Summary
When teams don’t know how to pivot, the resulting waste can lead to a slow down in product delivery. Unfortunately, such confusion occurs commonly in UX/Product teams where roles can blur, and overlap between responsibilities can be rampant. In this session, product expert Adam Thomas introduces the concept of “Survival Metrics” — an approach to team collaboration that not only encourages healthy pivots, but puts in place the mechanisms to achieve them. Stick around to join the conversation and ask Adam your questions during our post-session Q+A, moderated by Christian Crumlish.
Key Insights
-
•
60-90% of product ideas do not improve intended metrics, causing waste and burnout.
-
•
Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field exemplifies pushing forward without feedback, which can lead to failure in today’s environment.
-
•
Good strategy consists of diagnosis of the problem, a clear guiding policy, and coherent actions aligned to it.
-
•
Repeated incongruence—continuously reassessing incentives and data—strengthens decision-making muscles vital for pivots.
-
•
Building trust through recognition, challenge stress, discretion, and vulnerability is key to politically safe change.
-
•
Moving fast requires limiting options through predefined language and focusing on reversible, coin-flip decisions.
-
•
Being data-informed means using data to inform decisions, not blindly driving them; ignoring gut and context can be fatal (e.g., Challenger disaster).
-
•
Sensing metrics are time-bound, contextual, tied to decisions, and linked back to strategy—unlike traditional feature-focused roadmaps.
-
•
Stopping, pivoting, and investing early are essential decisions teams must iterate on to avoid sunk cost fallacy.
-
•
A clear story anchored in company culture with a villain (problem) helps communicate strategy and build trust for decision-making.
Notable Quotes
"60 to 90% of our ideas do not improve the metrics they were intended to improve."
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, said Mike Tyson."
"Feature roadmaps are bad because over time coherent actions become noise."
"Being data informed is not data driven—blindly following data can kill you, like the Challenger explosion."
"Stop, pivot, or invest early—these are the survival metric decisions that save companies."
"Trust is built by recognizing excellence, inducing challenge stress, giving discretion, and showing vulnerability."
"Most decisions are coin flip decisions—easily reversible and should be treated as defaults."
"You have to ask, what are we deciding, and what are we quitting, on a regular basis."
"If you’re not investing or quitting something, what is the point of having a strategy?"
"Repetition, representation, and association are the keys to great theater and great product development."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The highest leverage thing you can do is design statements that capture the essence in ways that set sail a thousand ships."
John CutlerThe Alignment Trap
November 29, 2023
"Our mission is to empower everybody to learn; not the few learning on behalf of the many."
Monty HammontreeThe Future of UX Research
December 3, 2020
"We gave away the recipe with no fee for entry – immediate value first, then learning the process."
Matt StoneScaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
June 11, 2021
"Our aim is not just to demonstrate design’s value for growth, but to become an essential part of the company’s overall strategy."
Gonzalo GoyanesDesign ROI: Cover a Little, Get a Lot
September 8, 2022
"People don’t come to the site just to read about ESG goals; they want customer-facing information they can apply."
Amy ParnessScaling Sustainability: Complementary strategies that drive long-term success
May 29, 2025
"John Calhoun is going to talk to us about reaching our peak and figuring out if we’ve reached our peak and how to find the next one."
Alana WashingtonTheme 3 Intro
October 1, 2021
"AI is not a tool. AI has agency. AI makes decisions that impact people's lives."
Patrizia BertiniDesigning Within the Lines: How the EU AI Act Can Spark Better AI Innovation
December 11, 2025
"The biggest risk is bottling up emotions until you’re about to explode."
Jane Reid Janice HannawaySelf-care in User Research
April 2, 2020
"Getting exact endorsement from the top helps your cause immensely."
Nathan CurtisBeyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products
June 9, 2016
