I look at who has to live with the decision.
I want to know who will carry it out and who will be left with the result before I recommend a plan.
I take on the work everyone assumed someone else was handling.
Hi, I’m Melissa. West of Obvious is my consulting practice and tool shop. I figure out what is getting in the way, then help the people responsible fix the right part.
Melissa Thorne
Over the past 20 years, I have worked across enterprise software and developer platforms. My experience also covers game development and publishing. It includes ecommerce and Web3, along with nonprofit media. I have also reviewed public-sector operations.
That includes about 12 years across community and developer programs and more than 10 years in product and developer marketing. I spent 7 years embedded with core development teams and 4 years embedded with a developer relations team. The totals overlap because the work did.
Developer marketing and community strategy are my deepest areas of expertise. Some companies call part of that work product marketing or go-to-market. I understand how a strategy becomes work and where it can break between teams.
I have an MS in Marketing and am completing a Doctor of Business Administration in Strategy and Innovation. My doctoral research focuses on decision rights in scaling technology ventures. I am also a Pragmatic Certified Product Marketer and hold a CMX Community MBA. My full professional history is on LinkedIn.
I work in English with clients in different countries. I have lived in the United States and New Zealand, as well as the United Kingdom. I can research a market where I have not lived. I distinguish that research from local experience. Work that depends on law or regulation needs qualified local advice, regardless of location.
Good work should still be decent.
These are the standards I hold myself to. They apply to what I recommend and what I refuse.
The answer is not for sale.
A client can hire me to investigate a problem. If the evidence does not support the answer they wanted, I will say so.
I count the cleanup.
One team's shortcut does not become efficiency because the mess moved.
Governance has to say who decides.
People should know where the decision lives and who answers for the result. Adding a committee does not settle either question.
I do not perform certainty.
I show the basis for a recommendation and name its limits. If the evidence changes, the answer may change.
A demo is not a layoff plan.
I will not treat a staged result as proof that a team can disappear or use a review to make a workforce cut look inevitable.
Private work stays private.
Confidential client and employer information stays out of public work. It also stays out of tools that do not have a clear privacy and rights basis.
If I get something material wrong, I say so.
I correct the published work and note what changed.
You can start with a question or a tool.
Consulting is for work that depends on your situation. Tools and downloads are for work you can start on your own. You can begin with either and use the other later.
Read how consulting works