Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas reinforced my belief that great product design comes from collective intelligence, not individual expertise. Cognitive diversity—mixing backgrounds, disciplines, and viewpoints—outperforms even the most skilled homogenous teams. Without it, groupthink creeps in, creating blind spots and poor decisions. In my work, I’ve seen how harnessing business, tech, and product perspectives leads to smarter, more balanced solutions. This book strengthened my commitment to fostering teams that challenge assumptions, break echo chambers, and drive real innovation.

Marty Cagan’s Empowered has shaped my approach to product design by reinforcing the three-legged stool of business, tech, and product working in harmony. It taught me that great teams aren’t just executors—they’re trusted problem solvers given autonomy to tackle challenges, not just build solutions. This mindset drives how I collaborate, ensuring design aligns with viability, feasibility, and desirability to create real impact.

Trenton Moss’s Human Powered reinforced that product design success comes from collaboration, influence, and leadership. It highlighted the power of emotional intelligence, open communication, and psychological safety in high-performing teams. The book also stressed that great ideas mean nothing without persuasion and stakeholder alignment—a lesson that has shaped how I build relationships, navigate conflict, and lead teams effectively.

Giles Turnbull’s The Agile Comms Handbook reinforced the power of concise, frequent updates to keep teams aligned without overload. It highlighted the value of working in the open, sharing progress transparently to break silos, and prioritizing async communication over unnecessary meetings. This has shaped how I keep collaboration efficient, open, and impactful.

Blair Enns’ Win Without Pitching Manifesto reinforced my approach to positioning Design Sprint X as a trusted advisor, not just a service provider. It taught me that success comes from owning our expertise, setting the terms of engagement, and working with clients who truly value collaboration. The book also strengthened my confidence in walking away from bad-fit clients, ensuring we focus on partnerships that respect our process and pay for the impact we create.

Jake Knapp’s Sprint transformed how I approach problem-solving, showing me how to accelerate Design Thinking and make rapid progress in mixed-discipline teams. It reinforced that the best solutions come from structured collaboration—bringing business, tech, and product together to learn as fast as possible. The book shaped how I run Design Sprint X, emphasizing speed, focus, and tangible outcomes, ensuring teams move from ideas to tested solutions in days, not months.

Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup shaped my approach to product design by emphasizing rapid experimentation and validated learning. It reinforced the Build-Measure-Learn loop, helping me focus on launching fast, testing real user feedback, and iterating efficiently. The book also strengthened my belief in pivoting or persevering based on data and eliminating waste through Lean Thinking, ensuring every decision delivers real value.

Jason Fried’s Rework reinforced my belief that you only truly learn from going live. It taught me to cut the fluff, simplify processes, and ship fast, ensuring products evolve based on real user needs rather than endless planning. The book also strengthened my focus on staying true to my own vision, rather than chasing competitors—reminding me that the best ideas come from solving problems uniquely, not from following the crowd. This mindset shapes how I run Design Sprint X, prioritizing action, iteration, and learning in the real world.

The Power of Moments is about why certain brief experiences can jolt us and elevate us and change us—and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our life and work. Research has found that in recalling an experience, we ignore most of what happened and focus instead on a few particular moments.

The essence of growth hacking is you carry out rapid fire experimentation across multiple marketing channels and in different product development directions to identify the most cost effective ways to grow your business. By doing this, you build marketing right into your products.