Monthly Archives: September 2015

How to Create a Product Features Matrix

Need a product features matrix? If you have one product and one feature only, you probably don’t. If you can’t remember every feature, and the different benefits each offers, and the use cases, and the business rules, then you may need a feature matrix. Not convinced? Ever heard of Backrub? Well, grasshopper… Once upon a […]

When’s the last time you invested in yourself?

One of my friends, TP, doesn’t believe in buying books anymore. Or buying anything for that matter. “It’s all free,” he said. “You can get it on the internet. It’s all out there. You just need to search”. I think he’s overlooking something. Yes, some things are free but you only value what you really […]

How to Develop ‘Hub and Spoke’ Product Feature Pages

Summary: Key content requirements for software product feature pages are: introduce features, answer questions, and provide user stories. The Purpose of Product Feature Pages The product feature page is the front door to sales. It should be designed for customers searching for products that solves specific problems. This means that when designing the features page […]

Why grammar is (probably) not your problem

Know the difference between affect and effect? Or where to use that but not which? Or when to use which but not with a comma before it? I know. MS Word forbids it. But can expect from a bot? Anyway… You could fill several multi-story car parks with people who — or is it that? […]

How to Proofread when Totally Knackered at 1 am

I’ll be finished by nine, you tell yourself. After that, maybe a bit of Netflix. That’s at 7.30. Then someone comes over. “Just popped over for a minute.” You put the kettle on. 8.45 they’re still there. “I hate to be rude”, you stammer, “but there’s this report thingy…” It’s a bit awkward but they […]

Em Dash v En Dash

Noreen Malone, senior editor at New York magazine, admits what everyone else thinks about those pesky em-dashes. “The problem with the dash—as you may have noticed!—is that it discourages truly efficient writing. It also—and this might be its worst sin—disrupts the flow of a sentence. Don’t you find it annoying—and you can tell me if […]

The Right Way to Ask a Quick Question

Hate being interrupted? Who doesn’t. The thing is: sometimes you need to interrupt others too. If you start off with, ‘I just got a quick question…,’ their proton shields shoot up. Defense mode activated. Getting the response you were hoping for slips away… ‘Yeah, I’ll get back to you’, isn’t good enough when you need […]

Do you suffer for Busy Bee Syndrome? 3 Possible Cures

Peter Drucker, author of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said: “There is nothing so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.” On Tuesday, I overheard two people talking on the train. The first said, ‘You’re right. He’s always in early, and probably still there.’ He meant the office. It was 7.15 […]