Need someone to lead product management at your software company? I create software for people that create software and I'm looking for my next opportunity. Check out my resume and get in touch.

Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Software Management

Discover your inner hamster

Freshness Warning
This blog post is over 22 years old. It's possible that the information you read below isn't current and the links no longer work.

20 Jan 2002

All companies have business processes that are broken. Whether you require your customers to perform unneccessary, repetative steps or you do things manually that could be automated, your business is not running as smoothly as it should.

In Hunting the Killer Hamster, Business 2.0’s Thomas A. Stewart provides examples of inefficient, manual processes that hurt the cutomer experience From ATMs that can’t remember your language preference, to high-tech companies that use snail mail for simple forms and notifications, Stewart points out processes that seem like obvious candidates for streamlining, yet the companies in question haven’t figured it out.

Stewart’s advice? Create a team to track down your hamsters and straighten them out. Your customers will thank you for it.

Recently Written

Micromanaging and competence (Jul 2)
Providing feedback or instruction can be seen as micromanagement unless you provide context.
My productivity operating system (Jun 24)
A framework for super-charging productivity on the things that matter.
Great product managers own the outcomes (May 14)
Being a product manager means never having to say, "that's not my job."
Too Big To Fail (Apr 9)
When a company piles resources on a new product idea, it doesn't have room to fail. That keeps it from succeeding.
Go small (Apr 4)
The strengths of a large organization are the opposite of what makes innovation work. Starting something new requires that you start with a small team.
Start with a Belief (Apr 1)
You can't use data to build products unless you start with a hypothesis.
Mastery doesn’t come from perfect planning (Dec 21)
In a ceramics class, one group focused on a single perfect dish, while another made many with no quality focus. The result? A lesson in the value of practice over perfection.
The Dark Side of Input Metrics (Nov 27)
Using input metrics in the wrong way can cause unexpected behaviors, stifled creativity, and micromanagement.

Older...

What I'm Reading