Small talk is delightful. It’s an easygoing, inconsequential conversation where you’re not running to reach an answer. It flows like wind, from one talker to the next. Small talk appears trivial, but it’s a way for strangers to know each other and for friends to bond over little details.

In-office, people indulge in small talk during watercooler run-ins, in elevators, and in big meetings where they don’t know each other. Small talk is used to break the ice with casual questions like ‘how are you?’, ‘How’s the weather in your city?’, ‘How was your day?’.

In human conversations, small talk…

If you ask patients what is their biggest gripe with healthcare services, you’ll hear a lot of common responses– doctors’ indifference to patient’s problems, privacy during illness and treatment, more waiting times during hospital visits, and so on.

But if you turn the tables on doctors and ask their biggest gripe with patients, you’ll get answers like lack of adherence to medication, failure to understand the implications of not following medical advice, missing regular checkups, and so on.

Digital healthcare applications that try to solve these problems (and fail) fall behind in understanding that they’re missing an important link- effective…

Do you know why doctors wear a green/blue surgical scrub while operating? Have you ever wondered why walls are muted in color at adult patient rooms and brightly colored at children recovery rooms?

The reason is colors influence human behavior. They affect our mood and emotions. They can even alter our perceptions or modify our actions.

For instance, blue and green are cool and calming colors. They bring a sense of tranquility and put patients at ease while they are on the operation table. Similarly, white is a color associated with warmth and peace. Colors like white, beige, have a…

User research is one of the best ways to know what users want and how they interact with your product. It’s performed in order to improve the product as per the feedback gathered at different stages of product development.

One of the mistakes that designers and PMs make is that they assume user research needs to be done only in the beginning. However, if you want to build a product that conforms to the needs of the user, research must be a continuous process. At the onset of the product development, user research is required to validate the idea. But…

In the world of molecules and compounds, a user story is an atom. It’s the smallest part of product development from where things start taking shape.

A good user story is clear, concise, and focussed on the user’s pain points. It has the power to compel designers and developers to leave their assumptions and understand the problem.

One of the most common ways of writing a good user story is through words– write what you know about the product/feature. …

A few months into their new position, engineering managers start agonizing how they hardly get time to do any technical work. They feel they would become redundant if they don’t start contributing in the technical areas.

If you’re going through the same phase —

a) Please know that you’re not alone,

b) Understand what has changed.

Follow the link to read the full story on our Medium Publication.

Our story talks about the equation that Andy Grove gave in his book High Output Management.

A manager’s output = The output of his team + The output of the neighboring teams under his influence

You must have come across various terms used to define virtual assistants. They are thrown around interchangeably without much thought. The most common ones that I’ve heard are–chatbots, intelligent assistants, conversational AI, and interactive agents.

At first, I thought they are just different names for the same thing. But after I started working on building healthcare chatbots, I began to realize they are different in many ways. To give you an example– A chatbot is the poor relative of the intelligent assistant. They differ from each other on the basis of their capabilities. …

Two things that define today’s startup ecosystem are innovation and speed to market. If you’ve a unique idea and if you can get to the market fast, before everyone else, chances are your product will be a success. I don’t imply that these are the only two things that matter. But they play an important role in defining product success.

While some may argue that innovation and speed to market don’t go hand in hand, I heartily disagree. Agile project management is one of the ways that allows innovation without compromising on the delivery timelines.

I have been an agile…