A note from Daniel

book “Decisive”, outlines four villains of decision-making that lead to poor decisions. The first villain is looking too narrowly at a problem. This is exactly why we want to explore multiple ways of framing the opportunity space. The second villain is looking for evidence that confirms our beliefs. This is commonly known as confirmation bias. The third villain is letting our short-term emotions affect our decisions. In the product world, this often shows up when we fall in love with our ideas. The fourth villain is overconfidence. We are often sure our ideas will be runaway successes.

Daniel Continuous Discovery Habits, page 34 · July 24, 2023 Save to shelf

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More from readers of Continuous Discovery Habits

Anugrah p. 53

product trios, when faced with a new outcome, should first start with a learning goal (e.g., discover the opportunities that will drive engagement) before being tasked with a performance goal (e.g., increase engagement by 10%).

Anugrah Aug 3, 2023

Daniel p. 63

To get started, you'll want to first set the scope of your experience map. Think strategically about how broad or narrow to set the scope. When a team is focused on an optimization outcome, like increasing application submissions, it's fine to define the scope narrowly. However, when working on a more open-ended outcome, you'll want to expand the scope of your experience map.

Daniel Jul 26, 2023

Daniel p. 63

use your desired outcome as a starting point to work your way to an experience map that reflects what you know about your customers' experience today.

Daniel Jul 26, 2023

Daniel p. 58

To shift your outcome from less of an output to more of an outcome, question the impact it will have. In addition to your primary outcome, a team needs to monitor health metrics to ensure they aren't causing detrimental effects elsewhere. For example, customer-acquisition goals are often paired with customer-satisfaction metrics to ensure that we aren't acquiring unhappy customers. To be clear, this doesn't mean one team is focused on both acquisition and satisfaction at the same time. It means their goal is to increase acquisition without negatively impacting satisfaction.

Daniel Jul 26, 2023

Daniel p. 54

When your product leader assigns a new initiative to your product trio: • What business outcome are we trying to drive with this initiative? • Why do we think this initiative will drive that outcome? • What's most important to the business right now? Try to frame this conversation in terms of business outcomes. • If you are being asked to deliver a business outcome, try mapping out which product outcomes might drive that business outcome

Daniel Jul 25, 2023

Daniel p. 53

Daniel Jul 25, 2023

More from Daniel

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Ultra Successful p. 61

when you study people who've created extraordinary lives, you realize they didn't follow templates for career paths and lifestyles; they designed their own blueprint.

Daniel Aug 12, 2026

Ultra Successful p. 60

The False Constraints That Limit Your Potential: - The Size of Your Opportunities I see that the most successful people swing big, even when they have no business taking those swings, and they often land The difference between you and them is your "willingness" to believe you belong in bigger conversations.

Daniel Aug 12, 2026

Ultra Successful p. 60

The False Constraints That Limit Your Potential: - How Quickly You Can Scale Whether it's your business or your career, there are unspoken timelines that people accept as gospel.They are all untrue: "You can only really grow at 10% a year." "You need to pay your dues for a decade before getting promoted." These artificial limits keep people moving at a crawl when they could be sprinting or pushing for more. The most successful people I know refuse to accept conventional wisdom about timelines, and oddly enough, they break them all the time.

Daniel Aug 12, 2026

Atomic Habits 0

• Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. • It is desire, not intelligence, that prompts behavior.

Daniel Aug 12, 2026

Ultra Successful p. 54

Our limits lie in our thinking. You need to root them out and rework them. A lack of self-belief will fundamentally change how you direct your actions...across all facets of your life. The person who thinks they "might not be capable" of being the next CTO will fill themselves with anxiety and be less likely to take any chances, even if they get there. Chances that might showcase their talents and make them outstanding in their work.

Daniel Aug 11, 2026

Ultra Successful p. 54

Keeping the Fire, Slaying the Dragon (Part II) - People won't promote or fund me vs I AM JUST TALKING TO THE WRONG PEOPLE - I'm not built like X person vs I CAN LEVERAGE WHAT / KNOW TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN - My company isn't built for distance vs I CAN ARCHITECT THIS TO GO WHERE I WANT - These might not work vs I WILL PUT THIS INTO THE WORLD AND SEE WHAT COMES

Daniel Aug 11, 2026

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