Joe Cotellese

πŸ‘‹ Hi! I'm Joe – product guy, coach and founder.

Always Be Testing

2022-02-25 Joe Cotellese

Early in my career I worked in QA. Part of the process in those days was running around with a floppy disk on a Friday afternoon and sticking it in a bunch of machines.

In my rush to get to Happy Hour my testing sometimes lacked thoroughness. A couple of problem releases over the years taught me a valuable lesson.

It’s easy to gloss over testing.

Don’t.

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What are the hidden costs of a company policy?

2022-02-14 Joe Cotellese

A number of years ago I heard a talk from a Ritz Carlton executive.

The executive told the audience that Ritz employees are empowered to spend up to $2,000 without manager approval when solving a customer problem.

Ritz Carlton trusts their employees to make decisions that are in the best interest of the customer, which in turn, is in the best interest of the Ritz Carlton.

Recently, I read the book No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings. They have few company policies because they discovered that employees are more accountable when there are fewer rules in place.

Netflix’s rationale is that if you have the right people in place then they will act in the best interest of the company. Policies manage the exceptions and get in the way.

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