About

Dave's Research Co. was founded in Porto, in 2020.

I've spent most of my professional career trying to figure out how smart people on product teams end up doing not-smart things.

Primary operating assumptions

  • Different people look at the same situation, and see entirely different things: they prioritize different games
  • Strategy is inert without gameplay: teams must be able to form and play good moves but this foundations is often overlooked
  • Narrative is biased, high-loss compression of intent: visual maps and models are dramatically more helpful unsealing assumptions and guiding action
  • You can't change behavior: you change the environment and the understandings that produce it (the game or the view of the field)
  • Playing the next good move is more useful than perfecting the long-term plan: this is true at every level of timescale

Getting to DRC

In 2010, I began building research programs into product and design orgs in San Francisco. Eventually I did great work and built a strong team around me, but the interesting problems kept recurring outside the scope of research. Even with great research and researchers in place, some of the product teams around me seemed to be stepping forward erratically or without clear intent.

My research question turned back inside the organization: what information do product teams operating on; what shapes how they choose to play? I had circled around it for years already, you can't build a research program into a product organization without attempting to reshape how product work flows. I could see that timescale boundaries, and incentive misalignment, differing functional perspectives, and overlap but not-aligning interpretation of strategy all worked to fragment reality.

I needed to get closer to the shaping of product work itself. In 2020 I began to consult independently as Dave's Research Company. The name, at first a joke from a good friend, is a nod to where I started, and a forward look at my own continued research into equipping product teams for success and sidestepping the self-defeat that is often served up with top-down grand strategy.

I work with a few clients each year, I leave a trail of what I'm learning in my Monday newsletter, The Product Game.

Influence and impetus

My work and thinking pulls on an academic background of cognitive science and Human-Computer Interaction, the arduous and gratifying process of learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu (I'm currently at brown belt, training no-gi), wide-ranging reading, and the architect Christopher Alexander's structural approach to complexity.

With the tradeoff of certainty, consulting offers another benefit I was unable to achieve in-house: discretionary time. Each year I take a 4–6 week sabbatical like the wine harvest, sake season, or a very long walk. Since starting DRC in Porto, I've walked four Caminos de Santiago: the Portuguese, the Primitivo, the Invierno, and the del Norte (~800km, ~5.5 weeks.)

Problems and questions

If you have a product problem in an interesting shape — traction, strategy, or gameplay — or you need a sake recommendation, drop me a line: dave@davesresearch.com.

Talk and Workshop Index:

Chanterelles: apply heat and butter

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