We have a solution: sabotage.

October 3, 2018 Newsletter

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual

In 1944 the CIA (or technically, the OSS, its precursor) published one of the greatest design manuals of all time, and by far my personal favorite. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual was clandestinely, and I hope very carefully, distributed to people living in Axis or Axis-controlled countries who sided with the Allied cause, including our good friends and role models at the French Resistance. It was declassified in 2008. The manual is filled with dozens of little tips and tricks about how you can sabotage your workplace in ways that won’t be too obvious. That way you can do a lot more sabotage. Why do I call it a design manual? Because like we’ve discussed before design is the solution to a problem, within a set of constraints. We have a problem: nazis. We have a solution: sabotage. And we have constraints: don’t get caught. It’s a design manual. Among the highlights are:

• Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
• Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
• To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.
• Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
• Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

And my personal favorite:

• Act stupid.

Amazingly, reading these, I wonder if Silicon Valley hasn’t accidentally been following this manual of sabotage for the past thirty years.

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro)

Let’s Do Design Research Right!

We had such a good time at our (totally sold-out) morning research workshop in Manhattan, we’re bringing it back to San Francisco. Short, sweet, and designed to help you focus on what you need to know to make more confident decisions. Join us on October 12 in North Beach. Get your tickets now.

— Erika Hall (@mulegirl)

“All Too Often, We Change the Work Instead of Our Point of View”

Often, the iterative work of building software is characterized as climbing up a mountain, step by step. There’s no shortage of workflows and strategies for how to put one foot in front of the other — Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, the list goes on. And with all these new strategies for making stuff, it’s no wonder that what we have now is a lot of stuff.

Prototype-and-test is the path of least resistance for many design teams. Working in code and sharing the medium of the final product makes design choices feel better. As technology progresses, the number of steps required just to get started is reduced. You can build a website and host it in a matter of minutes; no hardware (of your own) required. If product managers, developers, and designers are all working in the same medium, the end product should see the value of that improved communication right?

We have a new problem that we’ve never had before. It’s too easy to make and we don’t know how to stop. We’ve gotten really good at climbing mountains, but we’ve forgotten to look at the view. Advertising legend, Paul Arden writes, “All too often, we change the work instead of our point of view.” A new perspective can make all the difference.

This Friday, I invite you to join me in honing your perspective-taking skills. There are still a few seats left at our morning workshop, Meeting Users Where They Are.

— Larisa Berger (@berglar)