JL
Collected Thoughts
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Aboot
Jon Lax
Thoughts on systems, design and the management of both
v 0.4
The Craft
10 essays
Delight Comes Last
Designers fetishize delightful details — but beauty has two preconditions, and delight can't come before either of them.
MVPs
Definition of Done
Your Products Will Never Be Used as Designed
Known and Unknown
Designing Across Time Scales
The Product You Want to Build vs The Product You Can Build
Avoid 3 Miracle Problems
Comprehension > Comprehensiveness
Design Principles
Teams & Leadership
12 essays
Leadership Can Only Offer 3 Things
Leaders have far fewer tools than employees believe — and far less control than their position on the org chart suggests.
The Only Job a Manager Has
Rowing Together
Bad News Travels First
Moving The Ship
The Scaling Function of Teams
Duplicative Work
Formal and Informal Processes
When You're In The Shit, All You See is Shit
Values, Process and Resources
North Stars, Visions and Sprints
The Wisdom of Jim Barksdale
Economics & Value
6 essays
Value
The most important economic concept designers never learned: what value is, how it's measured, and how to design for it.
Nothing is Free
Inside an Enterprise There Are Only Costs
Control and Leverage
Value Is Always in Motion
The Purpose of a Brand
Platforms & Systems
8 essays
Competitive Mindset
How you frame the competition determines what you build — and most teams frame it wrong.
Platforms and Experiences
First, Second and Third Party Apps
Enforcement
The Conditions of Modularity
Centralization vs Decentralization
The Relentless Inevitable
Everything is a tool. Reach for the right one.
Career
6 essays
Making Career Decisions
Three dials — personal, financial, professional — and the mix that's right for you now is wrong for you later.
Autonomy and Ambiguity Define Your Career
More Swings At The Plate
Most Decisions Are Not One Way Doors
"If" vs "When"
Yes, if