Five principles that guide how I work

I’ve run value-based workshops for my teams a couple of times. They’re a good way to find common ground – what matters to all of us, what we can stand behind. The process always brings good discussions, laughter, and some tough choices. Going from an abundance of values down to ten, then five, then a combined three to five for the team forces clarity.

But team values tend to land on single words. Trust. Courage. Quality. They mean more than the word itself, but they stay abstract. When I recently read about a product I admire and landed on a page describing their principles, I started thinking about my own. Not values as words, but principles as descriptions of how I actually work. What keeps me going. What keeps me inspired. How I operate when things get complicated.

I’m quite demanding on myself, and without a timebox the process stretched longer than any team workshop. But I landed on five, at least to start with.

Understand the real problem first. Most problems aren’t what they first appear to be. This happens constantly — we jump to fix a problem without understanding the real need. A user might ask for a button to copy something, but what they actually want is for it to happen automatically. The requested solution and the actual problem are two different things. And more often than not, the real problem isn’t even technology. It’s people and organisations. Skipping this step means building the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing entirely.

Know what good looks like. You can’t build quality if you can’t recognise it. This comes from my design background. I often help people with a deck, a page, or a document, and they wonder why it looks so much better when it’s done. It’s not that they couldn’t have done it themselves. But I’ve lived and breathed design and details for my entire career. The medium has evolved – from graphic design to digital products to design systems – but the curiosity and the eye for detail stayed the same. Recognising quality is the prerequisite for creating it.

Do fewer things better. Focus beats volume. I see people and teams start new things before finishing – really finishing – the previous job. Then topics come back to the table, people context-switch, and progress slows even though everything looks busy. It’s easy to confuse work in progress with getting things done. In several teams I’ve asked: “Do we really have to do this to be done?” More often than not, the answer is no. And suddenly there’s time to focus on fewer tasks and do them properly. This is prioritisation in practice, not in frameworks.

I’m a strong believer in minimum lovable products – not the skateboard-to-car version, but starting with a tent and growing it into a house.

Build to last and build what matters. Create value now and over time. I read Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins years ago, and the thinking stuck. When I created logos and brands earlier in my career, I believed in building something lasting rather than something trendy that needs a refresh in two years. The same applies to product work. Building things right saves time in the long run. But “build to last” doesn’t mean “build everything at once.” Ship often. Create small value frequently instead of waiting for a big bang. I’m a strong believer in minimum lovable products – not the skateboard-to-car version, but starting with a tent and growing it into a house.

Think in systems, but start small. Solve for the pattern, but ship the first step. Almost everything in tech tends to grow, and the more things grow the more pain they can bring. Planning for the future – at least on a vision level – prepares you for that growth. When we developed Naviga Photos, we started small but had a plan for where it could go. We launched early, got invaluable feedback, and used it to take additional small steps first. That early feedback helped us build a genuinely good app for photographers and journalists. Then we could continue toward the larger vision. The system thinking kept us coherent. The small starts kept us honest.

Five principles. None of them are original. But they’re mine – tested against fifteen years of building products, leading teams, and getting things wrong often enough to know what matters.