Learn how to be a wildly successful small business programmer

Month: July 2017

How a Google experiment saved my ass

Let me tell you about the time a Google experiment saved my ass.

For those of you who don’t know, Google Analytics has an A/B testing feature. You can create multiple variants of a web page and then setup an experiment where Google Analytics directs your traffic to the different versions of your page. Google records how your visitors respond to the difference on some dimension that’s important to you like signups for your email list or purchases from your website. Google takes care of all the mechanics and statistics and tells you the winning variant or that it was too close to call.

Anyway, back to the story.

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How to choose your first project

In my last post I showed you how to handle multiple possible constraints. Today I’m going to show you how to choose your first project.

If you have all the skills and influence you need to go straight after the constraint in your company, you should go for it. Overcoming your constraint is, by far, the most effective thing you can do for your company.

Unfortunately, unless you are an owner or a senior manager, attacking your constraint directly is probably impossible. You’ll need an indirect approach where you can improve your skills, influence, and understanding of your constraint. Almost everyone will need to go this route.

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How to handle multiple possible constraints

In my last post I talked about the importance of building your influence with the decision makers in your company. Today I’m going to show you how to handle multiple possible constraints.

If you’ve been following my advice, you’ve taken an interest in figuring out how your company actually works. You’ve probably found lots of things happening in your company that could be improved. Perhaps you’ve created a current reality tree or used the “5 whys” technique to drill down and find what you think might be the constraint in your company. Or maybe you drilled down and found a couple things that look like they might be the constraint but you’re not sure how to figure out which one is your actual constraint.

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