Roundup: team structure, data visualisation, manipulation, time better spent, and yak-shaving
Murray Steele
Nov. 17, 2017
Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions - Carrie B
https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/
From 200+ interviews looking at 250 attributes across 180 teams, Google concluded that the magic formula of {n extroverts, n PhDs, n rockstart engineers = successful team} didn't explain the variation between teams that performed and those that didn't. What did? Feeling safe to take a risk, being about to count on each other, clear goals, roles and execution, working on something personally important and belief that the work matters to others.
Data viz extravaganza - Lawrence R
http://datavizproject.com/
How do you pick the best visual diagram to suit the data you are using? The data viz project collects all the possible ways of visualising data in one place –probably the most comprehensive catalogue I've seen. You can filter by graph family, function, shape and input so it's easy to find a a similar style to fit the type of data you're working with.
The Morality of Manipulation - Martyn E
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-morality-of-manipulation-c3115fb2bb3d
This is a nice little tool to sense-check your motivation when designing a digital tool - A Manipulation Matrix from Nir Eyal.
Time better spent - Lawrence R
http://timewellspent.io/
How do we design in, and think about, during the whole process of making products and services, a more reasonable interaction between screens and users? And who is best placed to be making those decisions? Whilst the idea of ethics might be a little ideological, this website starts to think about some nice reframing questions, particularly on the 'demand better design' page, that product teams can use to start conversations about the likely end result of the small decisions they make, often unconsciously, that affect how someone interacts a feature.
Yak shaving - Murray S
http://yakshav.es/the-patron-saint-of-yakshaves/
This is the transcript of a talk about Donald Knuth's typesetting language TeX. A language that may just be the biggest yak-shave of all time.
Track of the Week - Jolie L
My week has been about fire, our visiting friend from Germany got a phone call her house burned down and a few days later I almost did the same with ours.. (No animals were harmed in the process, just veggies). I love this piano version of great balls of fire.