will be experiencing. These are sweet spots and also where a company can unlock massive amounts of innovation and productivity.</li>
<li>Use P3 priorities for individuals who may be struggling and need easy wins to move forward. Another common mistake is to leave recent strong hires on these priorities for too long.</li>
</ol>
Every individual in a company needs to be able to benchmark their contribution and output to company objectives. This alignment helps to distribute opportunities strategically across the organization and unlocks massive productivity and efficiency gain.

Positioning talent

Speak to anyone startup founder, and they will answer this customer is some shape or form.
Dig a little deeper on the vague description they may have provided, and that is when the wheels start to come apart.
Entrepreneurs fall prey to confirmation bias very easily.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one&#8217;s prior beliefs or values.
When we finally stumbled onto a profitable target segment with Identifi for the first time, my primary customer was multinational companies based in APAC with a large distributed salesforce. Scratching the surface one can find many cracks on a seemingly decent answer.
First off, who was my primary customer and what was the job they wanted to be done? Initially, I thought we were selling HR software; thus, the buyer ultimately is going to be the head of HR. (Wrong answer, I discovered the hard way).
I fell into the confirmation bias trap, and I did not speak with enough companies to truly validate our hypothesis.
<a href="https://twitter.com/paulg/status/898476047263518720?s=20" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Paul Graham says that talking to your customers</a> is the most frequent he gives to founders that are just starting.
For the rebuild that we are currently doing with the product, we have a specific type of company and person we are targeting. We are still working through this, and as we collect more data, I will update this.
Our current customer is the founder of a remote-distributed company with over 50 employees. The primary problem they are currently facing is providing visibility as to who does what at the company. The secondary problem is sending out broadcasts about company plans and significant events through a medium that encourages discussion and reactions. (Slack/WhatsApp is the default medium due to the noise and lack of threaded responses in WhatsApp make it challenging to use).
I do not think we have spoken with enough companies and intend to ramp that up this month before our beta release.
One of my favourite question sets is from <a href="https://davidcummings.org/2015/11/25/6-customer-development-questions/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">David Cummings</a>, who has a treasure trove of SaaS related posts for founders.
If you are looking to build or are building a business, my advice is to do the uncomfortable act of going and speaking to your customer.
Don&#8217;t fall prey to making assumptions about needs. You may think this will slow you down; however, getting to the top doesn&#8217;t make a difference if you are climbing the wrong wall.
<h2>Resources</h2>
<a href="https://davidcummings.org/2015/11/25/6-customer-development-questions/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">6 Customer Development Questions</a>
This list of questions is straightforward and helps you get the prospect to talk about how they are going to do things today.
<a href="https://fs.blog/2017/05/confirmation-bias/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Confirmation Bias And the Power of Disconfirming Evidence</a>
Farnam Street is one of my must-read blogs. This post dives deep into the working of our confirmation biases.
<a href="https://kromatic.com/blog/how-asking-works-a-crash-course-in-customer-discovery-questions/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">How Asking Works: A Crash Course in Customer Discovery Questions</a>
I like how this blog breaks down the process of talking to customers with an example that helps you follow along.
<a href="https://www.strategyandsourdough.com/episodes/research" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Customer Research Tips &amp; Techniques</a>
A friend and hosts this podcast and is doing a great job in covering important topics on marketing. They go into detail on getting into the right mindset before getting started with your research.

Who is your customer?

<a href="https://automattic.com">Automattic</a> is one of the largest fully distributed companies in the world. It is most well known for WordPress.com and the contributions to the opensource platform WordPress. They currently have over 1300 employees and are growing quickly.
In March of 2020, I heard Matt talk about the future of work on Sam Harris’ podcast which I would highly recommend. (Links in resources)
The part which stayed with me was his break down on the five levels of autonomous organizations and how organizations progress through the levels.
<img class=" wp-image-2319 aligncenter" src="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/conceptual-framework-300x161.jpg" alt="" width="592" height="317" srcset="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/conceptual-framework-300x161.jpg 300w, https://wordpress.highoutput.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/conceptual-framework.jpg 580w" sizes="(max-width: 592px) 100vw, 592px" />
I will quickly go through the levels which you can read about in more detail from Matt’s own blog where he goes through them in detail.
Level 1 &#8211; Can’t be away from the office for more than a few days
At this level, the company has no infrastructure in place to promote distributed work. The assumption is that all work needs to be done in the office. Constraints like VPN or in-person discussions with no online presence make it nearly impossible to work outside of the office.
Level 2 &#8211; Basic tools in place without any supporting structure
Most companies find themselves at this point where they have tools like Zoom/Slack/Teams. However, everything needs people online at the same time. Very little effort has been put to support any asynchronous work.
Level 3 &#8211; Investing in processes and tools to promote async work
At this level, companies have begun to start putting in processes that support async processes. A proper wiki/documentation culture is in place and people have the option to not be in every meeting and still know what happened. Companies such as HOV find themselves with a foot in this level and another one in Level 4.
Level 4 &#8211; Completely embracing async processes as the norm
Companies at this level can hire from anywhere in the world. If the company has invested heavily in handoff processes you could theoretically be working 24 hours a day with people from all around the world. There is deep trust with the people you work with and complete transparency as to who is responsible for what.
Level 5 &#8211; Nirvana
In Matt’s framework, this is the aspirational level. Where your company would consistently perform better than <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/culture-and-consumer-insights/">any in-person</a> organization could. Where everyone at the company would have a rich life at and outside work.
I was reflecting on where <a href="https://www.identifi.com">Identifi</a> sits in the framework today. It is squarely in taking organizations from Level 2 and 3 and getting them to Level 4 ideally or a high level 3.
In the episodes linked below Matt talks about a lot of custom software that they run internally to have enabled them to scale to Level 4. I believe that is where the opportunity for Identifi is and the product we are building addresses many of the pain points companies will have with the progression.
Resources
<a href="https://ma.tt/2020/04/five-levels-of-autonomy/">📝 Distributed Work’s Five Levels of Autonomy</a>
Matt’s original article outlining his framework. It goes into more detail on each of the levels and provides some good links to resources for you to read up more on.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJSf2Clx6qY">📹 The New Future Of Work (with Matt Mullenweg)- Sam Harris Podcast</a>
This is a far-ranging discussion on the future of work. Matt has a front-row seat to this new world and talks about many trends he sees coming.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49HSZ4JQlHY&amp;feature=youtu.be">📹 Matt Mullenweg: Collaboration Is Key | The Knowledge Project</a>
Shane Parish recently had Matt on his podcast and it was a great discussion where he speaks about the levels as well as the drawbacks of distributed work. I particularly enjoyed this discussion and there are some great takeaways that I will document later.

The Five Levels of Autonomous Organizations

One of the books I enjoyed recently reading was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53138083-working-backwards" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Working Backwards</a>. Both authors had a long tenure at Amazon and worked closely with Jeff Bezos in building the company that we see today. There are several strategies within the book that are very helpful for growing companies.
One of my favourite strategies in the book was an internal communication strategy called the PR/FAQ. Given that Amazon has &#8216;customer first&#8217; as the core ethos, this document made a lot of sense. Whenever a team would pitch a new idea, they would need to write a press release and internal FAQ to all major stakeholders.
The PR document is structured using the following outline:
<ol>
<li>Headline: The first sentence of the press release describes the product from a customer angle with simple words.</li>
<li>Sub-headline: The next part describes the customer for the product and the benefits they would accrue from it.</li>
<li>Summary: Next, we let the audience know when it will be launching and a few more detail about the product and its benefits.</li>
<li>Problem: We go deeper into the problem the product is solving and frame it from a customers point of view.</li>
<li>Solution: Finally, presenting our solution and going into some detail as to how our product solves the customer problem.</li>
<li>Quotes and Getting Started: Concluding the press release with a fictitious quote from someone on the team and providing a link stating how customers can get more information or buy.</li>
</ol>
The FAQ component is more for an internal company review. Questions that may have to do with the customer&#8217;s needs or market size, the economics of the proposed solution and any dependencies that may be present that may hinder the launch. Some sample questions are:
<ul>
<li>How many consumers have this need or problem?</li>
<li>How big is the need?</li>
<li>What are the per-unit economics of the device?</li>
<li>Are there any third-party technologies we are dependent on?</li>
</ul>
If you are looking to <a href="https://wordpress.highoutput.io/8-simple-steps-to-build-a-unicorn/">start</a> a new project/company, I would strongly recommend putting together a PR/FAQ and showing it to people. While on the surface, it looks simple, it challenges you in many ways.
<div>
<hr />
</div>
<h2>🧰 Resources</h2>
📚 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53138083-working-backwards" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon</a>
Working Backwards is an insider&#8217;s breakdown of Amazon&#8217;s approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time, top-level Amazon executives.

Strategy tool: PR/FAQ

One of the discussions we had today was about the sales strategy about selling. We discussed many important topics such as category leadership, positioning ourselves correctly and defining that ideal customer.
All of these are a current work in progress and as we roll out to customers in the future for whichever product, we will get more clarity as have crisp answers for all three of those topics is critical to the success of any business.
The most interesting point in the discussion was about the sort of culture that our ideal customer has within their company. During the discussion, I was reminded of an organizational culture design model by Edgar Schein. The model has three components:
<ol>
<li>Artifacts: These are the visible aspects of the business. Their logos, the office design and how people dress etc. Assuming if a company adopts an open office design and a casual dress code with them being creative would be a mistake in the majority of cases.</li>
<li>Values &amp; Beliefs: The next component is all about the words and beliefs that the company declares to be core to who they are. Many businesses have very articulated values on their websites, yet when you were to interact with them you would have a very different experience.</li>
<li>Basic Assumptions: The final component is the most important in the model. These include the behavioural traits of the people within the business. The unwritten rules that determine how things get done. If you have a value of providing on-time delivery and the norm at the business is to go home at 5 pm regardless of delivery timelines, we have a major disconnect.</li>
</ol>
I am sharing the above model as one of the values that we were discussing our prospective customers was ‘openness’. Many business owners will strongly defend that they have an open culture that fosters creativity and innovation. However, when you take a look at their <a href="https://identifi.substack.com/p/harnessing-conways-law" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">communication patterns</a> you will find something very different.
Armed with this insight when we run our customer interviews and work with beta customers it will be essential to map basic cultural assumptions when building an ideal customer persona. 
<div>
<hr />
</div>
<h2>🧰 Resources</h2>
📚 <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-sg/Organizational+Culture+and+Leadership%2C+5th+Edition-p-9781119212041" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Organizational Culture and Leadership</a>
Edgar Schein is one of the pioneers in the field of organizational culture design. This book breaks down the model above in much granular detail and gives you a good understanding of the inter-relationship of organizational culture dynamics and leadership. Great for anyone who wants to get an overview of the topic.
📺 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSbBxwxZilY" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Edgar Schein&#8217;s Culture Model</a>
If you are short on time and want to get a good idea about the model and a practical example of how to use it, this video is a good primer on the topic.
📺 <a href="https://www.saastr.com/how-to-scale-an-open-culture-atlassian/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">How To Scale an Open Culture</a>
The way Atlassian has scaled its business has been awesome to watch. Hopefully, once you have read the post above and understand Schein’s model, give this video a watch and listen to how the founder speaks about the three components seamlessly.