Hyperact

Does the go-to-market strategy for an AI product differ from a traditional software product? And what surprises are product leaders uncovering when launching AI products? These are just two of the questions we’ll explore in our next event, in January 2025. After the success of our last Leeds event, where we explored the convergence of product and tech leadership, this time we’re focusing on the lessons from productising AI and uncovering the realities of bringing AI products to market. We hope to see you there? This time we’ll be hosting the event in Manchester, at the Auto Trader UK offices. 

Last week, the team toasted 2024's successes over dinner at Skosh in York where our smiles were as abundant as the dishes. 😚👌 From winning start-up of the year, to growing the team. Delivering support when our clients need it most. Whilst being a shoulder to lean on for leaders, navigating complex challenges of the future. Oh and we can’t fail to mention an unforgettable weekend at the Edinburgh Fringe, celebrating our second birthday, nor hosting a panel discussion at the Leeds Digital Festival. And thank you to those who have invited us to get involved at various Product Tanks events in Manchester and Leeds, and getting us on podcasts to share our expertise. Here’s to 2025!

Are you looking to attend more events in 2025? Between us, the team often collect and share interesting events coming up. Given we are based out of Leeds and Manchester, we are lucky to have loads to pick from. We thought we'd go that extra step and share our favourites or some of the events we’re keeping a close eye on next year. If you are planning to attend more events in 2025 - look no further! We've included: • General tech conferences • Product management conferences • Design conferences • Engineering conferences • Start-up and funding conferences Whilst we were pulling this together, we thought we'd also add in a quick description, a link to the conference website, location, usual month, and also when the call for speakers is - for all your planning needs! If you think we've missed any, get in touch! https://lnkd.in/eJURyk22

Use this list to build confidence in your product leadership, reduce the stress on your teams, and gain clarity on barriers to growth. Common challenges to overcome: 🗣️ “We aren’t shipping fast enough” 🗣️ “We need to deliver feature x in the next six months, but the next eight quarters are already packed out” 🗣️ “We can’t onboard new customers” (because of our tech stack or can’t onboard them fast enough) If this is happening to you, then it could be one or more of these 14 root causes: • Poor cross-team alignment • Centralised decision making • Lack of delivery management • Unclear focus • Poor organisational design • Low product quality • Customer support challenges • Lack of direct user research • Lack of product data • Creaking architecture • Lack of automation • Lack of skills • Lack of people • Product and sales misalignment It’s a lot of complexity, and it can be hard to know where to start. In our experience however, addressing just one of these problems can lead to positive changes in several other areas. → Comment "growth" and we'll send you our barriers to growth article that can help you address each problem. (Or search for "Hyperact Diagnose and overcome common barriers to scale")

Product metrics can tell you whether your users are finding value, and if they’re sticking around or drifting away. Metrics tell a story. The kind of story that can drive change, spark growth, and help you see where things need attention. They’re an effective tool for: • Sharpening focus, alignment, and accountability • Helping you spot problems before they snowball • Making decisions based on data, so you can experiment with confidence 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 Putting this into practice is often more complicated than you think. ↪ What should and shouldn’t we be measuring? ↪ How do we connect our product’s functionality and experience to our business level metrics? ↪ What makes a good metric? That’s where a solid product metric framework can help. We've reviewed three of the most popular: 1. AARRR (Pirate Metrics) 2. HEART 3. North Star Framework In this article we break each one down, see what they’re good for and what they’re not so good for, to help you choose the best one for your team or organisation. https://lnkd.in/eyspbZ5k

Do you have a lack of research candidates? This can happen when your product has a very specific market. Thankfully it doesn’t mean you have to put the brakes on discovery. 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 If others in your organisation are also feeling the pinch, reach out. See if you can work together and get the most out of the smaller pool of budget or research candidates. In doing so, you may also find that you were duplicating some elements of discovery, and you’ll also put yourselves in better stead to harness each other’s insights. 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀, 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆, 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀, 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺𝘀 Can you short-circuit your constraints? Scraping together five or ten candidates from a pool of friends, family, or colleagues in another area can sometimes be enough to give you some signals. For more niche products, forums like Reddit can be a good fishing ground for willing participants. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 This is critical for a B2B product, and a really useful avenue for getting access to all sorts of discovery gold. Seeking feedback directly from paying customers brings its own challenges, but the benefits greatly outweigh any drawbacks. 𝗨𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 It doesn’t all have to be about primary user research. Is there anything else you could do to help you validate your assumptions, or inform your decision-making? An example could be analysing secondary user feedback from contact centre data or third-party reviews such as Trustpilot. 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 This won’t work for all products, and often seen as a last resort - you need to have a broad user base (and you’ll need to have thick skin).

Are you looking to improve collaboration and productivity as a team? You’ll know that in today’s fast-paced, global economy, traditional forms of communication such as meetings and email are no longer sufficient to keep teams on the same page. This is where lean comms come into play. In our article “Lean comms: Maximise productivity and collaboration” we share how we: ➞ Aim to reduce confusion and stress whilst making collaboration smoother and more enjoyable. ➞ Approach asynchronous communication where people have more control over their time and schedules. ➞ Keep everyone informed and aligned on progress and decisions whilst building trust and belonging within the team. ➞ Record as we go by generating clear artefacts, ensuring knowledge is collected (reducing the need to reexplain concepts, over and over again). ➞ Establish feedback loops so we can continually improve how we communicate and our processes. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/eq8fWmiK

We made a podcast appearance! Hyperact co-founder Sam Quayle appeared on the latest Everyday Agile podcast, discussing: • Insights on product design • Challenges in transformation • Understanding design in tech • What makes good design? • The importance of user research You can listen back here: https://lnkd.in/eW_UAgeX Or watch:  https://lnkd.in/eAyedcaC

The highly opinionated topic of task boards. Here's our opinion. Visualising your workflow is an essential technique for teams looking to improve their efficiency and collaboration and a useful skill to practice. Granted there is no right or wrong way and we firmly believe it should be down to the team to decide how they work. Not imposed from above. But if you are curious about our approach, then here it is. We often see a disconnect between how discovery and delivery work are managed and visualised, so we’ve written about our approach to solving this. We cover: ➊ Our single, end-to-end task board that encourages visibility and reduces hand-offs — we use this to bridge discovery and delivery tasks. ➋ When to tailor the board to your team's needs and split your task board. Adjust as necessary to balance cognitive load and efficiency, splitting into discovery and delivery boards. ➌ How we incorporate discovery checkpoints, define readiness criteria for smooth delivery and optimise for team ownership and agility. https://lnkd.in/eUx5Z_Mv

You’ve done the discovery but things aren’t adding up… A trap product teams can sometimes fall into: discovery-to-delivery disconnect To explain… You’ve got the balance right: Focused ✅ High-quality ✅ Continuous discovery is very much the order of the day ✅ But the things you’re building don’t quite seem to align. … or worse still you find that you are rarely acting on your discovery insights. Here’s what you can do: https://lnkd.in/e4yiGMEu #Discovery #Product #Hyperact