Better Outcomes

There's a lot of talk about focusing on 'outcomes'.

This mainly originates from LeanUX-land, and the mantra, 'Outcomes over Outputs', which as soundbites go, is mainly good advice, but it's also exactly the kind of catchy, short form, tweetable phrase that is memorable and repeatable, but on it's own, not that actionable.

So, better outcomes...

We'd all like better outcomes, but what does that mean? And what will it take to get us there?

I'm an generally a bit of an idealist, so I'd like to think that means to really succeed, they need to be better for everyone, (and society, and the planet, and the future).

Better:

• Clarity on "Why".
• Focus on customer needs
• Discovery & Research
• Collaboration
• Communication (in every direction)
• Meetings & workshops
• Goal Definition and alignment
• Planning
• Progress tracking and reporting
• Visibility across Dev, UX, PM, Org
• Continuous learning & Iterative improvement
• Autonomy based on trust with responsibility
• Procedures and processes everywhere (More human, less bureaucratic)
• Culture of inclusivity and contribution

If... we can achieve all of these we'll have happier customers, empowered teams, who are solving real problems for customers and creating actual value for their organisations.

Uhhh, that's quite a lot of things...

Maybe we can work through that list and it'll all be good?

Well, it's not really a list...it's more like this.

So, where do we start? Of course, in time honoured fashion, it depends.

• It depends on where you are in your product/service/project lifecycle.
• It depends on where your organisation is culturally.
• It depends where your team(s) are at in both maturity, resilience, happiness and how much friction they can tolerate/thrive on.

Well that's not very helpful it is, what do I do now?

I am going to try and answer that in the next blog post "So, where to start?"