The High Five!

The 2024 Halloween episode is live (we recorded last night before the trick-or-treaters could come and ruin our recording). We start with a "scary" story from Brett's recent post, Work Horror Stories: The Spookiest (and Funniest) Scares From My Career 🎃👻, and then High Five on the first PM for Humans Book Club and the fact that we finally just ordered the Teamangle Conversation Cards so you can...

In this episode, we reflect on how the end of Happy Cog Austin eventually led to the creation of Same Team Partners and the launch of Teamangle . We each share our perspective on the emotional journey that began with the closure of the Austin office, eventually sparking a new chapter of helping teams thrive. Brett dives into his keynote at the 12th annual Digital PM Summit, where he introduced Tea...

This week on The High Five , we dive into the power of identifying team communication preferences for better collaboration through the lens of Brett's most recent Same Page post, Identifying team communication preferences for better collaboration . Every team member brings a unique style to the table, and understanding these differences can unlock trust, productivity, and alignment. Brett explores...

It's no secret that these are tough times for creative teams. They're being pushed to do more with less. Many are operating under tighter budgets, fewer resources, and higher expectations. Yet, despite these pressures, few teams are evolving their practices or processes to match the demands of this new reality. We've been there, and this week, we're discussing Brett's most recent post on Same Page...

Big news this week on The High Five! We're preparing for the official launch of the Teamangle, a team diagnostic to help uncover, diagnose, and solve challenges in the areas of communication, collaboration, and culture. We're so excited about this launch, and while nothing is live yet, we've had tons of positive conversations with folks about the work we've done so far. Greg wrote Introducing our...

Starting this week, we're publishing two new articles per week on our blog, Same Page. Moving forward, we'll be discussing those articles on The High Five. To kick us off, Greg recaps his latest article, Teams have to communicate . In the article, Greg brings up two team personas who solve team problems but might cause more problems due to a lack of communication. We talk about giving individuals...

This week, we discuss the Forbes article Why Self-Advocacy Can Help You Become An Invaluable Collaborator , Brett and Greg share their own experiences with self-advocacy and discuss how to encourage self-advocacy and alignment on goals within teams. The Ask We launched a Same Team Store ! Go grab a tee and keep and eye out, because more is coming soon! The Hit List: Brett: Reading: The 3 kinds of...

The Gods of business consulting and thought leadership have spoken, and the new team "operating system" is called "The Way We Work." Greg found it all in this HBR article, Build Better Teams. It's really good stuff! The exciting part about this is that the principles closely align with what we're doing (and releasing soon) at Same Team Partners. During the review, we discuss the fundamentals of te...

In last week's Hit List, Brett mentioned the Fast Company article Why we’re failing new managers and how we can set them up for success . That article got him thinking about his own experience, so he did what we do at Same Tem Partners. He wrote about it on Same Page. Check it out: Becoming a manager shouldn’t be as hard as becoming a parent . In discussing both articles, Greg and Brett share thei...

Have you ever experienced the loneliness of being the solo designer or project manager (or insert other job here) in a company? We've been there, and we just found an article on Medium, 4 challenges solo design teams face and how to overcome them , that touches on some of what lone rangers go through and how to cope. We discuss some strategies that have worked for us. THE ASK We just launched our...

We've been thinking a lot about 1: 1 meetings at Same Team Partners. This week, while in a research rabbit hole, Brett found the article Don't cancel meetings to be productive, cancel one-on-ones written by Clickup CEO Zeb Evans. His take is that 1:1s for leaders are a waste of time. He offers some practical solutions for his business. We have a hot take on that. The Ask Subscribe to our forthcomi...

This week's Review is all about team-building activities, and centers on the HBR article 17 Team-Building Activities for In-Person, Remote, and Hybrid Teams . Greg and Brett share their experiences planning and facilitating team events, and discuss some basic best practices. The Ask: Whether you're a PM or PM-curious, we'd love for you to take this brief survey to help us shape future offerings fo...

Same Team has Olympic fever! This week, we're talking about The Olympics, and that Google Gemini ad that suggests little kids should use AI to write fan mail. We have opinions. For reference, here's the FastCompany article referenced in the show: Google’s new Gemini ad showcases Big Tech’s big AI misunderstanding The Hit List: Following: Roz Duffy on LinkedIn Watching: Easy Way to Market Yourself...

This week, we're discussing HBR's The Art of Asking Smarter Questions. Greg gets into the types of questions the guide recommends, then opens up a discussion with Brett about how phrasing questions, and even better follow=ups can help to build trust and get to better results. The Hit List: Listening: Lenny’s Podcast, 5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy with Roger Martin Listening: Me...

If you follow tech news, you saw last week that Intuit laid off 1,800 employees, with the subtext that they eliminated 1,050 jobs of "underperformers." Greg and Brett unpack that and the "best" ways to fire people. The Hit List: Listening: Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess Listening: How Agencies Can Get The Most From Their Freelance PMs Looking: 80000 hours Reading: Do intere...

Greg found an interesting and timely read: Research: New Hires’ Psychological Safety Erodes Quickly via Harvard Business Review. Discussion about onboading, toughened managers and leaders, and embracing soft skills ensues. The Hit List: Reading: Why write? Recommending: Relax & Remix: A 4-Week Journal to Get Unstuck and Evolve Your Life Riding: Trek FX+ 2 Listening: Hold by Wild Nothing Readin...

In this episode, Brett and Greg continue the conversation about decision-making, inspired by the CFO article Only 36% of Executives Say Their Decision-Making Style Aligns with the Organization’s . This conversation focuses on the lack of confidence in decision-making and impostor syndrome some leaders experience. The Hit List: Reading: The balance of tools and culture Processing: The META Trending...

In this episode, Greg introduces The ineffable importance of corporate communication , an article he found on TidBITS about products losing trust with users over poorly communicated app updates. It inspired thoughts about building trust via communications and maybe a relevant story from the past, The Hit List: Reading: Find Hidden Cameras While Traveling Watching: How to make the juiciest steaks W...

In this episode, Brett and Greg discuss decision-making in leadership teams, which was prompted by the CFO article Only 36% of Executives Say Their Decison-Making Style Aligns with the Organization’s . The article is full of interesting statistics, but the conversation focuses on what to do when you disagree with a decision your leadership team is making. The Hit List: Reading: Sapiens: A Brief Hi...

In this week's episode, Greg introduces The Purpose of a System is What It Does, a part of a new series that Anil Dash is publishing on Systems. The article considers a broader perspective and application of systems, but Same Team brings it back to what we know: organizations, teams, systems, and processes. The Hit List: Reading: Harnessing Scarcity: 7 Lessons From a Dry Well by Dan Rockwell “The...

This week's episode focuses on a topic that came up with Same Team Partners through an article Brett found called Is the Party Over for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches? The article touches on how Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches are being let go of organizations that went through agile transformation. Essentially, their job is done there, so now what? The Hit List: Listening: Alchemy by Disclosure...

In the first installment of the new podcast, Brett and Greg dig in on the topic of "stack ranking employees," which Greg first heard about on the Hidden Brain podcast , Hot take: it's gross, and leaders should take more responsibility for low performers. Each week, Same Team Partners share "The Hit List," a quick hit on what they're reading, listening to, watching, following, and using. This week'...