It’s been quite some time since I’ve last posted to the newsletter (a year… gulp!). Thank you for hanging in there, and thank you to the new subscribers!

What’s up?

Meredith and I have been really busy this past year with Purple Sector. Here’s just a small taste of what we’ve been up to:

• ✍️ Working with a variety of clients, such as Canadian Women & Sport. We helped their program team use design thinking to take a human-centred approach to reimagining their programs. We love working with this incredible team!

• 🗺 We recently presented a talk at Butter’s Collab Fest 2022 on how using Story Maps can unlock super powers for your remote team — more on this soon!

• 🧰 We’re creating downloadable content to support remote teams looking for collaborative tools and approaches to build alignment — and we have a freebie for you below, keep reading!

• 👩‍🎤 Getting more active on the socials! Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn to keep in touch with us. Sometimes we’re even funny!

Changes in store for this newsletter ✨

From Product Leadership → Remote Team Leadership 👩‍💻

Over the past year, we’ve been fortunate to work with remote teams ranging from those creating software to track infant nutrition, to teams in the non-profit space creating programs to improve gender equity in sport.

While we 💜 the product world, we know that we’ve always wanted to bring our approaches based on Design Thinking to a broader audience. We want to help teams that want to work in a smarter, human-centred way, whether they’re building a product, a program, or a service.

The sweet spot we have found ourselves in, is using these tools and approaches to support remote teams who want to do their best work. ⚡️

With the particular challenges of working remotely, we have found our collaborative sessions and personalized coaching can go a long way in helping teams stay aligned, and connected to the big picture vision their organizations are working towards.

As such, we’re shifting the focus of this newsletter from product leadership to remote team leadership. Have questions or comments? Respond and let us know!

Newsletter format 🗞

Contrary to how this particular post is shaping up, I’ll be focusing more on short-form content, links, and updates. Will you see longer form “thought pieces”? Perhaps! But I found the focus on longer pieces was stopping me from engaging with you more often so I’ll be trying out different approaches.

Honestly, we’re anything but stodgy and serious facilitators when we are running sessions with our clients, so I hope to incorporate a little more light-hearted approaches here as well.

Ok shut up Carlos, where’s the free stuff? 🤷‍♀️

Unlock your remote team’s super powers with story maps 🦹

Easily our most used, most favourite, most reliable tool in our toolbox is the story map. We story map EVERYTHING. I story mapped this newsletter post. We story mapped our talk about story maps. We story mapped our last trip to Ottawa (yah ok… maybe we can go too far with this).

What the heck is a story map, and remember you said free stuff? Right! A story map is a tool to map your user’s* experience that you are building, paired with the work you and your team need to do to make it happen. It’s a great home to discuss great ideas. (* or a customer, an internal stakeholder, an audience, i.e. a person you’re creating things for!)

We put together this story map guide to help you and your remote team get started. Included with the guide are Miro templates so you’re ready to go.

Download your copy today!

That link should give you access for free. In case it doesn’t, use the coupon code: THEPITWALL

What’s the catch? 🎣

No catch. Except. Ok fine, one catch. We want your feedback and a rating on Gumroad where you download the free guide. If you find it useful let us know! If it’s not, also let us know! 🙏

Loose ends

• Check out our Instagram post on The Problem with Design Thinking

• Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

• Looking for a great alternative to Zoom and Teams built for remote collaboration? Try Butter! 🧈

Until next time!

🏁