Wendy Castleman
Launching into a New Year
Welcome to a new year! I realized that I haven’t sent an update in months, and this seems like a good time to let you know what’s up...
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Wendy Castleman
Jul 22, 20198 min read
They May Not Know The Problem
“No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime Membership.” — Jeff Bezos Although it is natural to assume that customer research is...
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Wendy Castleman
Jul 1, 20194 min read
Falling Off A Cliff: When to let change happen
I’ve been thinking about waterfalls lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the flow of water as an analogy to personal and...
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Wendy Castleman
Jun 29, 20194 min read
The Death of Best Practices
Have you been adopting “Best Practices” for your organization? For many years, I described the central design group that I used to work...
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Wendy Castleman
Jun 28, 20194 min read
We can't ignore the accelerating pace of change.
My grandfather was born in 1906 and died thirty years ago. I remember thinking about the changes he’d seen in his life. As a kid, most...
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Wendy Castleman
May 23, 20194 min read
Are you a multiplier?
Every person who takes action is important in creating a change. Every action they take adds to the impact that they make. For example,...
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Wendy Castleman
Feb 20, 20193 min read
Busyness is NOT a strategic choice
I was recently watching this video from Dorie Clark, who was talking with executives about how important taking time to think about...
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Wendy Castleman
Feb 19, 20192 min read
Starting a fire
On cold nights like this one, I nearly always think about having a fire in the fireplace. As I was thinking about the steps to starting a...
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Wendy Castleman
Dec 18, 20183 min read
Urgency Lessons
A friend recently was recently asked her to do something that was urgent for work, though she had more important things on her plate. By...
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Wendy Castleman
Aug 23, 20181 min read
Taking Time To Adjust
This sign once hung in a train station in England. A reminder to take a moment in the transition between things to reset and get ready....
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Wendy Castleman
Jul 5, 20181 min read
Sketchstorming for Alignment and Ideation
In June, I taught a course at UXPA on Sketchstorming for Alignment and Ideation. The class was focused on UX professionals who might...
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Wendy Castleman
May 7, 20182 min read
Customer Research Tip of the Month: Use These 3 Little Words:
My tip of the month is for using a simple phrase when doing customer research interviews with customers. These three little words carry a...
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Wendy Castleman
Apr 21, 20185 min read
8 Things You Can Do On A Site Visit
Site visits (aka Contextual Inquiry) are an amazingly rich source for customer understanding. We typically go on site visits when we are...
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Wendy Castleman
Apr 19, 20182 min read
10 things you can do with customers other than ask them what they want.
1. Shadow them doing their work. As you watch them capture several things: what are the tasks that they do (and what are the steps in...
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Wendy Castleman
Mar 27, 20185 min read
10 Surprising Lessons About Being A Strategic Leader
I was reflecting the other day about some of the more disconcerting lessons I’ve learned in my career. Many of them fell into the bucket...
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Wendy Castleman
Feb 26, 20184 min read
5 Questions for Engineers
I asked for a show of hands: "How many of you have built something that customers didn't use?" The entire room raised their hands. Some...
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Wendy Castleman
Feb 19, 20181 min read
How do you choose?
You've just had a brainstorm and generated a huge number of amazing ideas. How do you narrow down the options? There are a number of...
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Wendy Castleman
Jan 26, 20182 min read
Powerful Play
Play is good for you. It relieves stress, sparks creativity and releases endorphins. Play is highly underrated in work environments,...
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Wendy Castleman
Jan 11, 20181 min read
Pivot!
Ah, starting a new business. It is all about learning and pivoting. One of the things I have been doing is offering classes to...
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Wendy Castleman
Dec 29, 20174 min read
Resolution or Restrategy?
Every year is a new start. Every day, hour and moment is too, but with new years nearly half of Americans make “resolutions” for the next...
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